Realistically - Where does Lindsey belong?

jeffs · #1 10-06-2003, 12:10 PM

We all think Lindsey is one of the best and unusual guitarists of his time and now. Most of us also know he is usually excluded from lists that rank the greatest rock guitarists, most recently Rolling Stones greatest 100. So - realistically, putting aside our bias love for LB, where does he belong on a truely accurate list? I am not a guitar player or expert, so I can only imagine that he does truely belong in the top 20 or 30 rock/pop guitarists of all time.

JS

chiliD · #2 10-06-2003, 12:40 PM

I think he belongs somewhere in the lower middle...somewhere between 50-75.

shackin'up · #3 10-06-2003, 01:23 PM

50-75?

Then Chilli is nothing more than a dogtopping....

No. Lindsey belongs in the top twenty. And I really put aside my love for him now, because for me he tops a lot of the same old crew who's usually in those rankings. For me only hendrix beats him on the most levels...., just saw that rosebud-documentary-clip of ISA as posted on buckinghamnicks.net ....goosebumps. Never saw that before....

madformac · #4 10-06-2003, 01:26 PM

I'd say Chili is close to the mark..

I'd rank Lindsey in the top 50 of all time, just.

Polls are very good indicators of feelings at the moment. For instance, Jack White of the White Stripes at 17 but not a sign of Slash in the top 100!!! Quite amazing. Recalculate the poll in a years time and Buckingham would be in the top 30.

These polls are about the moment and about the tunes rather than the abilities of the said player.

Lindsey is a very, very gifted guitarist and one of my personal top 5 but there are better players out there for sure. When I think of Lindsey I think of him as a creative genius, producer, songwriter, THEN guitarist and finally singer.. The sum being greater than the parts (as LB himself might say)

My top 3 just for the record are

1) Eric Patrick Clapton (always overlooked despite his amazing volume of work because he didn't die young)

2) Mark Knopfler ( only guitarist to ever do things I couldn't understand with his fingers)

3) Saul Hudson aka Slash (most fluid player I've ever seen in my life)

cliffdweller · #5 10-06-2003, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by madformac
Polls are very good indicators of feelings at the moment. For instance, Jack White of the White Stripes at 17 but not a sign of Slash in the top 100!!! Quite amazing. Recalculate the poll in a years time and Buckingham would be in the top 30.

Yeah, you're right, Rolling Stone usually bases their polls on who is "hot" right now and Slash ain't hot. Jack White is. But about Lindsey Buckingham-- he has been a consistently amazing guitar player, work-horse, and all around gifted musician for 30 years, ever since Buckingham/Nicks which was his first effort, and showcased, I might add, incredible guitar work for such a musical "novice." Yeah, L.B. has been ignored more times than not over the years for his talent, and I think it's time that he's recognized, if not by Rolling Stone, then by us, The Ledgies! Therefore, I aim to put him in the top twenty and I don't think this is over-shooting or giving him too much credit, it's credit well deserved I think.

BlueGrass · #6 10-06-2003, 01:42 PM

To me, I think Lindsey is the best guitarist. It is very hard and unfair to compare him to others because he is so unique from the others. After seeing him flail, frial and finger pick his way through all those songs right infront of me I am now convinced he is the best.

CarneVaca · #7 10-06-2003, 01:55 PM

Lindsey Buckingham is my favorite guitarist and musician.

Having said that, I will try to be objective in saying I believe he belongs in the top 10. While Clapton and others are generally considered "better" guitarists, I believe Lindsey beats them all in sheer inventiveness, except for say Django, who invented a whole new set of chords and played like no one else. Lindsey pushes the envelope with every new set of recordings while he could still be rerecording Go Your Own Way and The Chain and getting away with it.

Are there better guitarists? Yes, probably. Are there more exciting, interesting guitarists? I humbly submit not.

I would add to that that I have seen unsigned guitarists who play better than the household names. One in particular comes to mind.

chiliD · #8 10-06-2003, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by shackin'up
50-75?

I was being realistic. Ok, I'll give him up to maybe 40 and no less than 60...but that's all I'll go.

Quote:

Originally posted by shackin'up
Then Chilli is nothing more than a dogtopping....

I'm offended, joking or not.

Quote:

Originally posted by shackin'up

No. Lindsey belongs in the top twenty. And I really put aside my love for him now, because for me he tops a lot of the same old crew who's usually in those rankings. For me only hendrix beats him on the most levels...

The only "top 20" list Lindsey belongs in is "the Best Guitarist in Fleetwood Mac"...beyond that, he's far back in the pack...but, I DO agree that he belonged somewhere in the middle of the pack of the Top 100.

Quote:

Originally posted by shackin'up
...just saw that rosebud-documentary-clip of ISA as posted on buckinghamnicks.net ....goosebumps. Never saw that before....

You think the clip is good you shoulda been there in person about 15 yds from the stage!! And, to top that, he had to follow Michael Schenker & UFO (who was the middle act of the 3 band bill...the opening act was "Small Wonder" from central Canada)

rcb77 · #9 10-06-2003, 03:55 PM

He's my all-time favorite personally, but as far as objectively speaking, I still think he's at least a top-20 guitarist. He's a much cleaner player than, say, Jimmy Page (Page played incredible riffs, but his solos tended to be quite sloppy, especially live), and his style of playing is so unique. I may be wrong on this (Chili could probably tell me), but I think he's one of the only lead guitarists of his generation who's style wasn't derived from the blues. While I'm sure he had an appreciation of them, and was influenced indirectly by them through players like Clapton and Green, his playing came more from his love of folk and California pop (Beach Boys, Byrds).

**mylittledemon** · #10 10-06-2003, 09:14 PM

Well I've been playing guitar for 8 years...so I'm a little biased. PERSONALLY...Lindsey is my all time favorite guitar player. I was playing the guitar the way he plays before I even knew who he was. So, there's a fondness for him there. BUT...do I think he's "the best"? Probably not. It's all opinion anyways. I would, in a Rolling Stone poll, stick him around 1 thru 25 for sure.

PEACE!

shackin'up · #11 10-07-2003, 05:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by chiliD
I was being realistic. Ok, I'll give him up to maybe 40 and no less than 60...but that's all I'll go.

I'm offended, joking or not.

The only "top 20" list Lindsey belongs in is "the Best Guitarist in Fleetwood Mac"...beyond that, he's far back in the pack...but, I DO agree that he belonged somewhere in the middle of the pack of the Top 100.

You think the clip is good you shoulda been there in person about 15 yds from the stage!! And, to top that, he had to follow Michael Schenker & UFO (who was the middle act of the 3 band bill...the opening act was "Small Wonder" from central Canada)

OOhhh, you were there? jealousy......

Please, Chili, don't be offended, I respect you as one of the most informative and original posters on the ledge. And you wrote the best review of the SYW-tour I've read 'till now. Maybe my humour doesn't fit everytime, sorry for that.

But: Although there are a lot of guitarists that are more technically skilled in the traditional way, I really think Lindsey's one of the most original players in music history. Yes, Schenker's hard to top, but he is what I call a " musician's musician". Lindsey's not, he'll always go for the song. So i understand why he's not in those lists, but when you are the main arranger of four majestic albums in the 70's and reinvent yourself as a guitarplayer decades after that you deserve a place above the claptons, schenkers, vai's, knoppflers etcetera. They basically do the same thing brilliantly over and over again. For me it is also about development and renewal. From that point of view, name one guitarplayer who did what Lindsey did in the last 50 years of rock'n'roll.

Janet · #12 10-07-2003, 09:35 AM

Off subject but not off topic ( now does that make sense?) at the Philly concert someone was screaming out " Now why didn't you make Rolling Stone" I thought it was funny and everyone around him was agreeing and knew what he meant.

I agree with Chili because I guess technically Lindsey isn't the best * top 20* but still very good compared to others-- on my list he'd be #1 ( no bias at all!

)

John Run · #13 10-07-2003, 09:55 AM

Music is about feel and one's own appreciation for the sound that someone else creates. What is great to one's ears may be just boring to another. I find so many great guitarists who I enjoy and discover and redisover their playing over and over again. To make a definitive list is impossible in my opinion. For me Lindsey's playing took a giant leap from 1982 to when he reemerged in 1992. Lindsey is innovative. Lindsey is a great recycler though. He loves to find something he likes and then reuse it over and over again. That is not a bad thing. To me it is very interesting how he can continually take parts of old pieces and place them in new songs. He may come up with a new way to play that piece or play it through an array of technology and effects, to take it to a whole new place and sound. That is where I find Lindsey to be so innovative. It is his ability to recycle and reinvent his past playing into something new.

Great guitarists in no particular order and Lindsey is on this list.

Chet Atkins
Mark Knopfler
Ricky Skaggs (mandolin)
Scotty Moore
Nils Lofgren
Dan Tymisnki
Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam)
Peter Buck
The Edge
Don Felder
Wes Montgomery
Jimi Hendrix
Slash
Steve Winwood
Eric Clapton
Earl Skruggs (Banjo)
Vince Gill
Jose Neto
Narciso Yepes
Eric Johnson
Lindsey Buckingham

face of glass · #14 10-07-2003, 10:14 AM

If we’re speaking of soloing technique, then Lindsey can’t be near the top. His solos don’t really ram up and down the fretboard and they are neither complex nor particularly fast. For someone who has fingerpicking skills, they’re oddly slow. Can you even get close to the hair-metal runs of the album version of “Come” with a Turner? ChiliD, any experience on this?
For me, too, it’s the emotion that counts. In purely subjective terms Lindsey is in my top5 solo guitarists. His solos are “obsessive” because of the repetition he likes to use in climactic spots and that’s why they speak to me.

In the end Lindsey isn’t the equivalent of Hendrix, Clapton, Santana, etc. He didn’t really invent a new way of playing and he’s rarely had any influence on a well-known player. He didn’t revolutionize rock’n’roll.

And then there’s spontaneity. A skill to improvise and change the old. I’m afraid he’s not that great in this area these days. Before the Out Of The Cradle tour, yes, but not that much now, because nearly everything in a current Fleetwood Mac show is prearranged. I know that ChiliD has a deep appreciation for the blues, and since Lindsey said that the “blues bores me”, ChiliD doesn’t have Lindsey among his favourite players any more. Or at least that’s what you can read from the “I Got The Blues” thread. I have to say I miss the young spontaneous Buckingham, who wasn’t afraid of jamming at one time in his life. And if we look at LB as a spontaneous player, he doesn’t cut it these days. The solos are pretty much the same. Eric Clapton plays different solos each night, every tour. Although I do have to apologize Shackin’up and Sodascouts (the Florida “Come” helped me here, thanks) for my first post on these boards: he does play different stuff on “Come” and “I’m So Afraid”, he just doesn’t do it every night. But even these are in a safe environment.

Here’s a thought: Lindsey didn’t necessarily say that blues is boring. I think “Murrow” is a blues, although not in the traditional sense of the 12-bar blues, more in the form of the good old field-blues, when the whole thing was more free-form. But, back to the opening sentence of the chapter: I believe that Lindsey himself isn’t interested in improvisation that much nowadays. He knows that when a band is playing without any structure, very little interesting things usually happen. And I’m sure that LB isn’t interested in the improvisation in solos either, because a million players have been doing it since the world began. That’s why he took that step from the Mirage tour to the Out Of The Cradle tour. He arranges things very carefully these days, because he doesn’t care for spontaneity much. He still works from the point of view of a studio player and an arranger. That’s where he excels and that’s where he’s still trying something new every time, even though he does like to recycle some things. You might claim that it’s not natural, that it’s not spontaneous, that it’s not very rock’n’roll. You might say that a player needs to feed from the audience and that rock’n’roll is a social thing, not dabbling in the studio alone. And I would agree with that. But I’m sure he doesn’t have that much to give as a lead player/improviser and he knows it himself too. It’s the studio recordings he cares about in the end. No matter how long those might take him these days, the end result always intrigues me. If we were to think of guitar players as arrangers, then I would insist that he be in the top10. Objectively or subjectively.

shackin'up · #15 10-07-2003, 12:21 PM

....okay, face,

...but I'm not interested in solo-pace. One Eddie van Halen (love him, he's born half a mile from my home in nijmegen) is enough. And clapton plays different solo's everynight but does not approve his songwriting one little bit. he was a big one, influencial too, but a boring one when it comes to personal development. The fact that Lindsey plays basically the same soli (dutch) in this FM - show doesn't bother me, because he is serving songs. But I just don't get it when people don't acknowledge the fact that his guitarplaying is EVERYWHERE in his solo and FM-work, and that the way he does that is innovating and different from 99.9 percent of all guitarplayers.

He was my number two after Hendrix, but as I'm typing this, I'm reconsidering. Sorry Jimi. You're number two now.

.........and of course, this was only my humble,humble,humble O.