86   "I Ain't Superstitious"
Jeff Beck (1968)

The Willie Dixon cover that closed Beck's first solo disc has got Rod Stewart singing and Ron Wood on bass, but the guitar is the bandleader. At every break, Beck's aqueous wah-wah tone makes his instrument sound like it's talking — Chicago blues upgraded for the age of the bad trip.


"I Ain't Superstitious" from Truth (Epic)

87   "Red"
King Crimson (1974)

"I'm not a blues guitarist," Robert Fripp said in 1995, "but I think I've met the spirit of the blues several times." This is one of them: blunt-instrument funk in which Fripp, leading a power-trio Crimson, jars the mathematical cadence of his riffing with a wrecking-ball swing and rude pig-squeal harmonics.


"Red" from Red (DGM)


King Crimson performing "Red" live

88   "Mona"
Quicksilver Messenger Service (1969)

Taken from live recordings at the Fillmores East and West, this is the acid-ballroom experience in a nutshell by the San Francisco masters: a Bo Diddley cover transformed into tribal ecstasy. When guitarist John Cipollina cuts the air with his wah-wah, your high is real and all natural.


"Mona" from Happy Trails (Capitol)


Quicksilver Messenger Service performing "Mona" live in 1969

See all of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All TIme