The Supergroups, pt 1.

The Supergroups, pt 1.

This is a pretty tired idea, it is pub chat in its purest form and has cemented its place with other drunk ramblings such as the idea of ‘Opening a Bar’ and ‘Who would you invite to a dinner party?’. It is the assembling of a Justice League-esque group of crazy talent and I thought I would have an attempt with different genres and stipulations, so here it goes.

‘The New Black’

In the recent years we have been lucky enough to have a new array of talented musicians trying to prove their place as our generations’ greats, and the four I am thinking of specifically all seem to be African-American. I don’t even know what genre of music they would play although they are all very influenced by Fusion Jazz, but whatever it is, it would be at times unsettling and other times soothingly tranquil.

Singer+ Guitar- Willis Earl Bearl
Bass- Thundercat
Guitar + Vocals- Gary Clark Jr
Production- Flying Lotus

Here are two Thundercat and Fly-lo song showing their ability to remix; they both have hip hop and jazz backgrounds and are incredibly innovative in a number of different genres. Thundercat is probably the best bass guitarist around at the moment and Flying Lotus the most prolific songwriters. The second song is what would happen if Rick James took acid instead of crack.

Here is a track by Willis Earl Beal, the homeless person who appeared on the American X-Factor, he is one of the most intense performers around as can be seen in this video and has an ability to wail with the best. He’s also a pretty solid guitarist when he’s not using a toothpick as a plectrum.

And last and arguably the most talented of the bunch is Gary Clark Jr, he along with Willis is a one of the prophets of the American Blues revival, he can riff like The Black Keys and sing like a young Hendrix.

The Loss of The Guitar Hero

 

Earlier this week Ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante announced that he was going to release his next album on August 29^th. John Frusciante is the man who impressively got kicked out of RHCP for doing too many drugs, which is sort of like getting kicked out of a Scissor Sisters gig for being too camp. However John Frusicante is in my opinion one of the best guitarists of the last two decades, a performance which showcases his guitar skills can be seen below. The video is of Dani California on Jools Holland and it is incredible and one of the best live renditions, I’ve ever seen.

It got me thinking that in an age where anyone can learn the guitar by going on YouTube and we have guitar video games to inspire younger generations to pick up a guitar and try it out, there is a distinct lack of guitar heroes. There was a period in the 70’s when Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Santana, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Tommy Iomi and many other renowned guitarists were all at large but in the late 90’s up to 2013, there have been only a few guitarists that history will remember. In the Rolling Stone’s top 100 Guitarists there are only three guitarists in the top 30 that came to be known after 1996, them being Tom Morello, Jack White and John Fusciante, who all rightly deserve this accolade. Although the Rolling Stone’s list loses some credibility by not including Slash or Jose Feliciano and having Joey Ramone in the top 20, a guitarist who admitted he only knew three chords at the start of his career.

I don’t want to postulate too much into why there is a lack of guitar heroes, I just want to showcase a couple of videos, showing that although the future may not be too kind to a lot of our generations guitarists, there are still a bunch of talented axemen out there.

John Mayer

Vultures (live)

Bold As Love (Hendrix Cover, Live)

Gary Clark Jr

Bright Lights (live)

If you Love me, Like you Say

Jack White

Blue Orchard (live)

Dan Auerbach

Little Black Submarine (live at Reading Festival)

Josh Homme

Make It Wit Chu (3mins in)

Russell Lissack

Coliseum (live)