Whatever happened to lead guitar?
 

I was introduced to music in the early 70s. Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, Robin Trower, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Yes, The Who, Pink Floyd - names younger Cellarites may not be familiar with. One thing all these bands and many others I didn't mention have in common is an amazing lead guitar player: Steve Howe, Tony Iommi, David Gilmour, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton just to name a few. And, of course, the father of rock lead guitar: Jimi Hendrix. I always wondered what kind of music he would be making were he still here.

Anyway, then came the 80s. Eddie van Halen, Edge, Slash, Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others. Then the 90s: Jane's Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The list is getting smaller. Now, in the 00's the list has vanished - I can't name a single group with a distinguished lead guitar player.

Is it me or is lead guitar a lost art? Its a damn shame if it is.

Interesting point...pretty much all we hear anymore is bass 'n drums, hip-hop, rap, thrash/angst/crunch and folky/pick-one-of-the-previous-genres hybrids.

Most of the really good solo instrument playing I hear in any sort of popular music these days is coming from the Country folks, now that I think about it.

Great...now I'm depressed.

Dream Theater's still alive and kicking. John Petrucci is pretty damn amazing, I think.

They went to Nashville (Branson), and points south.

I heard young Henry Garza last week of Los Lonely Boys. He's a showman, making you stop and take note.

And of course I've mentioned my love of Jr. Brown. Hes from outerspace.

Country influences both, but also hybridized with that rock history.

I miss it, too. The thing is, I know tons of people who do what I do - rewind the solo over and over and over for days at a time. I guess we just don't buy enough albums to counteract the Justin Timberlake plague. When GasHead gets famous, it will all change.

Edited to note that Junior Brown is a friggin madman

And yes, DT DOES rock, but I never heard of them til I met my husband.

Dream Theater is awesome -- they just need to get away from attempting to play "pop-ish" music, but I think they do this to stick with the label. I'm a fan of the instrumentals, like "Hell's Kitchen", etc.

Dammit -- I missed G3 when it was in town in 2001. DT's Petrucci was there along with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. That would have been guitar bliss.

Right now I'm listening to bad-ass boogie by Micheal "The man from Hell" Katon. Some great guitar...