Who are your “greatest guitarists”? They can be electric, they can be acoustic.

Your list can include not only what you consider to be the best guitarists, but your favorites as well? And why?

I have my own:

1. Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath)

2. Robert Fripp (King Crimson, solo)

3. David Gilmour (Pink Floyd, solo)

4. Leo Kottke (solo acoustic)

5. Jimi Hendrix (JH Experience, solo)

6. Bill Nelson (Be Bop Deluxe, solo)

7. Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music, 801, solo)

8. Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser (Blue Oyster Cult)

9. Neil Young (CSNY, Crazy Horse, solo)

10. Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin, solo)

11. Billy F. Gibbons (ZZ Top)

12. Wino (The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan)

13. Dimebag Darrell (Pantera, shot & killed in 2004)

14. Pete Townsend (The Who, solo)

15. Andy Summers (The Police, solo)

16. Robin Trower (Procol Harum, solo)

17. Leslie West (Mountain, West Bruce & Laing, solo)

18. Rod Price (Foghat, solo)

19. John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival, solo)

20. Alex Lifeson (Rush)

A few notations:

1. Tony Iommi: (59, UK) this man plays his guitar “backwards” (frets with his right hand, picks left). In an industrial accident at the age of 18 on his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, he lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand. Despite that, after attempting to learn to play right-handed, Iommi strung his guitars with extra-light strings (using banjo strings, which were a lighter gauge than even the lightest guitar-strings of the time) and wore plastic covers over the two damaged fingers. He fashioned the latter himself, by melting washing-up liquid bottles into a ball and then using a soldering iron to make holes into this ball, putting his fingers in whilst the plastic was still soft enough to be shaped. He then trimmed and sanded away the excess plastic to leave himself with two ‘thimbles, which he then covered with leather, to provide better grip on the strings. Subsequent tips have been custom-made.

Iommi is “credited” with coming up with, according to many of his peers and newest guitarists, “every good riff that ever existed.” I completely concur. Iommi is the KING of EVERY good heavy metal riff.

2. Robert Fripp: (61, UK) Fripp is an artist who learned his guitar in order to unlearn it. He is a precisionist of the first order and customarily known for “sitting down” on an on-stage stool when others were moving about frenetically. He pushed heavily for the right of artists to “own” their own works, flying in the face of common practice, and developed Discipline Records and Discipline Global Mobile in order to enable musical artists of all kinds to own what it was that they created by the sweat of their labors. Fripp, from England, is still performing wonderfully with King Crimson.

3. David Gilmour: (61, UK) Gilmour is probably my favourite guitarist in terms of structure and intonation. He’s not particularly fast; he’s just particularly good. His newest solo venture, On An Island, is highly recommended.

4. Leo Kottke: (61, US) My only acoustic choice, Kottke’s guitars are often tuned unconventionally; early in his career he heavily utilized open tunings, while in recent years he has used more traditional voicings but often detunes his guitars as many as two full steps below standard tuning.

Kottke also sings occasionally in baritone. In the early 1980s, Kottke began to suffer from painful tendonitis and related nerve damage caused by his vigorous and aggressive picking style (particularly on the 12-string guitar). As a result, he changed his picking style to a classical style, using the flesh of his fingertips and increasingly small amounts of fingernail rather than fingerpicks, and changing the positioning of the right hand which places less stress on the tendons.

5. Jimi Hendrix: (died 1970, age 27, US) Unconventional, self-taught, the initial King of Feedback, Hendrix was thought to have been influenced by Pete Townsend. He headlined Woodstock on August 18th, 1969. He was paid $18,000 for his appearance — more than any other artist. He played his rather famous version of the Star Spangled Banner there. He died on September 18th of 1970, in bed after drinking wine and taking nine Vesperax sleeping pills, then asphyxiating on his own vomit.

This has escaped me until now.

I’ve been blogging since June of 2004. Here is my first post. Here is an early post I actually like, about Bill Clinton.

Three years seem to have passed in the veritable blink of an eye.

So many things have changed since that time. So many things that are, in fact, completely remarkable. Things that could only have occurred in the United States of America.

I find it completely astounding that I managed, as an Digital Idiot, to create a blog in Blogger. And that, whatever it is that I have managed or not managed to create or proffer in those three years, my blog and my posts are still read and, according to NZ Bear, I am an Adorable Rodent in the TTLB Ecosystem.

Astounding beyond astonishment!

I am a self-admitted HTML idiot; my thanks go both to Texas Fred and to Robert from American & Proud for their assistance with the technical updating of my blog. I have but the competence (just ask Robert!) to screw up something as simple as replicating blogrolls; perhaps too much vodka?

Here is why America is great:

And moreover, for all of this, I have not paid ONE CENT.

I have done this, courtesy of Blogger, completely FOR FREE.

Three years gone.

Amazing.

Completely amazing.

How time flies.

Thanks, everyone, for sticking with me on this astonishing journey.

— Atheism

— Islam

— Buddhism

— Hinduism

— Gaia

— Wicca

— New Age

— Scientology

I could go on and on, but I’d be doing so at the expense of my point; to wit:

LONDON (Reuters) – A “fat tax” on salty, sugary and fatty foods could save thousands of lives each year, according to a study published on Thursday.

And:

Police officers in the UK are to be given head-mounted video cameras to film incidents and arrests, the footage of which can then be used in evidence.

And:

Fast, powerful cars within a few years may be outlawed in Europe, an idea that has been raised ostensibly because Ferraris and Porsches produce too much carbon dioxide. For those who abhor sports cars as vulgar symbols of affluence (along with vacation homes, furs and fancy jewelry), such a ban could be a two-fer: Saving the planet while cutting economic inequality.

(New Jersey- WABC, July 11, 2007) – A New Jersey senator wants to make it illegal to sell or give to anyone under age 18 toy guns that look so realistic they can be mistaken for a real firearm.

And yet, despite the Left wanting us to be crammed like hamsters into crowded urban areas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a “Congestion Plan” or “Congestion Pricing” that would add taxes to residents,

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to charge motorists fees to drive into the most congested parts of Manhattan got a powerful boost on Wednesday from former President Clinton.

Or another plan:

One idea some lawmakers think should be fully examined is something you might call “first number keeps you out.” If your license plate begins with a “1” you would be barred from the central business district on the first, 11th, 21st and 31st of the month. If “2” is the first number you are barred on the 2nd 12th and 22nd — and so on.

Would it shock and appall you to think that many Leftists want it both ways: crush you into zones, keep you from traveling into those zones?

And, the Left wants you skinny and not fat, except when it doesn’t want you too skinny.

We are well on our way to being coddled, manipulated, scolded, harried, nannied, “protected for our own collective good,” meaned, averaged, feminized, milktoasted, monitored, watched, “managed” like a UPS package, hounded and arrested for things that we, now, take for granted.

Anyone remember Brave New World? 1984? The movie THX1138?

Guess what . . . ?

Many Democrats and Liberals advocate our embracing of those from without our borders. This appears to be a blanket embracement excluding any and all real world experiences.

Recently there was a LARGE conflagration (called the Angora Fire) not far from my area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains; a good portion of South Lake Tahoe in Fornicalia went up in flames due to an illegal camp fire. In this vein, to influence my feelings regarding illegal immigrants:

From Hyscience.com:

As though there weren’t already a plethora of reasons to totally reject the Senate’s scamnesty bill for illegal aliens and begin anew by strictly enforcing the immigration laws that we have on the books now – the one’s that the Bush administration has completely ignored except for the occasional selective enforcement for spin purposes, here’s yet another reason to do so, a situation caused by illegal aliens and their smugglers in which U.S. Forest Service firefighters sent in to battle fires or clear wild-land fire areas are required to be escorted by armed law-enforcement officers: Illegals light border fires to sidetrack U.S. agents .

Yes, you read that correctly: illegal Mexicans are lighting whatever tinder they can to create fires for diversionary tactics so they can cross into this country.

First Up To Bat:

Self-described:

I am a pro-victory Associate Professor of Political Science teaching in Long Beach, California. I love the United States of America, and I fully support current U.S. military operations around the world. I despise the hard-left radical agenda and discourse. I’m also bothered by irrationalism in argumentation. I welcome comments, but in debating I’ll defend my positions vigorously. But in friendship, you’ll find no one more dignified, trustworthy, nor loyal.

An actual American Educator who leans just perhaps the slightest bit to the Right? I can’t blogroll you fast enough, sir.

Welcome aboard and, please, frequent the blog of Mr. Douglas!

At the top of the blog: “If you label me, you negate me.”

This blog features some shockingly sensible posts, with a Middle Eastern slant, from a perspective somewhat removed from what would normally assume from this region. Go here now; you might find yourself slapped in the face with such refreshing views from someone who, to my mind, has someone’s crosshairs placed on his or her forehead, sadly. . .

Please visit them daily!