Billy Sheehan    Okay, now keep in mind that I’m a guitar player, okay? And also keep in mind that I frequently give my friend, Bill, a hard time about being a bass player and joke around with him about playing an inferior instrument. But keep in mind that it is all done in jest and that I am truly not a bacist and only kid when I make such bacist comments. In fact, I promote stamping out bacism and that bass players should be considered equal to the other musicians who may spend more time in the limelight. “Stamp out Bacism!”   “Bass Players Are People Too!” With that said: I need to point out that Mr Sheehan is the only “Non Guitar Player” on this page. But with that said, I believe it is safe to say that Billy Sheehan has done for bass playing what Michael Jordan did for basketball. Or what the likes of Michaelangelo and Rembrandt did for painting. No exaggeration that time. I first heard about Billy Sheehan when he was with his original band Talas. I still have their live album. It’s great. The band was not bad at all. I think Billy was clearly the stand out in the band but they were all good musicians by their own rights. I was just blown away that he had a Fender Precision bass with a wammy bar. Yeah…. a wammy bar. After Talas, Billy did a stint with UFO, replacing original UFO bassist Pete Way. This was of course, the post Michael Schenker UFO. I’m fairly certain that he toured with UFO but did not record with them. It wasn’t until he began playing with David Lee Roth once Dave split up from Van Halen that the bulk of the planet finally got to hear (and see) him. From there he did the Mr Big thing which spawned a ga-jillion dollar hit. He’s also done a lot of solo stuff as well as collaborated with some others. He’s got a website with his discography on it. Check it out. It’s pretty impressive. I’ve now seen him twice. Once with Steve Vai and once with BX3. He’s amazing live. He’s light years ahead of others and clearly has the right to be arrogant but he chooses to be incrdibly humble. That’s awesome. I already did a big write up on Billy on the BX3 story in my news section of the site so I’ll refer to that for details on his playing so in this section I’ll just say….. Look At The Picture! That’s how the guy REALLY plays! Okay, enough said. If you don’t believe that this guy is all I’m cracking him up to be, click on the sound clip and listen for yourself. Then drop me a line and tell me how right I am. ;-)

Brian May    You have to keep in mind that while I started playing guitar at 14, I wanted to start back when I was like 11 or 12. So even back before I started playing the guitar always jumped out at me whenever I was listening to music. Whenever a Queen song came on the radio I remember being so intrigued at how the guitar sounded. Even then I knew it was different. I became a Queen fan, and even more so a Brian May fan, at a young age. Yes, Brian’s sound set him apart from literally everyone else. But he was also just a flat out great guitarist. His technique was TIGHT! I loved to watch him play. He would play and his fingers would barely leave the fingerboard and they all seemed to move independently and go off and find their preset destination. He had great riffs and was one of those guys who was fast but didn’t rely on the speed to get him by. His bends are so unreal. They are so unique I could hear it and pick it out of a lineup. He was also one of the few who used the wammy bar so well and would do a slow dive. Keep in mind this was before Van Halen arrived. But without a doubt one of the most defining things that made Brian’s sound so unique was the way he harmonized in the studio. This along with his incredibly unique sound left me just staggering. I was able to see Queen in 1982. One of the best concerts I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve also seen Brian host a guitar gathering where he came out and played with the likes of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. The three of them played together. It was mesmerizing.

Eddie Van Halen    In 1978 the guitar world was turned completely upside down by the arrival of 21 year old guitarist Eddie Van Halen. At that time no one had done more for guitar innovation since Jimi Hendrix. The release of Van Halen’s first album instantly raised the bar for every guitar player on the planet. Everything changed as Eddie re-wrote the book in literally every category. His sound: although Eddie only used a handful of effects, he had a very big, very thick sound. All of this coming from a homemade guitar and a Marshall amp with his handful of basic effects. Eddie’s technique was amazing. He could make his fingers do things that seemed physically impossible. And then do it so quickly. He didn’t rely on bar chords yet he still got such a deep, rich sound from his rhythms. He took the wammy bar to a completely different dimension. I remember being 16 and hearing “Eruption” for the first time. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. It was like, not of this Earth. Then there was the tapping. Wow. Indescribable. But everyone quickly picked up on it. It was amazing how fast players took that and then ran. I loved the first album. It was different. VERY different. It was original. It was new. Eddie was a true master, an innovator that was doing things that no one had even dreamed of before. I wish at some point he would have done some solo material. I did hear the 3 song album that Eddie did with Brian May of Queen, and Alan Gratzer (drummer for REO) called Brian May and Friends, but it sounded very thrown together, like they wrote and recorded it in a day. I would have loved to have heard a collaboration with some other musicians of his caliber to see what kind of results that could have bore. On Van Halen II Eddie did a song called “Spanish Fly”. It was an amazing piece he did on a nylon string classical. He does some very fast picking and then goes into some tapping. The sound of the tapping on the nylon strings was so cool. It had an acoustic sound yet the nylon gave it a smoother sound that would not have been the same on a regular steel string acoustic. There was also a song on the second album called “Women In Love”. While I’m not overly fond of the song itself, the intro was amazing. He tapped out the intro on harmonics over chords, playing the chords with his left hand and tapping the 12th  fret harmonics over it. How he came up with that is just beyond me. It is a flat out beautiful piece of music. On every album Eddie had something that just stood out and was so different and continued to show that he was onto something on one else was at the time.

Gary Richrath    Gary was another early influence. Now keep in mind that there are two completely different versions of the band known as REO Speedwagon. The REO in the 70’s was one of the hottest acts around. They rocked big! Gary wrote some great songs and played some great guitar. The REO of the 80’s was lead by Kevin Cronin who kicked out countless ballads and pop rock tunes as well as Gary himself when he no longer fit Kevin’s new mold and view of “his” REO. They took a complete 180 from where they were the previous decade. Those who missed out on the REO of the 70’s truly missed out on some amazing music. REO (of the 70’s) was incredible live. They sounded so much better live than they did in the studio. Gary had a much fiercer sound live than he did in the studio. They also had the original bass player in Greg Philbin, who was such a far batter bassist than Bruce Hall, who has played with REO since Greg’s departure in 1978. It was also at this time that they started their slow decent. Anyways…. Gary was truly a great rock guitarist. He had a great sound. He used the wah-wah pedal so well. He would have it on a lot and use it at times as a tone control and not necessarily rock back and forth on it constantly but just edge it up and down a little bit to give his guitar a bit of a growl. Man! It was so cool. He also had some great licks. Check out the live album and that should pretty much sum things up for you. Gary was also an early and very huge influence during my early years. Thanks Gary!

Jimmy Page    Jimmy is another one of those guitarists who I listened to a lot in my early days. Zeppelin is of course one of those legendary bands. Pretty much all of my influences were influenced themselves by Jimmy Page. I remember reading interviews by a lot of my guitar heroes of the 70’s. Pretty much every one stated that they were influenced by any of the following: Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, or Ritchie Blackmore Page, however, was a ground-breaker. For the longest time he was pretty much in a category all by himself. Zeppelin’s first album came out in 1969, a great album full of energy and great musicians. Page and bassist John Paul Jones came from The Yardbirds. Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham came from The Band of Joy. (yeah…. they were really called The Band of Joy). The following year the top three music acts in the country suddenly went belly up when Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin all died from overdoses of some kind. (oh, the 60’s) Zeppelin stepped up and filled the void. Jimmy was another guitarist who I listened to a lot before I ever started playing guitar. I recall being about 10 or 11, hearing “Black Dog” and thinking that Led Zeppelin was the name of a black singer. Like I said, I was 10 or 11 at the time. I soon learned that Zeppelin was a band and that Jimmy Page played guitar. The first Zeppelin album I was exposed to a lot was Led Zeppelin II, easily one of the classic albums of all time. I use to sit and pick apart “Heartbreaker” and “Livin’ Lovin’ Maid” and take a stab at Jimmy’s guitar solo in “Heartbreaker”. I couldn’t do it at 15 or 16 and really haven’t tried since. “Good Times, Bad Times” is another tune I liked a lot. “Tangerine” is another great one that I can’t help but start playing whenever I have my 12 string out. While the first three albums always stood out as my favorites, my daughter, Samantha, who happens to be a HUGE Zeppelin fan, brought to my attention “Houses Of The Holy” which had classic Zeppelin song after classic Zeppelin song on it. Thanks for pointing that out, Sam. Jimmy, needless to say, is a great guitarist that will go down in the archives as one of the greatest and most influential. I loved “Black Mountain Side” from the first album. The funky tunings he used frazzled my mind. I’m still not 100% sure what tunings he was using. I believe he used DADGAD a lot but don’t quote me on that. Not withstanding his great guitar prowess, Jimmy also had a great live show. He was one of the first guys that just looked good playing. (I know only from video and sadly, not because I ever saw them live) While I didn’t really listen to as much Zeppelin once I really started getting into playing lead guitar, I have to acknowledge the impact that Jimmy made in the early days of my playing.

Michael Schenker    I first started getting into Michael Schenker when I was around 19. I really got into the old UFO and Michael played lead for UFO. He was just different. He had such a great sound, and just did things a little bit differently than how everyone else was at the time. I think that’s what made him stand out when I heard him. I loved the way he phrased things. He was fast, really fast. During his solo in the song Lights Out he pretty much just rips it from start to finish. But then in the song Only You Can Rock Me he starts out with this very melodic line and then does this little flurry and takes it up to a high bend and then did some really unique riffs at the top of it. A lot of the stuff that Michael did was very unique. I recently went out and bought their live album on CD, They Only Come Out At Night. That’s a really good CD. Even on the songs I liked less than the others, Michael still had a ripping solo in it. In his earlier years he played with his brother Rudy in The Scorpions. Michael left came back briefly, then left again for good. Since UFO he started his own band, The Michael Schenker Group (MSG). I haven’t heard much of this but I did hear some fairly recent work that he did. While in a drug rehab he wrote an album entirely on 12 string. The song Thank You is incredible. I think Michael bridged the gap between the 70’s and the 80’s. He was doing things just a little bit differently. Loved his style, his sound, and his technique. Oh… and he played a white Gibson V Mark V and that was very cool.

Neal Schon    Neil is one of my biggest influences. While Journey didn’t quite go to the extremes of REO as far as transitioning from the 70’s to the 80’s, there was still a noticeable change in the direction they took from the 70’s to the 80’s. Neil’s history is both impressive and amazing. At 12 years old he was already making his presence known in the studios of the San Francisco area. At 12!! When he was 15 both Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton approached him, Carlos wanting him to join Santana and Clapton wanting him to join Cream. (True Story) Neil chose to play with Santana as they were from the US and Cream was in England. The thought of moving out of the country scared the 15 year old to death. Two years later, at 17, Neil and Greg Rollie, keyboardist and vocalist for Santana, left the group to start their own band. What many don’t know is that Journey had several albums before the arrival of Steve Perry on Infinity in 1977. The self titled “Journey”, “Look Into The Future”, and “Next”. Neil did some great stuff on the earlier, less known Journey. One that sticks out is his guitar solo in “To Play Some Music”. He used a wah-wah but not heavily. Just here and there for effect. But it was the albums Infinity, Evolution, and Departure that really grabbed my attention. While each of the three slooooowly moved closer to the pop sound, they were still great albums and Neil did some amazing guitar work on all of them. To mention a handful: “Patiently” from Infinity. Great acoustic work (and the first song that Neil and Steve wrote together) “Feeling That Way” is a great song and Neil’s solo in it is great as is the same in “Anytime”. Evolution had “Do You Recall”, “Sweet and Simple”, “Too Late”. I loved Departure. “Line of Fire” is a great song with a truly amazing guitar solo in it that has taken my literally years to simply comprehend how he did it. While I still can’t quite pull it off, I at least now know what he’s doing in it.  “People and Places” is probably my favorite song on that album. If you’ve never heard it, go buy the CD. Neil does some lead vocals in it as well. While I didn’t get into too much of Journey in the 80’s, I saw them first in 1981 on the Escape tour. I do like Escape a lot and even though Greg Rollie left just before that and we seemed to have Johnathan Cain crammed down our throats, it was still a great album and an amazingly great concert.  You start to hear the beginning of the end of Journey in “Open Arms” but there is some great songs and some great guitar work on the album. “Dead or Alive”, “Keep on Running” were both great songs but without a doubt my favorite Neil Schon solo is in “Mother, Father”. If you’ve never heard his solo in that song, I’m telling you, it is a must hear! How can someone shred like that and yet still have every note drip with emotion? It is blistering fast yet still captures the feel of the song so accurately. Amazing, simply amazing. Journey was just a great band. They all fit well together. The musician’s were top notch. Neil, Greg, Steve Smith (drums) and Ross Valory (bass) were all great musicians that played so well together. Then you add Steve’s vocals and Neil, Greg, and Ross’s backing vocals. They were very tight. Neil is such a huge influence and I am thrilled to death when people say that they hear a touch of Neil Schon in my playing. I take that as a very nice compliment. Thank you so much, Neil.

Punky Meadows    As much as the group Angel should have been a household name of the 70’s, they were not as big as they should have been and deserved to be. Gene Simmons of KISS saw them play in a bar in Washington, DC and made the now infamous middle of the night phone call to then president of Casablanca Records, Neil Bogart, and insisted that he sign these guys. They were signed less than a week later. They were completely donned in white and were suppose to be the opposite of what KISS was. KISS was dark and menacing. Angel was completely white and bright. Casablanca also ensured that KISS and Angel never play the same stage for fear of Angel upstaging the dark lords. It also should be mentioned that Punky auditioned for Ace Frehley’s (of KISS) spot when Ace left KISS in 1980. They gave him the spot but he then backed out trying to keep Angel together. They disbanded the next year. With that bit of history said….. Punky was an excellent guitarist. He was good in the studio and had nice, flashy licks. I like a lot of the studio stuff that Angel did and would recommend their albums. However, live they were a completely different story. They were good in the studio. They were GREAT live. Their stage show was phenomenal and their sound was incredible. I highly recommend their live album Angel. Live Without A Net. Sadly, Casablanca has yet to release the works of Angel on CD. Why? I do not know. I tried desperately during the 80’s to try to find that album but it had been taken out of distribution and was no where to be found. I recently was able to pick it up on Ebay. Punky played a Strat through Ampeg amps and had such an incredibly big, thick sound. It always floored me at how much different his sound was in the studio and how it was live. It always sounded very thin in the studio like the single coil strat pickups always use to. But his sound live was so huge and had such great sustain. The opening song of the live album, “Tower” just grabbed your attention and then while the audience was still applauding wildly over the first song they break into the opening of “Can You Feel It”. What a great song. I have the studio version of that song from the Anthology CD that was released but it is nowhere near as intense as the live version. Punky played GREAT rhythms, very powerful. He’d hit a chord and it would go right through you. His solo’s were just so fitting. It was like the perfect touch every time. He had such incredibly, great bends. He would pick fast and then bend slow ala Ritchie Blackmore only I think Punky’s sounded cooler. He also had a guitar solo on the live album during “Rock and Rollers”. Not an incredibly difficult solo. Not filled with unfathomable riffs but it just sounded great. I wish he would come out of retirement and do some new stuff. It is such a shame that he never got the notoriety he deserved. Angel live… go buy it.

Randy Rhoads    I still remember the first time I ever heard Randy Rhoads. It was the summer of 1981. I had just graduated and was cruising along with a friend of mine when “I Don’t Know” came on the radio. All I could say was, “Who is this guy?” They said it was from Ozzy’s first solo album The Blizzard of Oz but they didn’t say who the guitar player was. All I could do was wait until I heard it again, which I did. I finally just went out and bought the album. I listened to it night and day. Randy was like a breath of fresh air. Things seemed to be at a bit of a halt at that time. There wasn’t a whole lot of new things going on and the new stuff that was coming out wasn’t to my liking. Randy was called the Pretender to the Van Halen throne. Randy was another one that didn’t use a lot of effects. He only used like five or six. But his sound was very unique. In the studio he would layer over his rhythm tracks multiple times to get a very thick sound. He is also the only one I know of who played over his lead tracks. He’d play the exact same solo again over the original one to give it a thicker sound. It worked. The songs from the first album I really enjoyed were “I Don’t Know” and of course “Crazy Train” even though they played that song to death. But “Mr Crowley” was my favorite song on that album. He did two solo’s in that one; the main one in the middle and then one that they faded out on at the end. Randy was fast but didn’t just play a flurry of notes. Every note made sense and seemed to belong there. His solo in “Mr Crowley” just seemed so perfect, starting off just kind of rocking back and forth on the opening riff before working his way down and then back up to the bend at the end of the run the playing around in that same area before ending the riff with a bend and some heavy vibrato. Then just ripping on the next riff and walking it down the neck with a real diminished feel before ending the solo on the low E dive. Man! It still gives me chills. The Diary of a Madman album was a great follow up to Blizzard of Oz. “Over The Mountain” has such heavy rhythms the just seem to flow together so nicely. And then there’s the solo in that song. Wow! I loved how he opened the solo with the first three notes in Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath”. It’s like if you didn’t know the song you wouldn’t even know it was there. Very subtle. Great use of the wammy bar, never over did it. Never over did anything. I was fortunate enough to get to see Randy live. I saw him exactly 42 days before he died so tragically. I read in an interview where he said that felt that he was “on” only 1 out of every 4 shows that he played. I’m convinced he was “on” for this show. Everything about that concert blew me away. The stage set up. The musicians. (Randy, Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge, and Don Airey… oh yeah…. and Ozzy) It didn’t matter of Ozzy would have been there or not. The band was hot! And Randy’s guitar solo was incredible. One of the biggest travesties in music, in my opinion, is the Randy Rhoads Tribute Album. Everything sounded bad, off, like they were bad takes. This must have been one of the other 3 out of 4 shows that Randy was not happy with. If you’re familiar with Randy’s solo on the tribute album, listen to that then click on the sound byte I’m providing with a 1981 solo that Randy did in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Huge difference. The one in the sound byte is without question far better than the one on the album. Randy was a truly great guitarist and the world was robbed of a lot more music that he could have given us. RIP.

Ritchie Blackmore    Ritchie was another player that really got my attention during a certain point in my playing. When I was a teen in the 70’s, Deep Purple was still putting out albums. The lineup changed from time to time and at one point Tommy Bolin replaced Ritchie during one of his absences from the band. But for the most part they were a constant during the 70’s. I totally and completely LOVE Ritchie’s guitar work on the live album, Made in Japan. Ritchie was fast and smooth, and for a young impressionable guitarist as I was at the time, that really grabbed my attention. “Highway Star” live was great. The hard part about this song live was that the studio version was so good. Ritchie overdubbed his guitar part and did, at the time, a groundbreaking solo that many guitarists had at the top of their favorites list. Well, obviously he’s not going to be able to pull that off live. But what he couldn’t pull off due to the lack of ability to multi track live, he equaled live by just flying through a flurry of notes. This was like 1971 and 1972 and there weren’t a lot of players playing that fast at that time. Ritchie could fly. He also used the wammy bar so freaking well. He was doing stuff that no one was really doing yet at that time. Same song, “Highway Star” live, he did this little wammy bar riff at the end of the first chorus that was like “Auughh! What the heck was that?!?!?”  Go listen to it. It’s great. I also really, really liked the stuff that Ritchie did with Ronnie James Dio when they first broke away and started Rainbow. “Man On The Silver Mountain” is obviously the song that most people think of when you think of Rainbow, but there were so many other good songs they did. Ronnie and Ritchie were great together and they made some GREAT music. My favorite Rainbow tune is “Kill The King”, great guitar work, great lyrics, great solo. The whole thing just rocks big. Once again, the dreaded 80’s killed another good band as Ritchie insisted that they go more commercial and Ronnie disagreed so strongly they parted ways. As of late, Ritchie has been doing Renaissance music. The sounds of that might sound cheesy but what I’ve heard I really like. He has a piece of one of his newer CD’s called “Mimingen”. Wow. It’s a great piece.

Steve Vai    Much like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai was doing things differently than everyone else at the time. Steve Vai is simply mesmerizing to both see and hear. Back things up: a little history. Why were both Satriani and Vai so unique? One has to wonder if the fact that Steve Vai took lessons from Joe Satriani has anything to do with it. A young Steve Vai showed up at the doorstep of Joe Satriani, who gave lessons, with an unstrung guitar and a pack of strings asking if he could help him. Some call Vai the master of the space age guitar, and truly Steve comes up with some very unique sounds. But again, when you watch Steve play you know that this guy has spent a lot of time getting to know his instrument very well. He has a great sound and an unbelievable technique. He’ll play these amazingly complex riffs and make it look so easy. Check out the movie Crossrads. Steve played the devil’s guitar player, Jack Butler. Steve did some ferocious riffs in it. The solo that Ralph Macchio’s character plays at the end of the big guitar duel is actually Steve playing. What a great solo. There are some really wicked riffs in there, but again, Steve runs through it like it’s nothing. How does he do this?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I first became aware of Steve Vai when my friend Bill Kitley had me listen to an album by a group called Alcatraz. Alcatraz was the band that gave Yngwie Malmsteen his start. He did a couple albums with them before going solo. Steve replaced Yngwie on the next album. The stuff he did was simply amazing. Again, so new and so incredibly unique. He played a sitar instrument of some kind on one of the songs. While everyone was doing the same thing for the most part, he kind of took a different direction and broke new ground. Shortly after this was when Dave Roth split from Van Halen and went solo. He put together an incredible band to back him up on his solo venture. This consisted of Steve, Billy Sheehan on bass, and Greg Bissonette on drums. Wow. In my humble opinion, this band destroyed the new Van Halen lineup of Eddie and Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony, and Sammy Hagar. Steve did three albums with Dave before going solo. He managed to continue to break new ground on each new solo release. In October of 2003, I saw G3 in concert. This particular lineup was Satriani, Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen. Yngwie was cool but after about 20 minutes of watching him play ever song at a million miles per hour, I was ready for the next one to come on. The next one was Steve.I can tell you firsthand that Steve has a great live show. Awesome. What I really loved about seeing Steve live was that he was such an amazing talent yet, like Satriani, chose to be very humble and gracious. He truly appreciated his audience and gave us all the feeling that he was so glad we were there. He is truly a class act. If you can have the chance to catch a G3 concert, I highly recommend it.

Ted Nugent    In 1979,  Ted had pretty much reached his pinnacle at that point of his career. I have to wonder if Ted gets the respect he deserves. I never really heard much of The Amboy Dukes other than “Journey To The Center of Your Mind”, which I wasn’t a huge fan of.  And I guess they originally did “Great White Buffalo” as well. The live version of that is pretty cool. But when I was 16, Cat Scratch Fever was still huge. My sister, Tammy,  got me that album for my 16th birthday. I played that album until it became so thin it disappeared. There were several songs on that album I liked a lot. Cat Scratch, of course, was a great song then but over the years I’ve both heard it so much and played it so much that I don’t think I can even listen to it anymore. But there was also a song called “Death By Misadventure” that was absolutely GREAT! And there was an instrumental called “Homebound” that I use to play to death. And then there was, of course, “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang”. Yeah… only Ted could come up with a song title like that. While I like that song on the studio version I absolutely love that extended guitar solo that Ted does on the live album “Double Live Gonzo”. In fact, if you don’t have that Ted album (CD), you should probably go buy it. Ted is without a doubt, the riff master. He has such good riffs and good licks. I will still to this day reach down and crank up “Stranglehold” every time it comes on the radio. Ted had a great band backing him up in Rob Grange, Cliff Davies, and Derek St Holmes on guitar and vocals. I always felt bad for Derek because he was such a great singer and quite an accomplished guitarist. Sadly, Ted will always be Alpha Wolf and Derek was kept pretty confined. To plug Derek fairly and deservedly, you must find the album Whitford/St Holmes. It features Derek St Holmes and Brad Whitford from Aerosmith. In my incredibly humble opinion, I believe Brad Whitford do be a better guitar player than Joe Perry. Brad has a very tight technique and has a bit more of a modern sound and style than Joe Perry. But I’ll not get into that here or now. There were a couple of albums that Ted did that really didn’t get the notariety they deserved. This would be “Weekend Warriors” and “State of Shock” the latter being my favorite of the two. There were a couple of songs off of  “State of Shock” that I really liked a lot. That would be “Bite Down Hard” and “Need You Bad”. Ted played a really nice solo in “Bite Down Hard” and he and Derek did probably some of the best harmony leads I’ve ever heard in “Need You Bad”. Soon after was the dreaded “Wango Tango” which I have still never forgiven him for. After his well known financial ruin right around 1980, he started over from scratch and had (if the rumor is correct) a bar band from Howell, MI backing him up. So during the 80’s I didn’t really hear a lot from Ted. I did however really enjoy the stuff he did with Damn Yankees. Tommy Shaw is a very decent guitar player in his own rights and Jack Blades of Night Ranger is a great bass player (look up Rubikon- a jazz band that Jack played in pre Night Ranger along with Brad Gillis and Fitzsimmons? Fitzpatrick???? Whoever the keyboard player for Night Ranger was. Heavy Jazz! But really good stuff. My 16th year was a big guitar year. I was playing a lot. I started taking lessons from Max that year as well. And during that year, Ted was on my record player a lot. I learned a lot of his riffs and feel that he as well, made an impact in my playing.

Tom Scholz    I first became a Tom Scholz fan in 9th grade. Boston’s second album hadn’t come out yet and they were still riding the wave of that incredibly awesome first album. “More Than A Feeling” was being played on the radio like… all the time. I’d only been playing for a matter of months at this time but I was hit really hard by the emotion that Tom was able to put into his playing. I played that album constantly and never tired of it. I loved the way he layered the guitars on “Peace of Mind”. Especially on the outro where each time through he’d come in and harmonize a little bit differently than the previous time. Brilliant. The guy was a genius. And to think he didn’t start playing guitar until he was in college. Mind blowing. I also loved the solo in “Hitch A Ride”. Then the second album finally came out. The last song on side one blew me away. The solo in “A Man I’ll Never Be” literally both blew me away and took my breath away. There are so many great things about that solo I don’t even know where to begin. His sound, his technique, the way he phrases, the riffs themselves. While this has been one of my favorite solo’s since I was a teen, I only just sat down and learned it over this past year. I still work with it a lot and try to capture the emotion that he played with as well as try to accent each note exactly the way he did. But you really can’t talk about Tom without mentioning the way he harmonized with himself in the studio. He’d  harmonize on just a few notes here and there for accent. God, it was brilliant. While he was so great in the studio, I also saw Boston live twice. Although it took up to five guitarists to re-create the studio sound to Tom’s perfectionist expectations, they pulled it off really well and it sounded incredible. Tom is without a doubt one of my biggest influences.