Greatest Guitarist

[El Pibe]

same reviewer.

One album (and doubtless some heavy duty sessions with the band to make up for past transgressions) later, and his tone has changed remarkably!!!!

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/led-zeppelin-ii-19691213

[nashoi]

Blimey, he appears to have gone something of "a journey" :)

[Jeremy]

I'm reading the two reviews as:

LZ1: Great guitarist, shit songs

LZ2: Great guitarist, only listenable if you're on drugs and talk like a hippy

Or did I get that wrong?

[El Pibe]

:)

I think it was just a bit of overcompensating.

I dug around a bit and found this reflection, so he probably regrets the second more than he does the first.

"In the spring of 1969, Scenic Sound began promoting rock shows at a barn-like affair in Pasadena, Los Angeles, where floral floats were prepared for the town's annual New Year's Day morning Rose Parade. For their first shows in May, they booked as headliners a new English four-piece whose first album was getting played on local radio, despite getting dismissed as self-indulgent crapola in Rolling Stone. To review the show, the Los Angeles Times dispatched the self-same spotty young Jewish university student who'd written the Rolling Stone review.

Yes, I was that spotty young student and, though I grow faint with embarrassment nearly 40 years after the fact on re-reading my horribly written review of the Rose Palace show, I haven't changed my mind. I liked tuneful songs with witty or poignant lyrics; I worshipped The Who and loved The Kinks and The Move. Zeppelin were about riffs and showing off. When I was able to make out any words, they seemed to be about what an implacable bull stud the singer was.

I will not, in the autumn of my years, withhold their due and claim not to have noticed Zeppelin's inventive arrangements. I had never heard a 4/4 beat turned inside out quite like John Bonham managed on Good Times, Bad Times. I might have been the only the person at the Rose Palace who seemed not to derive pleasure from how dexterously Jimmy Page played, how high Robert Plant was able to sing, at the undeniable brute power of the rhythm section.

When my review was published, I was denounced as a philistine or a faggot. Led Zeppelin came back as conquering heroes in mid-summer. The Los Angeles Times didn't invite my comments on their show at the Anaheim Convention Center in August, but I heard from several who attended how Plant's between-song patter had included a promise to make my ears resemble cauliflower.

A decade later, I attended a Wolverhampton Wanderers match with my friend Bev Bevan, once of The Move. We met Robert Plant outside of the stadium. and Bev introduced us. My name didn't ring a bell."

[HopOne]

Some great mentions for rock, jazz and blues guitarists though I think Albert King should be in the mix too - he may only have had a few licks but they were all his own. The best blues guitarist from this country would be Peter Green IMO.

Really though, for me there is only one: Django Reinhardt.

[miga]

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[Parkdrive]

Has Ry Cooder been mentioned?

[uncleglen]

Yes, page 2, Into the purple valley is my fave