3. Unfulfilled Potential : Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills & Nash (& Young), Manassas, Stills-Young Band, solo)
Stephen Stills is the best example of a phenomenon that I have encountered through years of making Mix Tapes/CDs/iPod Playlists. A blank CD nowadays can hold 80 minutes of music. If I said that you have a single disc to make a “Best of” from different artists, the Stephen Stills disc would indicate that he was one of the greatest artists in rock history. His single disc collection would stand shoulder to shoulder with a single disc distillation of The Beatles, Stones, Who…you name it. It really would (and does, because I’ve done it). The problem comes if you move beyond that first 80 minutes or so of music. There is a precipitous drop after that.
I don’t know what his problem has been. He had the talent. He obviously was capable of greatness, as evidenced by the aforementioned single disc “best of” experiment. But he just did not reach that peak nearly as often as he should have. Part of it was hubris. He believed the accolades that he received early in his career and sort of coasted for long periods after that initial burst of creativity with Buffalo Springfield and the early Crosby, Stills & Nash stuff. Another reason is that he has not taken care of himself over the years, battling with weight and substance abuse problems. His once wonderful singing voice has been shot for decades now. His first two solo records are mixed bags of greatness and embarrassment. He has really only made two great solo records from start to finish. One is the first Manassas record (Manassas masqueraded as a band, but it was really Stephen Stills with some great support players) and the second is his 1975 live outing, Live. Everything else is spotty.
Anyway, as a guitar player. Stills is a fine electric player (although sometimes rather lazy), but where he shines is on the acoustic. His guitar picking, at his peak, is inventive, melodic, dexterous, stunning. You can choose various moments throughout his recorded career: the gorgeous folk picking of CSN’s “Helplessly Hoping,” the inventive playing throughout the CSN classic “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the lovely acoustic playing all over Manassas, his signature (and greatest) storysong, “Treetop Flyer.” For me, though, with what may be my single favorite guitar solo in any song, his greatest moment is on Buffalo Springfield’s “Bluebird.” It is a full on barnburner of a song to begin with, but where you would expect a screaming electric solo, he instead jumps in with a brilliant acoustic solo. He attacks the guitar. There is no other way to describe it. Within that minute and a half of acoustic picking in “Bluebird” is all of the creativity, excitement and barrier busting of 1960’s rock and roll. It acknowledges folk, country, blues…all of the precursors of rock and roll. Yet it is something new altogether. Stills has never bested that minute and a half from 1967. Neither has any other rock guitarist.
ABOVE: Stills doing "Treetop Flyer"
2. The Indifferent Genius : Jeff Beck (The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck Group, solo)
I will try to keep this brief, because over the 2 and change years of GNABB, I have frequently tried to spread the Gospel of Beck. You’ve heard this before. While Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page have had more celebrated careers, it is Jeff Beck who was the greatest of the Holy Trinity of guitar players to emerge from the ranks of The Yardbirds. Hell, just compare each guitarists’ work within that incubator band. Clapton was, even then, the stodgy blues purist (who left the band because he felt they were getting too “pop”). Page was doing interesting things, but already looking forward to what would become Led Zeppelin. The most groundbreaking, interesting, innovative time period of The Yardbirds was Jeff Beck’s tenure as lead guitarist. He could do blues, but he wanted to take it to other places. He was experimenting with new sounds, equipment and techniques of playing. Some of the greatest psychedelic music of the time period was on those Beck-era Yardbirds sides.
Part of Beck’s problem with breaking through to mainstream popularity is that he can never keep a band line-up together past maybe two records. Notoriously hard to work with, he also takes breaks from the music biz altogether for years at a time. Sometimes he seems more interested in following his other passion, restoring old cars, than playing music. He also has horrible timing. On The Yardbirds first important tour of the U.S., the one that would have broken through here, he either quit or was fired (depending on who you believe). His most celebrated line-up of The Jeff Beck Group (featuring a young Rod Stewart on vocals and Ron Wood on bass) imploded a week before they were due to be headliners at a little ‘ole music festival called Woodstock. So, they didn’t show (if you look at the promo posters for the festival, you will see The Jeff Beck Group as one of the most prominent names advertised). He auditioned for the spot as Mick Taylor’s replacement in The Rolling Stones (wouldn’t that have been interesting?), but Mick and Keith asked him to leave after he kept complaining about how boring their three chord songs were to play (Keith was so pissed that he wiped clean all of Beck’s guitar playing on the tapes). Sounds like a Spinal Tap career, and in fact, the Nigel Tufnel character was largely based, both physically and otherwise, on Jeff Beck (a fact that Beck loves talking about to this day).
As comical as all of that has been, Beck is acknowledged by many guitar greats, both living and deceased, as one of the very best. Jeff Beck was Jimi Hendrix’s favorite guitar player and the only one he considered a true rival. Carlos Santana has been quoted as saying “we all know that Beck is the cat on guitar.” So even if the general public doesn’t fully grasp it, most people who actually play the instrument understand that what he does is simply incredible.
ABOVE: JEff Beck playing "Led Boots"
1. The Laidback Master: Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits, session work, solo)
Well, here it is. My favorite guitar player in the world. Knopfler’s playing, especially on the early Dire Straits records, is immediately recognizable for its crisp, clean sound and his fingerpicking style. Even on the electric, Knopfler rarely uses a guitar pick, preferring to finger pick. That is the real key to his style. If you ever listen to live Dire Straits, especially on the live record Alchemy, you realize that Knopfler is a master of dynamics. The 14-minute tour de force “Tunnel of Love” from Alchemy is the perfect Exhibit A. He brings the song from a whisper to roar and back again several times, building the tempo, dynamics and emotion through his lead guitar work. The same goes for “Sultans of Swing” on the same record.
I’ve always said that a truly great guitar player has a sound as recognizable as a singer’s voice. Knopfler has played guitar (and produced) on many records for other artists, and I can always instantly pick him out. I will check in the credits, and I’m always right. From Van Morrison to Randy Newman records, Knopfler leaves his mark when he’s backing them up. But, crucially, he never upstages them. He knows that his job is to back up the artist and add to the music. It is still clearly a Van Morrison or Randy Newman song, but just made much better with Mark Knopfler’s contributions. I guess that he is the ultimate compliment for a session player.
Dire Straits has long been a favorite band of mine, and Dire Straits was basically Mark Knopfler. Which is why it comes as a surprise that his solo career post-Dire Straits has been so disappointing. He has toned down the guitar playing and decided to concentrate on being a songwriter (he can be very good) and a singer (not his strong suit, especially as he has aged). His songwriting, musically speaking, has gotten lazy, predictable and dull. But that aside, his greatness will always be on those six Dire Straits studio and three live records, as well as all over many other artists’ work.
ABOVE: Great vintage clip of Dire Straits doing "Lady Writer" from '79
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