Comments on the comments:

• James Osterberg & dk: Regarding George Harrison, reminds me of a story Joe Walsh recounted. Starting out, he was so impressed by the solo on ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ that he spent hours and hours learning to replicate it perfectly, only to find out years later that George had doubletracked/overdubbed it.

• dk: It’s ridiculous to categorize Richard Thompson as merely a folk guitarist. That man is one of the best rock and roll guitarists ever.

For virtuosity I nominate Jerry Reed, Lonnie Johnson, and of course Robbie Robertson.

For knowing when not to play and making the spaces around the notes just as important (à la Hubert Sumlin) I nominate Marc Ribot and John Lee Hooker (especially his minimalist solos from the 1953 Detroit sessions- so emotionally impactful because of the tension-building propulsive, droning guitar rhythms preceding them).

Also Henry Kaiser and Fred Frith.

I just wanted to point out that Hubert Sumlin was the Marc Ribot to Howlin’ Wolf’s Tom Waits. (Willie Johnson also played guitar on Smokestack Lightnin’.)

Okay, now I’ll go back and read what everyone had to say.

I’ve always been sort of a middling Rush fan myself. Love Farewell To Kings and some of their first album. ‘Spirit Of Radio’ is a great song – ‘Tom Sawyer’ too – but most of their stuff just sounds like the audio version of Sci-Fi to me.
And as we all know, people who love Sci-Fi REALLY LOVE it, while the rest of us are left shaking our heads, asking “What’s the big deal there?”

Rag Mama Rag recently posted a great article that breaks down her love of Rush. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it here…