Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Guitar Amps
  • Plugin Week 25
  • Guitar Pedals
  • Synths
  • Guitars
  • Artist news
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Software & Apps
  • Drums
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • Plugin Week A-Z
  • You Oughta Know
  • Fake AI band
  • 95k+ free music samples
  • Wrecking Crew
Recommended reading
Finneas
Guitarists “Such an emotive player... so cool": Finneas names his 5 favourite guitarists
Steve Albini
Producers & Engineers 6 of the quirkiest producers who pushed recorded music further than ever before
Mick Ralphs in 1971
Artists “Bowie gave them the song but Mick wrote the intro — the lick of all licks”: Joe Elliott's tribute to Mick Ralphs
Kane Hibberd, the photographer behind the Scale exhibition in London, poses in front of his photographs – guitars features will include Kerry King of Slayer's BC Rich and Tom Morello's Arm The Homeless S-style.
Guitars Exhibition featuring life-sized photos of 100 legendary artists' guitars to open in London
Getty Compile of Artist Pics
Artists 9 fresh long reads on tracks with astounding musical moments
Ian "Shiner" Thomas of Those Damn Crows onstage playing to a festival crowd with his Gibson Les Paul. He wears a baseball cap and sunglasses.
Artists Shiner from Those Damn Crows on how to write a No.1 album and the Slipknot riff he wish he wrote
Brent Mason
Artists “You hear the record and they took you off!”: Ace session guitarist Brent Mason reveals how he made it to the top
  1. Artists
  2. Guitarists

8 underrated guitarists

News
By Total Guitar ( Total Guitar ) published 5 June 2013

We salute the great unsung heroes

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Prince

Prince

“Prince is a better guitar player than Slash,” Graham Coxon once claimed, and while we wouldn’t go that far, the purple one is a truly incredible player: fusing rhythm, lead, feel and technique into a style that’s almost Hendrix-worthy. Find his performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps on YouTube and revise your Top 5 guitarists list accordingly.

Page 1 of 8
Page 1 of 8
Izzy Stradlin

Izzy Stradlin

He held down impeccable rhythm, co-wrote half the Guns N’ Roses catalogue from Don’t Cry to You Could Be Mine, and his exit from the line-up in 1991 effectively killed the band. Given all
of that perhaps it’s a little bit unfair that Mr Stradlin will forever be known as “y’know, that bloke in the chimney sweep cap who used to stand next to Slash on stage...”

Page 2 of 8
Page 2 of 8
Alex Lifeson

Alex Lifeson

Despite monster prog chops and a Les Paul tone to die for, the Rush man rarely gets a mention in pub discussions, presumably because he’s never achieved notoriety by falling out of Stringfellows with a stripper’s garter belt over his head.

Page 3 of 8
Page 3 of 8
Malcolm Young

Malcolm Young

Despite owning arguably the best picking hand in rock, Young Snr has spent four decades skulking unloved at the back while the crowd chants: “An-gus! An-gus!” In fairness, that’s what happens when you dress your little brother as a novelty schoolboy and give him all the solos.

Page 4 of 8
Page 4 of 8
Huey Morgan

Huey Morgan

The headlines focus on the faux-mobster shtick, the Radio 6 Music show and the reality TV dog- training, but beyond the play-in-a-day riff of Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ signature tune Scooby Snacks, Huey is also a seriously accomplished blues soloist. And don’t you punks forget it.

Page 5 of 8
Page 5 of 8
Mick Ronson

Mick Ronson

Armed with his stripped Les Paul, the late sideman swung from spaced-out lead gorgeousness on Bowie’s Life On Mars? to visceral freak-outs such as Vicious from Lou Reed’s Transformer. But that’s the trouble with hanging out with era-defining rock icons: nobody even notices you’re there.

Page 6 of 8
Page 6 of 8
John Lennon

John Lennon

Frontman. Songwriter. Icon. Tragic hero. But does anyone remember Lennon as a guitarist? Well, they should: his blazing Rickenbacker 325 rhythms on the early Beatles material are peerless, while I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and Yer Blues find him handling his guitar like a weapon.

Page 7 of 8
Page 7 of 8
Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor

Respect to Brian and Ronnie, but Stones fans know that in the early 70s, this gangly introvert was Keef’s greatest wingman, applying bottleneck brilliance to the likes of Sway, before jumping ship in 1974 to do... not a lot. “Mick is a great guitar player,” said Richards. “But he found out the hard way that’s all he is.”

Page 8 of 8
Page 8 of 8
Categories
Guitars
Total Guitar
Total Guitar
Social Links Navigation

Total Guitar is Europe's best-selling guitar magazine.

Every month we feature interviews with the biggest names and hottest new acts in guitar land, plus Guest Lessons from the stars.

Finally, our Rocked & Rated section is the place to go for reviews, round-ups and help setting up your guitars and gear.

Subscribe: http://bit.ly/totalguitar

Stay up to date with the latest gear and tuition. image
Stay up to date with the latest gear and tuition.
Subscribe and save today!
More Info
Read more
Finneas
“Such an emotive player... so cool": Finneas names his 5 favourite guitarists
Steve Albini
6 of the quirkiest producers who pushed recorded music further than ever before
Mick Ralphs in 1971
“Bowie gave them the song but Mick wrote the intro — the lick of all licks”: Joe Elliott's tribute to Mick Ralphs
Kane Hibberd, the photographer behind the Scale exhibition in London, poses in front of his photographs – guitars features will include Kerry King of Slayer's BC Rich and Tom Morello's Arm The Homeless S-style.
Exhibition featuring life-sized photos of 100 legendary artists' guitars to open in London
Getty Compile of Artist Pics
9 fresh long reads on tracks with astounding musical moments
Ian "Shiner" Thomas of Those Damn Crows onstage playing to a festival crowd with his Gibson Les Paul. He wears a baseball cap and sunglasses.
Shiner from Those Damn Crows on how to write a No.1 album and the Slipknot riff he wish he wrote
Latest in Guitarists
Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age plays a red/orange Gretsch onstage, and is framed by a triangle of yellow-green stagelights.
“It was the most bizarre musical experience”: QOTSA’s Troy Van Leeuwen on playing Paris's Catacombs
[Left] Richie Faulkner plays his custom Les Paul Custom while Rob Halford looks on; [right] Late-stage Ozzy-era Sabbath the first time around, with Ozzy cheering on guitarist Tony Iommi
Judas Priest salute the OG metal gods with a cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs
Fender Chris Shiflett Cleaver Telecaster Deluxe
Meet the guitarist who’s worked his dad’s ashes into his Telecaster
Phil Collins and Daryl Stuermer
“It was confusing to me": Guitarist Daryl Stuermer on recording Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight
Laney Black Country Customs Tony Iommi TI100: Long-time Laney user Tony Iommi is pictured with his new signature amp, which is limited to 50 units worldwide to mark Black Sabbath's final show at Villa Park.
Laney celebrates Black Sabbath's final show with a limited edition reissue of Tony Iommi's TI100 amp
Whitesnake in 1990
“We needed the right person to join the family”: How Steve Vai put the sizzle into the last big hair metal album
Latest in News
Joe Armon-Jones
Ezra Collective’s Joe Armon-Jones on the imagined musical apocalypse that inspired All The Quiet
Melbourne Instruments Roto-Control
Melbourne Instruments' Roto-Control gets Bitwig Studio integration following 2.0 firmware update
Waves 4th of July
Waves just made building a pro-level plugin chain a lot cheaper - grab 2 for $59.99 or 4 for $99.99
Deals of the week
MusicRadar deals of the week: Celebrate the 4th of July in style with hundreds slashed off gear from Gibson, Fender, Alesis, Roland, Yamaha, Boss and more
Paul McCartney at the piano at Live Aid
Bob Geldof on how Paul McCartney’s Live Aid performance was almost a disaster
ai band
Who is behind The Velvet Sundown, the AI-generated band that blew up the internet?

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...