Lesser known guiar genuises

Despite this forum's title i'm gonna namecheck great guitarists generally known only within their genres who deserve wider exposure because of their pioneering techniques.

Dan Crary & Tony Rice -these 2 are generally credited as making the guitar a lead instrument within bluegrass. some of the finest, fastest and cleanest flatpicking i've heard. Tony Rice Unit combines bluegrass and jazz. Dan Crary mixes in celtic, classical and flamenco sometimes. Both been around for years. Recommended listening: Tony Rice -Backwaters Dan Crary - Guitar

Don Ross - this guy's Canadian and a brilliant fingerpicker, loosely in the same area as Michael Hedges mixing up blues, new age, folk. usually plays a 7 string acoustic. Recommended listening - Passion Session

Tony MacManus - Scots fella specialising in celtic styles, arranging trad tunes for guitar.clean, fast and a great tone.Recommended listening - Pourquoi Quebec

Tommy Emmanuel - a big name Down Under and recently moved away from the rock thing to more solo acoustic stuff in the Leo Kottke vein. a master fingerpicker if ever there was and a former collaborator of Chet Atkins.Recommended listening - Solo

Martin Taylor - been around a while and also a former collaborator with Chet. What he cant do on guitar isnt worth doing. primarily a jazz player he also incorporates other styles. Recommended listening - Masterpiece Guitars

Antonio Forcione - a very individual stylist fusing classical, rock, jazz, flamenco, arabic. often plays a fretless guitar. recommended listening - Live

Jerry Reed - so he's an old fella now and was knocking about in the 70s doing stuff with Chet. still, not just a brilliant fingerpicker but a writer of some great tunes with funny lyrics. wrote 'Guitar man' and 'US male' , as covered by Elvis.

Matt Bellamy (Muse)
Mick Mars (Motley Crue)
Brian Setzer (Stray Cats)

Jason Becker

Borislav Mitic is truly amazing.

Matias IA Eklund is amazing too and can beat crap out of Vai.

Michael Angelo , but for his crappy tone , he deserves to stay underrated forever.

For me, Vai is the only one who I can compare to IA, dunno why. Of course I mean Vai´s solo album stuff. Both are filled with crazy suprises but IA´s are cooler and more listenable while Vai´s crazy parts are like, he must have been high while recording this part.

Hey Grub

I'm always looking for new and inspiring guitarists to listen too, can you tell me a little more about Antonio Forcione, does he play both Nylon & Steel str acoustic? I went to the web site, everything I heard was steel str., but there seemed to be some pictures of him holding a Nylon, couldn't really tell.
I like the series of pictures of him playing the acoustic w/smoke coming out of it.

Antonio Forcione's website is www.antonioforcione.com. As his name suggests he's an Italian dude. He's done a few albums best of which are 'Ghetto Paradise' 'Live', 'Dedicato' and 'Acoustic Revenge'.

He plays both steel and nylon strung, the nylon more for his flamencoish stuff. he also plays a fretless acoustic guitar called an ouddan. Style-wise his stuff is a fusion of flamenco, jazz, rock, arabic/Indian and classical often playing with tablas and fretless bass. 'Live'he's awesome, using the whole guitar.

If you are looking for a true genius that is totally underrated, you need to look no further than Stanley Jordan.
Don't know him?
http://www.stanleyjordan.com
If EVH pioneered the tap technique, Jordan brought it to new heights in 1976, and if I am correct, about the same time that the first Van Halen album came out and wowed the world.

Whoops almost forgot if you go to the site and check out his sound bytes, try to remember that he is the only guitar player in them, what sounds like 2 guitars is really him playing chords with his left hand and soloing with his right. You should try that sometime. It is definitely not easy.

[Edited by hairbndrckr on 05-14-2003 at 05:21 PM]

Ever listen to Keller Williams?
He's pretty cool, I think you would enjoy him.

Matt Bellamy (Muse)

john petrucci from dream theater



Check him out, i'm not as obsessed as muse, with muse.. heh

Martin Taylor, certainly the greatest fingerpicker I've heard, incredible style...

Neal Schon - EX santana guitarist, joined santana at the age of 17 and left to form the band journey in 1975. This guy plays with a briliance and controlled fury unlike anything i've ever heard before.. He also teamed up with sammy hagar of van halen and 2 other guys to form the band HSAS who released i think one album, which is incredible. He was also in the band bad english at some point.