The Most Influential Song or Album

[ShredRex]

For me it was 5150 Van Halen. I had absolutely no inclination to play a guitar until a buddy of mine in high school showed me the now infamous Live Without A Net home video. Once i saw that, I rushed out and bought 5150 and spent months sitting in my room learning everything I could to sound and play like Eddie.

All these years later, I still get goosebumps watching the old LWAN, and love the song 5150.....it was a tough song to learn to play. I guess I should have started with something easier....lol

[ian2mur]

Got to be Hendrix the man was such an inspiration and still is.Also alot of Brian Mays
Earlier stuff with Queen...Brighton Rock is just awesome guitar wise for its time,not to sure about the vocals.Then onto the likes ofAC/DC,Clapton,EVH,BillyGibbons,EJ...and then 1987 heard Satriani and Vai ....and the guys just blew my brains out and still do.That was the time my old Strat gathered a lot of dust due to them...lol.Then started looking at playing in a whole new way and started to enjoy playing again.

[redbaron]

yahsteck, yeah, Cliffs of Dover... I heard it on BFBS or AFN and I too thought that this was the beginning of a new era. Before CoD I felt that to be a hero of mine, a guitarist necessarily had to be a great songwriter too. That´s why I worshipped Gary, Mark K., Aex L., and later Petrucci. Eric Johnson´s "Musicom" was the first guitarist instrumental album I ever bought, and then I got interested in G3, bought Steve Morse albums, learned of Vai and Satriani...

However, now, many years later, I don´t much listen to the instrumentalists anymore. I dunno - looking back I tend to think that this phenomenon of one virtuoso on a stage, accompanied by nondescript drummers and bassists and cheered at by a few hundreds or even thousands of fellow guitarists is rather 90s...

[jamienelson]

Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi’s heavy rhythm riffs blew me away. I always liked the way that they went right along with the vocal lines. That is something that I do when I compose a riff and am writing a song. It makes it a lot easier to sing and play at the same time

[redbaron]

Ok, I´ve got another one that I almost forgot. I don´t know if the Canadian band Saga was ever popular in the U.S., but in Germany they must have had (and amazingly still have) their largest fan base. Their guitar player is a guy named Ian Crichton who looks uncannily like a Renaissance putto.

Saga played with two or even three keyboards simultaneously sometimes, plus Ian´s guitar. One trademark of their sound were guitar/keyboard doubled melodies and runs, some of which I taught myself to play by heart. Ian´s style included many flageoletts, rhythmic single note lines, tapping, whammy bar - all the tricks of that 80s bad hair playing, but done (I thought at least) in a spectacular but tasteful way.

And so help me god, I´m afraid that all this is burned into my finger tips. For every riff I record with RW I have deleted three that had too many whammy dives and flageolett shrieks

I just found this video here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mwuvBHDzbWI - the last 3 mins of the song are a solo. Way back when, I spent hours to learn it note for note...

[SoCaljammer]

Hey Redbaron, I was into Saga a little bit. They had a single, "On The Loose" that got my attention. I bought their record "World's Apart" back when I was into all that progressive stuff.

I guess I'm going to date myself here, but it all changed for me at the end of 1976 when my school bus driver used to play Steve Miller's "Fly Like An Eagle" on his stereo that he wired all through out the bus. He played it so loud no one could talk...I guess he did that on purpose!

When I moved to California in January of '77 it was Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same" and the Eagles "Hotel California"
Jimmy Page was a deep influence on me. Then came KISS ALIVE!!! Van Halen.
Later I discovered Rush, Kansas, UFO ( I Love Michael Schenker...one of my top five), Satriani, Vai, Morse, Petrucci..a ton of others.

At least that's how I remember it after years of playing in hair bands on the strip in Hollywood!!! (Ahh the eighties...you gotta love it!)

[BigMetalAndy]

For me, a forever rythm guitarist, it had to be ACDC's Back in Black. Not your typical 'shredder' stuff, but it really showed me how synchopation and chord work makes a song. All my future influences build on this main concept. I should have been a drummer, I know...

[riffer7777]

i went out and brought a cheap fender copy acoustic years ago after i heard champagne supernova/oasis.loved the build up on this number,[a ]major pentatonic scale and [a ]minor pentatonic for the rip roaring solo.that guitar made my fingers drop off.it was like a cheese cutter.i got it from a catalogue book for £5 a month.i polished it every night .it was worth all the pain i must say !!! dark side of the moon/pink floyd,i used to walk around town with a copy of this album under my arm in 1973 and force mates to listen to it at my demand.lol.i played it every day for years as its a classic thats sold 35 million copies world wide to date.591 weeks on the billboard top 200 albums[11 1/2 years].

[flexkill]

It clicked for me when I heard Black Sabbath "The Wizard"!!!!

That dark fat tone....I didn't know what it was or how you did it....but I knew I loved it!!!!

I already loved all of the greats as Hendrix and such....but man that evil ,bluesy, tune The Wizard......just insane!!!!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIC_7si4ims

[JouniL]

From the very beginning it was Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore and David Gilmour. After that it was a lot of punk/new wave stuff like Television, Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen etc. Nowadays it's metall and avantgarde, Buckethead, Megadeth etc

[meesh]

Heard SRV's Little Wing version on the radio when I was 17 or 18 and went out and bought my first guitar a week later. It started it all for me. After that fell totally into the blues.

Then I heard Danny Gatton's "Nocho Blues" on a compilation blues CD and couldn't believe what I was hearing. That sent me in an entire new direction of what I thought amazing guitar playing was.

Otherwise Knopfler and Gilmour have always been my biggest 'rock' stylistic influences.

[DougMetzger]

I started playing before I heard this song, but the song that kicked it into a higher gear for me was "For the Love of God" by Steve Vai off of Passion and Warfare.

[Hemoglator2]

Kiss Alive
I'm a little older ...I still have my 45's.

I agree with that and "DESTROYER" setteled the deal

[trikloretylen]

started to play before but what realy got me sitting down and learn the whole song was gary moores empty rooms.

[28if]

For me it was a Jimmy page solo on a song called 'Bye, Bye Blackbird' on Joe Cocker's 'With a little help from my Friends' album.