Top 10 guitarists

Heavy Django

Duozona wrote:

Heavy Django,

Great list! But come on now, Westvleteren down at #6? LOL

OK, I'll concede on that one, Westvleteren could easily be in my top three. But all of these brews are absolute winners and their rankings are known to shift with my steady mood swings. Superb list, BTW!


@RIMM.....excellent submission (no Silver Surfer? ). I feel that we're making important progress now in this thread.

klaatu

Michael,

As you know, Scotch is something I've never been able to acquire a taste for, having grown up with Bourbon. I may live in Canada now, but I was born and raised in Athens Georgia, and the lack of good Bourbon up here causes me a good deal of stress. So here's my personal top ten list:

1. Woodford Reserve
2. Knob Creek
3. Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel
4. Jefferson Reserve
5. Blanton's Special Reserve
6. Bulleit Bourbon
7. Elijah Craig 18 year old
8. Maker's Mark
9. Wild Turkey Rare Breed
10. Rebel Yell

Rebel Yell is more of a sentimental favorite - my friends and I consumed way too much of it during our college years, and my dear late father-in-law and I used to have long conversations late into the night while sharing a healthy dose of Rebel Yell. A bottle of it got wiped out the night before Poppa's funeral (or maybe it wiped us out?), as we smoked up his supply of fine cigars. I still enjoy it from time to time for old time's sake.

I'll be bringing my usual bottle of Woodford Reserve to the Hot Club of Room 202 gatherings at Django in June this year.

Oh, and it was good to see someone (pinkgary) FINALLY mention Doc Watson in his list of actual guitarists.

rimm

@RIMM.....excellent submission (no Silver Surfer? ). I feel that we're making important progress now in this thread. [/quote]
He's the man alright, number 12 in my book though. VIVA LA LISTS!

slicker37

Michael Bauer wrote:

Alright Phil! Now we're getting somewhere! In no particular order:

1. Longmorn 16
2. Talisker 10
3. Caol Ila 12
4. Bowmore 17
5. Ledaig 15
6. Macallen 18
7. Glen Rothes Special Reserve
8. Highland Park 15
9. Balvenie Doublewood
10. Mortlach 15

Tommy Emmanuel indeed! :roll: We're talking about picking guitars, not noses.

i mean tommy is one of the worlds finest players and humble too......your entitled to your opinion but really your making sounds out of your rear end. i was speaking to gary potter last year and he thought tommy was awesome,so who are you? what are you? tommy takes his guitar on stage every night,plays solo all over the world,not even django could do that,so really have a bit of respect for one of the worlds greatest players/performer/songwriter/and very cool guy.....

Michael Bauer

Slicker--

You are entitled to your opinion as well. I never said Tommy Emmanuel was a terible player, or not even an excellent one by some standards. I made no comment at all about his humility, his work schedule, or whether I'd want to get rip roaring with him after a gig. I didn't even say I wouldn't pay to go see him play. The questioned posed was who are the top ten guitarists in the world. And frankly, if your going to look my in the eye and tell me Tommy Emmanuel is one of the ten best guitarists in the world, I'm going to look right back and make an unflattering comment ot two about your judgement. I could have picked several other names on that same list. I just pulled Tommy out as an example.

There are lots of players I like very much and spend alot of time listening to that would not make my top ten list. In fact, I think such a list is stupid on its face, as I implied in a follow-up post when I questioned what criteria one would use. I could make 50 top ten guitarist lists using 50 sets of standards and probably get 300 different players on at least one of them. And there are probably 300 other deserving guys that I have never even heard, so my lists would be bogus from the get go. Tommy might even get close on a few of the lists, but I can't think of any reasonable set of standards that would put Tommy Emmanuel in the top ten. Top 50 or 100 probably on some lists, but never top ten in my mind. Feel free to disagree and refer to the preceding paragraph.

I do admit my tone was ungenerous, and for that I apologise. I was certainly not in the best of moods when I posted, and I should have refrained from posting until I could have been more diplomatic. Every once in a while we get a provocateur on this forum who joins and immediately wants an internet throwdown by challenging the whole concept of gypsy picking, or Django's place in the guitar worldetc., and it seemed to me that that's what this was: a guy looking to pick a fight, and, in my bad mood that day I grabbed the bait. I regretted it soon enough, but it was already posted. I was happy to see that the general reaction was to go David Letterman and substitute other top ten lists. It made the whole thing kind of funny then.

I am delighted to hear that Gary Potter thinks Tommy Emmanuel is "awesome", although I do think a more subdued term would be more fitting. And as for sounds out my rear end, what can I say. I love Mexican food and it does that to me.

As for who or what I am, or with whom and where I have played, send me a PM and I'll be happy to fill you in. This isn't the place for a "my resume's bigger than yours" sort of quarrel, and I've been snarky enough without getting worse. I'll just say that one guy in my past is on at least one top ten list submitted here. And I won't even ask the same questions of you, because frankly, I don't see what that has to do with anything. I do freely admit to not being much of a player now, details of why and how I would be happy to tell you by PM if you ask, but which really don't belong in this post.

All the best,

Michael

slicker37

ok michael.well said!you are welcome to your opinion but tommy will always be one of my fav players. and yes i.ve jammed with him,albert lee is also another favourite of mine. when he plays acoustic,very rare i might add, hes magic. i;ve got a video of us on my old hard drive that i;ll post sometime in the near future.
ok,back to django style,have you seen or heard of the young gwen cahue? check him out on youtube. gotta say that hank marvin was missed from the top ten... so sad
mike

redblues

hank marvin was missed from the top ten.

This is now beyond ridicule. I shall proceed to matters more pressing

@klaatu Maybe you could explain where bourbon and American whiskey meet, had a bottle of Knob Creek a few years ago and it is the finest american whiskey i've ever tasted, much more in the scotch vain, not too sweet and it was a million miles from JD (bourbon). Also even the specialists don't list Woodford here, which has me even more intrigued.

Is it that regionals call their brew bourbon like Kentucky and the likes of Georgia and Alabama extend that to call it whiskey too?

klaatu

Hi redblues,

Love Knob Creek! Where is "here" for you?

There's an excellent wikipedia article on bourbon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey.

In short, Bourbon is corn whiskey and must be made from at least 51% corn. It originated in and around the Old Bourbon region in Kentucky, and the vast majority of it still comes from Kentucky. Other American whiskeys include Tennessee (similar to bourbon, Jack Daniels being one famous brand), rye whiskey, corn whiskey (at least 80% corn), and blended whiskeys.

And of course there's moonshine, aka white lightning, mountain dew, hooch, etc. Drink at your own risk!

rimm

1) Django Reinhardt
2) Birelli Lagrene
3) Joe Pass
4)Stochelo Rosenberg
5) Charlie Byrd
6) Paco de lucia
7) Angelo Debarre
8) Tommy Emanuel
9) Frank Zappa
10) Joe Satriani

ThomasGtar

well said slicker. michael if you can't even ponder the fact that Tommy Emmanuel deserves in top 10 then it's either you haven't listened to his cds or watched him play live or you just plain can't see talent. TE at worst debatable top 10 (for sure top 20)......at best he's in top 5