Quotes & Sayings About Guitarists

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

Some people are drawn naturally - there are natural guitarists, and there are natural piano players, and I think guitar implies travel, a sort of footloose gypsy existence. You grab your bag and you go to the next town. — Hugh Laurie

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

One hundred guitarists making lots of noise would not be something you'd want to listen to. — Glenn Branca

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

The blues appealed to me, but so did rock. The early rockabilly guitarists like Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore were just as important to me as the blues guitarists ... — Jimmy Page

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

I love the sound of Elmore James, the sound early guitarists like him got just by using minimal means. — M. Ward

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

Andy Chase and I were keyboard players originally, and we became guitarists later. But it's fun for us to focus more on the keyboard stuff sometimes. — Adam Schlesinger

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

After the Soft Boys I just didn't want to work with any more guitarists. — Robyn Hitchcock

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

Rock guitarists usually do not wish to think trains of thought about anything but their own guitar playing during a long solo, and I could not play this way if I were not able to divide my attention between my ever changing musical environment and my instrument itself. — John Frusciante

I don't play for the guitarists in the audience. I play for the musicians. — Frank Gambale

We were a really crazy band. This was in '73. I had my hair real short with a white stripe down the middle of my head. The guitarists had pink hair. We weren't playing CBGB's either, we were playing Statesborough, Georgia, for cowboys on penny beer night. We used to keep crowbars onstage when fights would break out. Those were really wild times. — Rex Smith

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

It's definitely true that Stevie Ray Vaughan is one of my all-time favorite guitarists. — Kirk Hammett

The use of electronics is a natural extension of the instrument - it is an electric guitar. So we guitarists have been plugging into something since 1931, and we are not about to stop now. Current advances in technology means we can have a huge array of sounds at our fingertips, and this offers amazing possibilities to the contemporary composer. It is always a guitar (I don't play synthesizer) but it becomes something else all together - more like sculpting sound in real time using metal wires, 5 fingers and a pick. — Tim Brady

The harmonious efforts which our guitarists produce unconsciously represent one of the marvels of natural art. — Manuel De Falla

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

Drummers haven't managed to develop their individuality quite as well as guitarists have. We can be so focused on the nuts and bolts that we overlook the importance of individuality - the broader picture, if you will. — Bill Bruford

I really wasn't needed ... Just straightening up riffs, that's all. Just two guitarists doing it instead of one. — Jimmy Page

Of all the early breakthrough rock and roll artists, none is more important to the development of the music than Chuck Berry. He is its greatest songwriter, the main shaper of its instrumental voice, one of its greatest guitarists, and one of its greatest performers. — Cub Koda

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

Guitar solos bore the hell out of me. Only a few guitarists interest me, and it's not about the solos they play, it's about the grooves they create. — Dan Auerbach

Most of my favourite guitarists are self-taught, because in a way there's less of a reverence for the instrument itself, so you end up finding and inventing however you want to play it. — Bryce Dessner

I do really believe that all guitarists have a different character that comes through, that's a strong character, the stronger the person is. — Jimmy Page

But I say these things in an objective dispassionate manner because, you know, and I can't explain why, but being one of the greatest guitarists in the world simply is not very important to me. — John Fahey

The E Street band casts a pretty wide net. Our influences go all the way back to the early primitive garage music, and also, we've had everything in the band from jazz players to Kansas City trumpet players to Nils Lofgren, one of the great rock guitarists in the world. — Bruce Springsteen

When I got out of high school, I was in a blues band. It was the kind of music I was interested in, and listening to, mostly because it was becoming a vehicle for a generation of guitarists - like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Mike Bloomfield. And that's what I wanted to be, principally: a guitar player. — Todd Rundgren

I think a lot of modern day guitarists start off playing like Eddie van Halen, and they don't take the time to learn the basics. — Alvin Lee

I hate to take showers! Guitarists don't like showers 'cause we like the grease to build up on our fingers, makes playing more fluid. — Izzy Stradlin

I love collecting guitars, even though I can't play well. My favourite guitarists are Richie Blackmore, Jimmy Paige, and John Mayer. — Kiefer Sutherland

Among the guitarists, Wes Montgomery is fantastic. He's always good to let you know what the art form is all about. It's the same still life that everybody is painting, but in comes Wes Montgomery, and it's right there! — Bill Cosby

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Artistes breathe and dream creativity! — Avijeet Das

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

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

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

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

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

The composers hated me. The singers detested me. The guitarists were terrified by me. — Bulat Okudzhava

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are lots of really good guitarists, but they play with the same pedals that everybody else does. Everybody buys the same pedals, so the sounds tend to be the same. I am looking for different ways of doing that without having to spend days and weeks and months fooling around with pedals, which I don't enjoy. — Paul Simon

When I began, the guitar was en-closed in a vicious circle. There were no composers writing for the guitar, be-cause there were no virtuoso guitarists. — Andres Segovia

Are you gonna sit back there and whack off or are you gonna give us a count? It's me and you to start, drummer boy. I'm ready when you are. — Shari Copell

With his new CD 'Tactiles' Liberty Ellman emerges as one of the most intriguing, albeit unorthodox, guitarists on the New York scene today. An album of original, esoteric compositions marked by dense polyrhythms, dissonant, angular lines and an organic logic that ties the whole thing together in brilliant fashion ... — Bill Milkowski