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"In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"
The Allman Brothers Band (1971)
Guitarist Dickey Betts titled his instrumental, first recorded on the Allmans' 1970 album, Idlewild South, after a name on a tombstone in a Macon, Georgia cemetery. This legendary Fillmore East performance is twice as long and transcendant. Betts and guitarist Duane Allman slipping into coyote-choir harmony during the theme, then taking solos with torrid sax-like trills, low snake-like crawls and swan-dive sustain the language of jazz charged with electric R&B futurism. Eight months after that show, Allman died in a motorcycle accident. He and bassist Berry Oakley, who died in 1972, are both buried in the same cemetery as Elizabeth Reed.
"In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"
"Taxman"
The Beatles (1966)
By the time they recorded 1966's Revolver, the Beatles were restlessly seeking out new guitar sounds. The slashing, beat-defying solo on George Harrison's caustic album opener was actually played by Paul McCartney, but George's rhythm part is a fuzzed-out wonder too, taking its cues from up-to-the-second American R&B.
"Green Onions"
Booker T. and the MGs (1962)
The greatest guitarist in Memphis soul, Steve Cropper was one of the core members of the Stax Records house band. Cropper lets keyboardist Booker T. Jones carry the riff of this percolating 12-bar blues; his guitar part is urgent punctuation, dazzling filigree, and proof that where soul is concerned, less can be a lot more.
"Green Onions"
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"The Width of a Circle"
David Bowie (1970)
Bowie's always had excellent taste in guitarists — he's worked with Carlos Alomar, Robert Fripp and Stevie Ray Vaughan, among others — but his most classic foil is Mick Ronson, who shreds all over the eight-minute opener of The Man Who Sold the World. Ronson's ceaseless riffing glitters and burns like a sparkler, and set the standard for glam-rock.
"The Width of a Circle"
"Out of Sight"
James Brown (1964)
A year later, Brown's guitarist Jimmy Nolen would invent the choppy, percussive sound of funk guitar as we know it, but Les Buie, the axeman here, pointed the way — barely flicking at the sweet-and-sour blues chords of Soul Brother #1's airy dance tune, and making his guitar's silence as compelling as its sound.
"Out of Sight"
"Bluebird"
Buffalo Springfield (1967)
Stephen Stills' ode to Judy Collins is one of the highlights of his three-guitar psychedelic band's career, and the chord-solo breaks that gleam all over this song had a startling new sound that was actually an old sound: he's playing acoustic guitar. Neil Young's tone-bending electric commentaries are pretty spectacular too.
"Bluebird"
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"So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star"
The Byrds (1967)
The Younger than Yesterday single doesn't have McGuinn and Crosby's greatest guitar playing: beyond its classic Byrds intro, it's mostly clipped, unassuming jangle, and the solo is played by trumpeter Hugh Masekela. What it does have is a sardonic lyric about how getting an electric guitar means "the girls will tear you apart" — rock's signature instrument had become its symbol.
"So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star"
"Should I Stay Or Should I Go"
The Clash (1982)
Where old-school punk rock met 12-bar blues. Mick Jones' riff couldn't be bigger, dumber or more perfect, but this is a much more complicated, disciplined song than it sounds like — what pushes it over the top are the percussive effects, quiet doodles and rockabilly licks Jones throws in to keep it interesting.
"Should I Stay Or Should I Go"
"Somethin' Else"
Eddie Cochran (1959)
The drums and piano are far louder than Cochran's guitar on this rockabilly hit, but his clear, forceful tone turned up a few years later coming out of the Beatles' amps — this song became a favorite of British Invasion bands, and was later covered by Led Zeppelin. Its distinctive riff and rhythm even mutated into the reggae "Sleng Teng" beat.
"Somethin' Else"
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"Little Fury Things"
Dinosaur Jr. (1987)
J Mascis's playing on this indie-rock anthem from You're Living All Over Me sounds like an entire music store's worth of pedals and amps collapsing in an earthquake, as he shifts from feral wah-wah to distorted, sidelong jazz chording to metallic chugs to unabashed, gloriously messy feedback. The band's grunged-out sound was years ahead of its time.
"Little Fury Things"
"Down to the Waterline"
Dire Straits (1978)
The classic-rock guitar pantheon seemed to have been fixed in place by the early '70s, but the wall-to-wall solo curlicues on the first Dire Straits album's opening track introduced a new name to it: Mark Knopfler, whose painterly, precise fingerpicking (on an electric guitar!) brought bluegrass-inspired technique into a rock 'n' roll context.
"Take Me Out"
Franz Ferdinand (2004)
Two killer riffs make up one doubly murderous song — the opening punk rock section, with Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy's guitars drag-racing around each other, and the leather-jacketed dance groove that traces the line from Chic through Duran Duran and ends up at practically every late-night collegiate party of the last few years.
"Take Me Out"
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"Susie Q"
Dale Hawkins (1957)
Louisiana rocker Hawkins' biggest hit is also the recorded debut of James Burton, the king of the rock-guitar sidemen, and the first rock 'n' roll record where the guitar counts for more than the song itself — Burton's lurching, fingerpicked gutbucket blues riff gives way to dirty-toned, scorched-earth solos after every verse.
"Susie Q"
"Barracuda"
Heart (1977)
A crunchy three-guitar variation on the Led Zeppelin riff paradigm from Little Queen, packed with lacerating flourishes and sizzling natural harmonics. Nancy Wilson, Howard Leese and Roger Fisher have rarely gotten the guitar-hero credit they deserve, although the band paved the way for women to kick down the doors of hard rock.
"Barracuda"
"Rocket 88"
Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (1951)
As pianist Ike Turner's band was heading to Memphis to record this jump blues, guitarist Willie Kizart's amp fell off a car or was damaged by rain (accounts vary). When they got to the studio, it made a nasty, fuzzy sound, never before recorded, that spawned a huge hit — and, arguably, everything else on this list.
"Rocket 88"
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"Hide Away"
Freddie King (1960)
Originally hidden away on a B-side, this nimble-fingered blues instrumental launched King's string of mostly wordless R&B hits. "Hide Away" (or "Hideaway") itself was the first blues record to become a crossover pop success; it also made its way across the Atlantic, and helped to spark the British blues scene.
"Hide Away"
"Welcome to the Black Parade"
My Chemical Romance (2006)
The mascara kings' lead guitarist Ray Toro has talked about his adoration for Queen's Brian May, and the title track of their platinum concept album is practically a five-minute elaboration on the solo from "Bohemian Rhapsody": Toro and Frank Iero's guitar parts cloned into an emo army, leaping to heroic heights and diving into bombastic glory.
"Welcome to the Black Parade"
"Let's Go Crazy"
Prince (1984)
Before this #1 hit from Purple Rain, Prince was just the weirdest and most gifted member of his R&B generation. After its bang-your-head riff and howling, Hendrix-channeling coda hit the airwaves, he was a world-class rock star, too: dude can shred. On tour, he played it with a special guitar that squirted all over the audience at the song's climax.
"Let's Go Crazy"
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"Radio Free Europe"
R.E.M. (1981)
The first R.E.M. single introduced a new kind of guitar hero: Peter Buck, who barely ever solos in the traditional sense but has an instantly recognizable style, inspired by the Byrds' Roger McGuinn and built on arpeggiated chords and resonant open strings. For the next decade, dozens of jangle-pop bands followed where Buck led.
"Radio Free Europe"
"Sympathy for the Devil"
Rolling Stones (1968)
It's almost three minutes into the Beggars Banquet opener before we hear Keith Richards' guitar, but his brief, searing solo pierces the song like the pitchfork of Lucifer. When he turns up again for the song's outro, he's playing like a cat plays with a mouse, one clipped, bloody note at a time.
"Sympathy for the Devil"
"Soul Sacrifice"
Santana (1969)
"If there's too much of this, then you do the opposite," Carlos Santana said during this issue's interview, a succinct description of his dramatic, suspended animation — clear, sustained notes, stretched into singing feedback, over racing Afro-Cuban turmoil — in the closing instrumental of his band's debut album. Santana blew away a field of people with this song at Woodstock in 1969; the rest of the world soon followed.
"Soul Sacrifice"
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"Dear Mr. Fantasy"
Traffic (1967)
The modern jam-band aesthetic starts here — a handful of verses and a slow, steady-rolling chord progression that's mostly an excuse for wunderkind Steve Winwood to improvise his heart out on the centerpiece of Traffic's debut. It's no accident that the song turned up in Grateful Dead set lists 20 years later.
"Dear Mr. Fantasy"
"Pride and Joy"
Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble (1983)
SRV's breakthrough Texas Flood hit sounds like it should be a cover, but it's his own elaboration on Chicago and Texas electric blues traditions, heavy and chunky from its old-fashioned turnarounds to its battering ram of a solo. Vaughan instantly became the most popular blues guitarist in ages, and ruled the genre until his 1990 death.
"Pride and Joy"
"I Will Follow"
U2 (1980)
The first song on U2's first album, Boy, debuted the Edge's trademark guitar tone — a digital-delay-enhanced sound that makes his simple three-string riff here sound like God's own helicopter descending to the Earth. It also introduced his penchant for subtle effects, like the single-note flares he sets off at the very end of the song.
"I Will Follow"
"I Heard Her Call My Name"
The Velvet Underground (1968)
It's not just Lou Reed's screeching, free-form solos on this White Light/White Heat album track that opened up a world of possibilities for the blistering noise attack of punk rock. Sterling Morrison, playing rhythm guitar with factory-stamper precision and sandstorm distortion, defined the groove of the underground for everyone from the Clash to Nirvana and beyond.
"I Heard Her Call My Name"