I recommend that any guitar player hears the soloing on the song "LA Villa Strangiato" by Rush (ideally the live version from EXIT.. STage Left). Dont' be put off by Geddy Lee's high voice, there's brilliant playing by every player in the band throughout the album.

Having been a guitar freak for years I still feel that the "Ghost of the ARagon" solo is the definitive guitar solo. It has everything a solo needs, it starts with volume swelled ghost bends, has several really classy lyrical bars of beautiful and sophisticated phrasing, gets angsty with tons of bends and pinch harmonics and then Lifeson lets rip with a shower of notes that equals Malmsteem for shred factor and is still really beautiful.

You know that warm headed feeling you get when your brains had a good musical work out? That's what it does for me, makes my eyes water.

Get it out of a Library. You'll love it, trust me. I know!