Lee Flier Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 Mike Campbell Richard Thompson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yamsa2000 Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 I'm still puzzled by the how many of these "under-rated" guitar players were actually lead guitarists in extremely successful bands. Some of them may be out of the limelight now - but does that make them under-rated? Re: Dick Dale you have to realise how much influence surf music has had on popular music to understand his importance.Also the fact that he was probably the first to incorporate Middle Eastern music with rock. I could name 99 per cent of guitar players in bands here in Australia, because a lot of them don't manage to break into the overseas market and remain unknown outside of this country.So here's my personal list, even though some have been hugely successful here. Ross Hannaford (Pink Finks, Daddy Cool, Regabites and Renee Geyer Band) Reg Mombassa (Mental as Anything - now designs Mambo clothing and has band with his brother Pete, Dog Trumpet) Jim Moginie (Midnite Oil) Ian Date (great jazz player) Slava Grigoryan ( soon to be the greatest guitar player alive!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strat0124 Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 Originally posted by NMcGuitar: Well, there's always Danny Gatton. Outside of the "guitar community" very few people have heard of him. Ry Cooder. Keith Strickland (from the B52's).Ry is one of my guitar heroes, but he's never been underrated, nor is Danny Gatton. I think maybe underappreciated is a better term. I'd rather listen to Ry play a one stringed HONDO guitar than listen to a football stadium full of spandex hair band shredders..... Down like a dollar comin up against a yen, doin pretty good for the shape I'm in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffk Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 h. sumlin steve cropper steve turner pretty much anyone from James Brown's bands and P-Funk bands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the stranger Posted August 14, 2003 Author Share Posted August 14, 2003 Originally posted by whitefang: Originally posted by the stranger: Anybody else think Dick Dale doesn't get enough credit for his contribution to the electric guitar?WHAT contribution? "Miserlou"? Guitarplayer, everyone on your list has recieved their due except Mick Taylor. I always felt Mick did the "Clapton thing" better than Eric hisself! Add to the "underrated" list a name I usually put when this thread pops up...Robbie Robertson. WhitefangDick was doing things to the electric guitar that others got famous for 10 years later. Dick was way ahead of his time. Nobody was playing electric guitar like he was in 1963. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the stranger Posted August 14, 2003 Author Share Posted August 14, 2003 Dick brought a level of intensity to guitar playing that wasn't there before him. He was also demanding louder amplification long before Jimi and Pete were. Dick played a major role in the evolution of Fender amplification. "The Dick Dale Phenomenon. His style is something different and unique. Since his first appearances Balboa, Ca. at the famed Rendezvous Ballroom, he has set and broken attendance records everywhere he's performed. His appearances at the Rendezvous Ballroom broke every existing record for the Ballroom by drawing capacity crowds of over four thousand screaming dancing fans every weekend each night down on the Balboa peninsula. Dick Dale invented surf music in the 1950's. Not the '60's as is commonly believed. He was given the title "King of the Surf Guitar" by his fellow surfers with whom he surfed with from sun-up to sun-down. He met Leo Fender the guitar and amplifier Guru and Leo asked Dale to play his newly creation, the Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar. The minute Dale picked up the guitar, Leo Fender broke into uncontrolled laughter and disbelief, he was watching Dale play a right handed guitar upside down and backwards, Dale was playing a right handed guitar left handed and changing the chords in his head then transposing the chords to his hands to create a sound never heard before. Leo Fender gave the Fender Stratocaster along with a Fender Amp to Dale and told him to beat it to death and tell him what he thought of it. Dale took the guitar and started to beat it to death, and he blew up Leo Fender's amp and blew out the speaker. Dale proceeded to blow up forty nine amps and speakers; they would actually catch on fire. Leo would say, 'Dick, why do you have to play so loud?' Dale would explain that he wanted to create the sound of Gene Krupa the famous jazz drummer that created the sounds of the native dancers in the jungles along with the roar of mother nature's creature's and the roar of the ocean. Leo Fender kept giving Dale amps and Dale kept blowing them up! Till one night Leo and his right hand man Freddy T. went down to the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula in Balboa, California and stood in the middle of Four Thousand screaming dancing Dick Dale fans and said to Freddy, I now know what Dick Dale is trying to tell me. Back to the drawing board. A special 85 watt output transformer was made that peaked 100 watts when dale would pump up the volume of his amp, this transformer would create the sounds along with Dale's style of playing, the kind of sounds that Dale dreamed of. BUT! they now needed a speaker that would handle the power and not burn up from the volume that would come from Dale's guitar. Leo, Freddy and Dale went to the James B. Lansing speaker company, and they explained that they wanted a fifteen inch speaker built to their specifications. That speaker would soon be known as the 15'' JBL -D130 speaker. It made the complete package for Dale to play through and was named the Single Showman Amp. When Dale plugged his Fender Stratocaster guitar into the new Showman Amp and speaker cabinet, Dale became the first creature on earth to jump from the volume scale of a modest quiet guitar player on a scale of 4 to blasting up through the volume scale to TEN! That is when Dale became the "Father of Heavy Metal" as quoted from Guitar Player Magazine. Dale broke through the electronic barrier limitations of that era! Dale still wanted to go further, and as the crowds increased, Dale's volume increased, but he still wanted a bigger punch with thickness in the sound so that it would pulsate into the audience and leave them breathless. The JBL-D130 was doing its job until Dale froze it in the frame that held the speaker, the speaker cone would twist from the heavy playing from Dale and it would soon twist and stop to fluctuate back n forth. Leo, Freddy and Dale went back to the JBL speaker company and told them to rubberize the front ridge of the speaker allowing it to push forward and backward from the signal of Dale's guitar without cocking and twisting. The new updated version was called the JBL D-130F; the F stood for Fender. Leo, Freddy and Dale designed a speaker cabinet and in which they installed 2 -15''-JBL-D130F's. This caused Leo Fender to have to create a new and more powerful output transformer, they would call it the Dick Dale Transformer and it was made by the Triad Company. This became the 100 watt output transformer that would actually peak 180 watts. Nothing like this had ever been done before in the world of guitars and amplifiers. This became known as the Dual-Showman Piggy Back Amp. This is why Dick Dale is called the Father of all the power Players in the world! It is a Phenomena, that Dale is still playing with not only the same vengeance as he did in the 50's, but his playing is unleashed and shredding into the 90's with a focus and power as if from mother nature. He shares the stage with fellow players of all generations up into the alternative's of the 90's. Being completely self taught, Dick Dale plays left handed upside down which was a result of holding the guitar left-handed. The strings became upside-down, chords are designed for right handed players making it very difficult for a left handed player unless he were to change the strings for a left handed guitar, something that Dale never did. Dale is also a master at the Acoustic, Electronic, Bass and Spanish Guitars'. As well as the Ukulele, Banjo, Drums, Piano, Organ, Electronic Keyboard, Harpsichord, Trumpet, Trombone, Saxophone, Harmonica, Xylophone and, believe it or not... the Accordion! Dale was also responsible for another creation to the world of guitar players, "The Fender Tank Reverb". As Dale sang in his shows, he found that he did not have a vibrato in his voice, and he did not like the straight flat dry sound. to sustain his vocal notes, he turned to an old Hammond organ and found a reverb unit and showed it to Leo Fender and together they came up with the "Fender Tank Reverb". Dale then plugged a Shure Dynamic Bird cage Microphone into it and as Dale sang, his voice took on a very rich, sexy and full sound. Later, Dale then plugged his Fender Stratocaster guitar into the Reverb Tank to sustain his guitar notes which became Dale's trademark sound.) (NOTE) Dale had already been titled "King of the Surf Guitar" by his surfer friends before his creation of the Fender Reverb, Dale's first album called "Surfer's Choice" was the first Surfing album to be commercially sold with a picture of Dale surfing by the pier in San Clemente, Ca. with a surfing title on it. This album alone sold over eighty-eight thousand albums in the late 50's and today in the 90's it would be like 4 million. There was not one song on that album that had a Reverb for effects, everything was played with nothing but Dale's sheer force and power. A bit of trivia, Dale's recording of "Miserlou" became the title song for Quentin Tarantino's Blockbuster movie "Pulp Fiction". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the stranger Posted August 14, 2003 Author Share Posted August 14, 2003 "1963 Dale was the first power rock guitarist to be featured in a double page layout in Life magazine. 1963 Dale was the 1st rock guitarist to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show, The nation's number one national show. Dick Dale was the first person to create the surf music sound. The first to take a sport and develop a music for it. He was also the first to have more than one record on the Top Ten charts at one time, and also to have five songs from a single album on the charts at once. He was first to sell out the Los Angeles sports arena." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Mack Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 Originally posted by TeleCarlos: [QB]Well, you guys are mentioning older guys that are underrated. Any current players that you think are underrated??? Andy and the other guy in XTC - don't now bout you but I like their riffs and the way they way they sound. "The other guy" you mention in XTC is Dave Gregory. However, he left the band several years ago. I would very much agree on his under-rated status. He joined the band with the third album "Drums and Wires". "Skylarking" (produced by Todd Rundgren) and "Oranges and Lemons" feature some of his best work. He would come into the recording sessions with his solos written out note-for-note. He also did most of the keyboard work as well. As for other under-rated guitarists add Dave Lindley and Richard Thompson to the list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Mack Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 Originally posted by the stranger: Anybody else think Dick Dale doesn't get enough credit for his contribution to the electric guitar?I've met Dick Dale on several occasions and HE would agree with you! Seriously, I'm a "Dick-Head" from way back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the stranger Posted August 15, 2003 Author Share Posted August 15, 2003 Originally posted by Mickey Mack: Originally posted by the stranger: Anybody else think Dick Dale doesn't get enough credit for his contribution to the electric guitar?I've met Dick Dale on several occasions and HE would agree with you! Seriously, I'm a "Dick-Head" from way back.Yeah, I've been telling people how much "I love Dick" for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whoacamel Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 How about Mike Metzger. Of Memphis Mike And The Legendary Tremblers. Do a search for Memphis Mike and you will see what I mean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Strat Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Man, I can't believe that none of you have mentioned John Fogerty from Creedence Clearwater Revival!!! All of those great riffs from all those CCR hits. Also Tim Sult from Clutch! that dude from Weezer kicks ass too! BlueStrat a.k.a. "El Guapo" ...Better fuzz through science... http://geocities.com/teleman28056/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Flier Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Oh, make no mistake, I'm a huge Fogerty freak! I'm not sure he's underrated though; I usually hear people speak very highly of his guitar playing. And I'm a major league Dick Dale fan too, nice to see so many mentions of him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timrocker Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Ditto to many of the above mentioned players. I'll nominate Jim Mankey of Concrete Blonde. Taste, totally unique tones, and his own approach. There's a guy right here in Portland, Oregon named Johnny Koonce who you've got to see to believe. Some deceptively simple chops that just go right to your bones with his absolute conviction and heart. And a full robust tone that just says what is really truly necessary. Helluva guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffk Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 and I forgot Johnny Marr also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rog951 Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Ty Tabor is definitely underrated. Neil Young is too, to a certain degree, although every so often I run into someone who worships his playing. I don't know about all that. None more black. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yamsa2000 Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Well I think it's about time all these under-rated guitarists like Neil Young and Mick Taylor and Ry Cooder etc got a break! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fendercaster Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 I'm amazed that no one has mentioned CARMINE D'AMICO as the world's greatest under-rated guitarist! I'm sure he would agree with me 100%!!! My gear: http://fendercaster.freeservers.com/guit3.html If you own two Lexus cars, do you have Lexi? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NMcGuitar Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Originally posted by Fendercaster: I'm amazed that no one has mentioned CARMINE D'AMICO as the world's greatest under-rated guitarist! I'm sure he would agree with me 100%!!! May all your thoughts be random! - Neil www.McFaddenArts.com www.MikesGarageRocks.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doc taz Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 For the extreme folks, I'll put in Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel , and Chuck Schuldiner (1967-2001, R.I.P.) of Mantas and Death. sevenstring.org profile my flickr page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happydog Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Originally posted by the stranger: Anybody else think Dick Dale doesn't get enough credit for his contribution to the electric guitar?Well, whatever credit ole DD doesn't get from the rest of the world, he certainly gives enough to himself. Try reading one of his interviews sometimes. Honestly, exactly how is this guy that much better than Link Wray? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NMcGuitar Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 There has been a lot of talk about Dick Dale lately. I must confess, I'm really not familliar with him. I know the name and that he pretty much invented surf guitar, but I don't know his music specifically. So, what albums should I be looking for? Which songs are the ones I shouldn't miss? Thanks! May all your thoughts be random! - Neil www.McFaddenArts.com www.MikesGarageRocks.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happydog Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Whitefang[/qb]Dick was doing things to the electric guitar that others got famous for 10 years later. Dick was way ahead of his time. Nobody was playing electric guitar like he was in 1963.[/QB] Except for Link Wray, who was even louder and scarier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitefang Posted August 17, 2003 Share Posted August 17, 2003 Nobody was playing electric guitar like Danny Cedrone in the '50's OR '60's either. So I guess I get your point! Whitefang I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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