Sonic Nirvana: The Greatest Guitar Tones In Music (part 1)

(Despite the title of this post, Kurt Cobain is not on this list....)

It's my theory that most people who decide they want to learn the guitar do so for one or two reasons.

1) They thought it looked cool when they saw someone play it.
2) They thought it sounded cool when they heard someone play it.

I have no problem admitting that it was for both of these reasons why I decided to try and unlock the secrets of six steel strings and 22 or 24 frets. I was never really all that good at athletics in school, and I think many who were in my class will tell you I craved attention. No one else was really pursuing guitar, and it came somewhat naturally to me.

When I started taking the guitar seriously around age 15, I gradually began appreciating all the nuances of certain players and their unique sounds. A great guitarist not only knows the right notes to play, but also how to create their identity with a tone they can call their own. This series focuses on what I believe are the most memorable and influential guitar sounds in popular music. This will be in multiple posts, as many are worth their own installment.

I'm going to start with the man who I believe had the greatest guitar tone in history.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - When I bought my first Stevie Ray Vaughan album ("Texas Flood") on cassette in 1990, his name was not new to me. I knew he played for David Bowie a few years before, but I knew nothing of his solo work. That was because he wasn't a Rock guitarist and for a few years, I had no interest in anything outside of Rock.

Why I bought his album was because I had just picked up a special issue of Guitar For The Practicing Musician. It was their 'Blues issue' and I got it because Led Zeppelin's "I Can't Quit You Baby" was transcribed. Also in the magazine was SRV's "Pride And Joy". I looked at all the song tablatures, and "Pride And Joy" really had me stumped. According to the notation, you had to play muted bass strings in between fretted notes. There was no other transcription like this before, so I opted to go pick up the album.

Lucky for me on two counts, I had a friend who ran a used records store, and someone turned in "Texas Flood". I took it home, put it in my Soundesign cassette deck, and waited for the mystery to be solved. The first track was "Love Struck Baby". Not the song I was looking for, but I picked up quickly that this Stevie Ray guy knew how to swing. The guitar playing was busy, and I could tell this was someone who lived, breathed, ate, and slept guitar. The track finished just after two minutes and I thought to myself, Not bad.... The next track was "Pride And Joy". It was time for the mystery to be solved.

And then.... that intro. My God, that intro! (Pride And Joy)

It was like someone revving up a muscle car. After that, I finally heard what the tablature was trying to tell me. I had never, ever, heard a guitar played like that before. This man was a one-man guitar army; he just happened to have a very able bass player and highly competent drummer backing him up.

I had been accustomed to hearing guitarists playing steady rhythm figures for the longest time, but here was a guy adding single-note fills, string bends, and blues phrases in between the main guitar line and while he was singing. It was unreal! I had ambitions to play along with the album (and I actually tried) but this was the only time that I was in so much awe that I just put my guitar down and listened.

If your teen years were in the mid-to-late '80s / early '90s and you wanted to play guitar, you probably wanted to play like the guitarists in hair metal bands. I know I did (although Jimmy Page was my main guitar idol). For someone to knock me off my center had to be someone truly extraordinary. And he was.

I was spellbound for the rest of the album. However, the best was yet to come. The track "Lenny" capped off what was a life-changing experience for me. This instrumental ballad was composed of jazz chords and a heavenly guitar tone. To this day, it is in my Top Five favorite guitar solos of all time. After discovering SRV, I was now open to exploring other styles of music.

Now, about that tone.

With almost the same guitar and amplifier setup song-to-song, album-to-album, Stevie Ray could change the way his guitar sounded just by the way he felt. Only those who are truly 'one' with their instrument can do that. This was impressive because it seemed every guitar player I listened to back then had a rack of guitar effects a half-mile long. As for SRV, he used minimal effects. He used an Ibanez Tube Screamer for overdrive and then occasionally would resort to other effects pedals for 'color'.

His main guitar was his "Number One" Fender Stratocaster -- the same make and model made famous by his idol, Jimi Hendrix. He outfitted the neck with frets from a bass guitar and used .013 gauge electric strings. Why is that significant? Let me put this in perspective. Go to your nearest music store and pick up an electric guitar. Go ahead and press the lightest string down to the fretboard. Now push it towards the heaviest string (this is called 'string bending'). Does that hurt a little bit? Well, with almost absolute certainty, that's a .009 gauge string -- a third lighter than what Stevie Ray used. Most guitarists in popular music, practicing or professional, play with .009 or .010 gauge strings; playing .013 gauge strings is usually out of the question for them.

I have stated time and time again that I have four main guitar influences -- and Stevie Ray Vaughan is among those four. I don't really sound like him all that much when I play, but occasionally I think I can cop the same vibe and feel he had in his playing. I really don't have the desire to try and sound like him because he created his own identity, and I think he's entitled to have that with him for eternity.

Losing SRV is absolutely one of music's biggest tragedies. He had a years long addiction to drugs and alcohol which culminated in him collapsing while on tour in Germany. After his father passed from Parkinson's Disease, he committed himself to recovery. He emerged rejuvenated, recorded the best album of his career ("In Step"), and appeared on MTV Unplugged with a Guild 12-string acoustic. On this particular episode, guitar virtuoso and technician Joe Satriani -- no slouch himself -- also appeared. However, in my opinion (and many others) it was no question that Stevie Ray gave the most mesmerizing performance that night.

(Legend has it Stevie Ray cracked the neck of his guitar during this performance from the intensity of his playing.)

He joined a stellar tour that I would have given anything to see. Alongside him were Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and his brother Jimmie Vaughan -- a guitar enthusiast's dream come true. After a performance in East Troy, WI., he boarded a helicopter for a flight to the next venue. Dense fog imparied the pilot's vision and the aircraft crashed into a hill. The world lost one of its most extraordinary guitarists at a time when he just became clean and sober and with the promise of more amazing recordings and performances to come.

He was only 35 and I heard the news when I got home after the first day of my Senior year of high school. I was devastated.

Although sorely missed, his legend lives on and thrives. After his passing, we received the albums "Family Style", an excellent studio recording with his brother Jimmie Vaughan, and "The Sky Is Crying", a collection of outtakes and unrelased material which included the highlight "Life By The Drop" -- an incredible song about gratitude for being alive after overcoming addiction.

Stevie Ray Vaughan is one of my guitar idols. And he possessed what I consider to be the greatest guitar tone in history.

Led Zeppelin: The Greatest Rock Band Of All TIme

I was not supposed to like Led Zeppelin.

I definitely was not supposed to like Jimmy Page, much less make him my personal guitar hero.

After all, this was a band that embraced hard drugs, heavy drinking, groupies willing to do anything (if you know what the Mudshark incident is, I need say no more), and the occult.

The occult -- now that should make any band off-limits for a self-respecting, fairly conservative Ohio teenager. These occult practices just weren't the pagan Spring rituals that happen in San Francisco either. Rumors spread quickly when lead singer Robert Plant's young son, Karac, tragically passed away from a stomach virus. The rumors? There were many, but they all seemed to revolve around the notion that lead guitarist Jimmy Page made a pact with Satan, and Karac was the sacrifice. If it sounds ridiculous, well, there were people who bought into it. My oldest sister being one of them.

And Page's interests in the occult have been documented at least hundreds of times throughout the years. This was a man who at one time owned an occult bookshop and publishing house. He even purchased Boleskine House -- the mansion once owned by Aleister Crowley, perhaps the most notorious occultist in history.

I hadn't heard many Led Zeppelin songs until I was 15 years old, and by then they were disbanded for about six years. Their pinnacle work was recorded at least ten years prior to that. By today's standards, at that point in time, Led Zeppelin was nostalgia at best.

So, no, I wasn't supposed to like Led Zeppelin -- and the reasons get a little more complicated.

When I was in eighth grade, my Health teacher shared with our class "examples" of subliminal and hidden messages in Rock music. The first example he gave was the logo for Heavy Metal singer Ronnie James Dio turned upside down. Right side up, it's evident that it's an old English font spelling his last name. But when turned upside-down, to more than a few people, it appears as "Devil".

Seeing that he had our attention, our Health teacher played an audio tape of a presentation by a McCarthy-like religious motivational speaker. The speaker's name was John Muncy, and we listened to this over the next several days. In hindsight, I think our Health teacher was pushing an agenda. The entire focus of John Muncy's presentation was revealing hidden messages -- both backwards and subliminal -- in popular music. To him, Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page were the equivalent of what Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were to George W. Bush.

Many of you may know about the infamous claims regarding a couple of Led Zeppelin songs: If you play a portion of "Stairway To Heaven" backwards, supposedly the phrase "My sweet Satan" is heard. Even scarier, when "The Battle Of Evermore" is played backwards, at one point, some claim to hear "I am the Bible, would you please spit on me? So funny...." I have to admit, when I heard these on the audio tape, I was able to pick up on them.

On a side note, Muncy also "revealed" hidden messages on recordings and album artwork by artists such as Electric Light Orchestra, Pink Floyd, The Eagles, The Beatles, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Queen, and Cheap Trick (!).

I forget why I decided to listen to Led Zeppelin, but it came even after finding out about all this. Like most people who bought their first Led Zeppelin album, I bought what's best known as Led Zeppelin IV (although the album does not have an actual title). The first track that kicks off the album is "Black Dog", and it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. The start-and-stop structure certainly kept me intrigued, and I wanted to hear more. "Rock And Roll" alone was worth the price of admission, and it was only the second track on the album.

Believe it or not, it wasn't "Stairway To Heaven" that made me a full-fledged Zeppelin fanatic. It was the final track, "When The Levee Breaks". The greatest drum sound and riff of all time played by John Bonham is what pulled me in. (Oddly, it wasn't the first time I heard that riff. A year or two earlier, I had owned the Beastie Boys' License To Ill and they sampled the same beat on "Rhymin' And Stealin'".) "Levee" is still a masterpiece. From the ballsy harmonica to the space-age slide guitar, it's the track every teenage guy wanted to have playing in the background when he was "doin' the nasty" with his girlfriend. I finally felt like I understood what Damone was saying in Fast Times At Ridgemont High when he told Ratner, "When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV". Except I learned there were two things wrong with that piece of advice:  First, "Levee" is on side two. Second, the song being played immediately in the next scene (to show that Ratner was too eager to follow Damone's advice) was Zeppelin's, but it wasn't from Led Zeppelin IV.

After listening to Led Zeppelin IV more than a few times, I was hooked. A few weeks later, I bought Led Zeppelin II. This was the album that not only made me a die-hard fan of Jimmy Page's guitar playing, but it also inspired me to take playing the guitar more seriously. For me, the riff to "Whole Lotta Love" was revolutionary. It may be the only guitar riff that, to me, sounds even heavier over time. The brief solo should not be overlooked, either. With Page's superhuman guitar string bends and perfect phrasing, it was the perfect way to cap off the song's psychedelic, orgasmic interlude.

And then there's "Heartbreaker". This is one of the few Page riffs I've never quite mastered, but just about everyone I know who has wanted to learn it has done so. The killer riff notwithstanding, had there ever been a previously recorded song that featured an unaccompanied guitar solo in the middle? That moment in Rock history got more than a few would-be guitar heroes to get off their asses and begin some serious woodshedding. In fact, it was a live performance of this song that served as the genesis for Eddie Van Halen to create his famous two-handed hammer-on technique.

Eventually, I ended up owning all of Led Zeppelin's albums on CD and without question, my favorite is Physical Graffitti. I consider it not only Zeppelin's ultimate musical statement, but the greatest Rock album of all time. Putting together a double-album that can not only keep the listener captivated, but wanting to listen to it all over again right after hearing all fifteen tracks from beginning-to-end is a talent reserved for a chosen few. Just about every track is a high point: The rock-solid but funky guitar riff of "Custard Pie", the James Brown-inspired "Trampled Underfoot", Page's majestic acoustic guitar showcase of "Bron-Yr-Aur", the in-your-face "The Wanton Song", Celtic folk meets Delta blues in "Black Country Woman", and what the band members consider their finest moment, the exotic and hypnotic "Kashmir".

As a guitar player, there are four guitarists who have made the biggest impact on my playing and my style. But it was Jimmy Page who made me realize that what could be accomplished with six steel strings and 22 frets was limitless. Several years before discovering Led Zeppelin, I had pretty much given up on guitar. My Dad was good enough to buy me more than one when I was just a young kid, but I never took lessons. As a result, they just kind of sat around the house. But thanks to Jimmy Page, I became inspired to pick one up again and make something of it. It's also because of him that I realized the best way to make progress with it is by listening.

The ultimate praise I can bestow on Led Zeppelin is that they proved Rock music can be worthy of the acclaim and high regard that's usually reserved for the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Handel.

Oh, and by the way, John Muncy also claimed in the presentation that when John Bonham passed away, it was in Page's mansion -- the same one once owned by Aleister Crowley. The inference was that demonic forces were responsible for Bonham's death. While it is true that John Bonham did pass away at Jimmy Page's residence, it was in the Old Mill House that Page purchased from actor Michael Caine. The only demons that played a part in Bonham's death were his own personal ones. A career alcoholic, he began what would be his last day on Earth consuming four quadruple vodkas and then continued to drink heavily throughout the day. The cause of Bonham's death was vomit asphyxiation, not ritual sacrifice.

The backwards messages? I guess there's a possibility they are legitimate -- but they could just as much be the results of the power of suggestion from a religious zealot, as they are the sinister intentions of an evil Rock band.

As far as the rumors pertaining to the "Karac sacrifice" that I referred to at the beginning of this post, if there was even the slightest bit of truth to them, then Robert Plant is the most forgiving person in history. The band stayed together a few years after the tragedy, and even after the members called it quits, Page and Plant would appear on each others' solo outings. They would also eventually team up to record new material; the most noteworthy being their MTV Unplugged special Unledded, which set ratings records and was a career benchmark for both.

So, no, I wasn't supposed to like Led Zeppelin or Jimmy Page. But this is one case in which I'm glad that I didn't let others decide what was best for me.

From Left to Right:   Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones