Best Guitarists Quotes & Sayings

You are most certainly the inspiration for all of today's rock 'n' roll guitarists. Your music is timeless. — Smokey Robinson

My folks were country music performers. They made records and even did a few tours with the Grand Ole Opry. There always were a lot of guitarists around. — Lenny Breau

Ray Gomez is one of the greatest guitarists of all times! — Narada Michael Walden

I've seen myself on those lists of the 100 best guitarists, and if they think that I'm that good, thank them. Thank God for them. But I don't think so. — B.B. King

An uninhibited, Chuck Berry devotee but experimented with and broke a lot of ground on feedback techniques and solid variations in tonal and dissonant utilizations. I'm one of the best guitarists in the world, and I play with great emotion. — Ted Nugent

The harmonic effects produced unconsciously by our guitarists are one of the miracles of natural art. — Manuel De Falla

There were some older guitarists on my side of town, and I got to know many of them. — Tommy Shaw

Richard Lloyd of Television is one of my favorite guitarists. His mentor was Jimi Hendrix when he was just 14. Jimi was always pounding everything he knew into that kid. — Tina Weymouth

The musical flags of the world should fly at half mast because truly one of the greatest guitarists in the world and king of the blues has died. I have cherished him and so has the rest of the world who knew him and loved him for his entire career. As we pain, we must celebrate that his music, his style of playing and singing will last forever, from the recordings that he has done and the influence that he has had and will have on guitarists all over this planet. Long live the spirit of B.B. King. — Stevie Wonder

The great British blues guitarists of the Sixties - people like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Peter Green - could play like virtuosos, but they also understood the importance of energy and intensity — Joe Perry

I've liked country music for forever. And Buck Owens is just one of many country guitarists I like. I think Buck's Sixties records are really progressive. — Buzz Osborne

There are so many good guitarists out there, I am by no means a very good guitar player. — Marnie Stern

It feels like guitarists are samurais. You know, I'm playing a guitar, instead of a katana! — Miyavi

I like to piece together different guitarists, unlikely bedfellows. You have Jonny Greenwood playing next to Nile Rodgers on the same track, so it becomes like an orchestra of sounds. — Bryan Ferry

Guitarists shouldn't get too riled up about all of the great players that were left off of 'Rolling Stone Magazines' list of the Greatest Guitar Players of all Time' ... Rolling Stone is published for people who read the magazine because they don't know what to wear ... — Joe Satriani

Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything. — Joe Pass

Guitar makes even have a word for these baby-boomers-who-alwyas-wanted-to-be-great-guitarists-and-now-have-the-money-to-indulge-those-dreams: dentists — Tim Brookes

I feel responsible to make something original as a Japanese artist. There are lots of singers and guitarists, but I feel that on stage it's meaningless to copy something someone has done before. — Miyavi

Strangely enough, I wasn't into fast guitarists. I preferred Peter Green's subtle touch. I saw him with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers at the Marquee Club in London and was very impressed. He was the only guitarist I've ever seen to turn the volume control on his guitar down during a solo. — Alvin Lee

Certainly being proficient in an instrument does have its problems. Because the better you get, the more you just start sounding like an ordinary guitarist. There are certainly guitarists that transcend that and do really find their sound and all that sort of stuff. — Nick Cave

I was glad to see other blues guitarists like Albert King have crossover successes like me. We played in the same places like the Whisky and the Filmore. When Albert made his guitar cry, he could cut you so deep! — B.B. King

That big hit 'Get Lucky' is a disco song - not only the melody and the whole concept, but we had one of the great disco guys and one of the best guitarists ever, Nile Rodgers, to play on it. So that's great disco, but a modern disco, because it has great vocoders and synthesizers. — Giorgio Moroder

A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. — William Christopher Handy

Had Kurt Cobain not committed suicide in 1994, would his genius have survived the continuous incisions of a media that was only too proud of its ability to chisel away at his fragile psyche in the years before he decided that he'd had enough off their invasions? And, had Jimi Hendrix not passed way in 1970, would he, too have eventually fallen into decline, first equalled, then eclipsed by the brilliant wave of new guitarists: Robin Trower, Ritchie Blackmore, Mick Ronson, who emerged during the early 1970s? In death, Hendrix led by example: in life he could have been left for the dead. — Dave Thompson

All the great guitarists have a spirit-a way they play and don't play. — Eddie Martinez

I always lived with guitarists. When they would leave, I would just pick up their acoustic guitars and start doing finger picking and write. — Lou Doillon

Most beginners want to learn lead because they think it's cool .. consequently, they never really develop good rhythm skills .. since most of a rock guitarists time is spent playing rhythm, it's important to learn to do it well .. learning lead should come after you can play solid backup and have the sound of the chords in your head — Eddie Van Halen

The Beatles had some juice when it came to distortion, but Clapton was finally able to break through those early studio engineers' fear of overloading. He defined the sound that guitarists spend the rest of their lives trying to get. — Joe Perry

Michael Sunday and I are the original members of the band. We first did it just for charities and benefit concerts. It was very ad-hoc, and before we knew it, we were really a band. We went through several drummers and guitarists before we were happy with the line up. — Peter Tork

Artistes breathe and dream creativity! — Avijeet Das

Some of the greatest guitarists, historically, have had no chops, they've just had great taste. I know a lot of musical school kids who just have no taste. — Kemp Muhl

I think guitarists are really over-admired and over-revered. — Jonny Greenwood

I play weird. I'm always just behind. We [drummers] only have so much room. We're not guitarists. — Ringo Starr

A lot of blues guitarists play with only three fingers, and they can't figure out certain runs that require the use of their little fingers. Classical training is good for that. — Ritchie Blackmore

If I had known I would influence so many guitarists, I would have practiced more. — Ace Frehley

I've spent a lot of time in tiny venues in the way that I got my record deal and got my name out there just performing live. I was literally performing my songs in all kinds of different ways with different guitarists, and I didn't have an album up online or anything. It's been a lot of work; it definitely hasn't been a sudden explosion into fame. — Florence Welch