Classic guitar bands you wished you had started
For me, The Eagles ranks up high. The 1970’s. California. Bunch of guys playing guitar and writing songs about girls and life in the fast lane.
Check out Rolling Stone magazine’s recent photo album: “Eagles’ Long Run: Photos from the Seventies and Beyond.”
Here’s ol’ Glenn Frey in the back of a cargo truck making sure all the guitars are behaving.
Photo courtesy Rolling Stone.
IG dishes out inspiration and ideas to guitar players everywhere. 
First person who says Skynyrd gets it - right in the throat.
Skynyrd… HAHAHAHAHA!!! Ulp!
Though any of those Southern rock bands like Charlie Daniels, Marshal Tucker would’ve been cool to start.
Though I’d have to say that topping my list of guitar bands would be the Doobie Brothers before Michael McDonald. When he came along and gave them that gawd-aweful “What a fool believes” keyboard riff that he totally overused not only with the Doobies but for other artists as well, I had a hard time listening to ‘em, and I was just kid then.
“Listen to the Music” is still one of my all-time favs! Love the strumming in that song. That’s definitely the instrumental hook of that song.
Sammy - Freebird!
Goof - The Doobies. Niiiiiice.
IG
I can never leave enough alone
The Quintet of the Hot Club of France
Johnny Burnette’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio
The Byrds, post-Sweetheart
Uncle Tupelo (”They’re like the Eagles, if the Eagles didn’t suck.”
The Buzzcocks.
Ratt.
Great picks, though. Thanks for the link. Reminds me why I used to read the Stone 20 years ago.
Maiden, I guess…I would have said Manowar, cause I am a long time fan, but I think I wouldn’t have liked to play the same thing for all my life, even if Maiden is not so much different. Or Gamma Ray! Yeah! For the fresh feeling after success with Helloween!
Fairport Convention
The Faces
Suicidal Tendencies (stretching “classic” a little)
Kyuss (stretching “classic” a lot)
Of these, only Fairport is really on my short list of favorites, but all of them just took off on a tangent and broke new ground. I think it would have been a lot of fun to be part of that. But it’s hard to see who’s innovating and who’s just wanking until 10 or 20 years later.
(The Eagles are a tough call. I don’t, in general, like them. But they had some perfect moments, here and there, and one perfect moment is better than most bands ever get.)
Kev, can I take it there’s another Richard Thompson fan here?
The Eagles were always a tad too soft for me… For me it has to be The Band.
Other Kevin,
Suicidal is classic in my book, and Rocky George is way underrated as a great metal guitarist.
Ovi,
Maiden - yes, as long as you leave out albums 8-11.
@Sammy: well, about Bailey’s albums, OK, but I would go with every album where Dickinson was the singer!!
Since nobody’s tagged the Allmans, I’ll take ‘em.
I’ll also take Poco and Cowboy while I’m at it…
And lastly, I’ll add some Cream!
I think like to be John Mayer, Seal, or Cold Play….supermodels, Hollywood actressed, vintage guitars. To be young and cool….what a freakin life. Have you seen “Being Sarah Marshall”? I’d like to be THAT rockstar.
But seriously, I would have loved to have started the Police with Sting and Stu…Supercool megaband, 80s decadence, smart music, respected by the critics…. Unfortunately, my dark hair and latino skin would make me the odd man out!
Sans,
Richard Thompson’s amazing and sort of discouraging — I can’t figure out what he’s doing, ever, even from video. I eventually decided, in part to preserve some sense of self-worth, that he’s playing a different instrument than the rest of us. Or maybe he’s just from another planet. (Jeff Beck, too, though he’s from some other other planet.) And apart from the guitar fearsomeness, the man can write songs. I can’t listen to, say, “Cooksferry Queen” just once — need to hear it five times if at all.)
Depending on the era:
- 60’s: Rolling Stones
- 70’s: Led Zeppelin
- 80’s: Guns n’ Roses
- 90’s: Nirvana
- 00’s: Queens of the Stone Age
1.I distrust people that really like the Eagles… what are you hiding?
2. What’s a guitar based band? Does it have to have more than one guitar player?
3. Jean-Thomas, that’s a solid list — though I’d swap Nirvana for radiohead (less rawk, more guitar)
Richard Thompson isn’t that hard. Realize that he’s a crazy Byrds fan, that British Folk Rock needed American Folk Rock and Country Rock in order to exist, and thus he figured out how to put in crazy CW bends without the bender, like so many others. Melodically and harmonically, he’s great, but not human.
It’s his right hand that kills me. That ain’t human.
Here’s one for the Brits of a certain age: the only thing The Eagles mean to me is A FISTFUL OF TRAVELLER’S CHEQUES.
And Richard Thompson gives me nightmares. I can play a few of his songs, but any time I try and figure out any of his solos… I’m lost after a couple of bars. Genius.
Journey, or Rush…wait no…Van Halen XP