Quote:
Originally Posted by esample
This thread has been making me smile for months now. Music is so subjective there can never be a single answer for everyone. The best player to you is the guy who most often plays what you want to hear.
In my mind the "best" players are the ones who affect every player who comes after them. Jimi Hendrix is one of those. No electric guitar player plays anything without referencing Hendrix's tone and technique. (Jazzers excepted)* And Chuck Berry. Ask any player you respect and he/she will tell you, it is impossible to play rock guitar without playing a Chuck Berry lick. He pretty much defined the art.
I'm sure there are those who will disagree. 
*the best jazz guitarists are the ones who stay out of the B3 player's way. |
Chuck Berry is a genius.
A must maligned genius at that.
He has a reputation for being surly, arrogant and mean. But it has been my personal experience with him that this is so not true of the man.
I had the great pleasure of standing beside Chuck Berry, off stage, watching Jerry Lee Lewis beat the keys off a piano as he waited for JLL's set to finish and for his closing act to happen.
I was apprehensive of starting up a conversation with him because of the reputation he has.
But I did.
I was pleased to find a warm, genuine person that was more than happy to indulge a young white boy in conversation for about 20-minutes.
When it was his time to take the stage he bid me well and said, "Time to go to work" and he did putting on a "clinic" for nearly two hours.