My vote for most underrated guitarist of the 80s

[marnold]

OK, a quick quiz for you children of the 80s:

Who played the guitar parts on Whitesnake's two multi-platinum albums "Slide It In" and "Whitesnake"?

Steve Vai? Nope he didn't come in until "Slip of the Tongue"
Adrian Vandenburg? Nope, except the solo on "Here I Go Again"
Vivian Campbell? Bzzt.

It was John Sykes. (And a collective "who?" comes up from the crowd.) Say what you want about those albums but it is undeniable that there is some spectacular guitar playing on them. After "Whitesnake" was recorded in '87, Coverdale canned the entire recording band for reasons I've never heard explained. He then got together the supergroup version of Whitesnake with Vandenburg, Campbell, Rudy Sarzo on bass, and Tommy Aldridge on drums. Steve Vai later replaced Campbell.

Sykes most recently was supposed to be going on tour with Thin Lizzy. He had been both playing guitar and singing for them. It's crazy that he played on some of the most well-known tracks of the 80s and hardly anybody knows who he is.

 

[Katastrophe]

John Sykes is a guitar monster, and has a great singing voice in his own right. Tragically underrated with his work with Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Blue Murder and others.

 

[MichaelE]

Lindsey Buckingham.

 

[R_of_G]

marc ribot worked on two of tom waits' greatest albums in the 80's, rain dogs and franks wild years, and turned in some of the finest guitar work ever. still, very few people knew who he was. he gets my vote for sure.

 

[bigG]

Lindsey Buckingham.

Agreed!

 

[Monkus]

Originally Posted by MichaelE
Lindsey Buckingham.

Agreed!

Ditt0 ! oke:
Did't know that about John Sykes though, one of the many reasons I stay at this forum. Great info !!! :AOK:

 

[tunghaichuan]

I've been a fan of Sykes since I heard him on this album:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spellbound_(Tygers_of_Pan_Tang_album)

I still have a well-worn copy on vinyl.

OK, a quick quiz for you children of the 80s:

Who played the guitar parts on Whitesnake's two multi-platinum albums "Slide It In" and "Whitesnake"?

Steve Vai? Nope he didn't come in until "Slip of the Tongue"
Adrian Vandenburg? Nope, except the solo on "Here I Go Again"
Vivian Campbell? Bzzt.

It was John Sykes. (And a collective "who?" comes up from the crowd.) Say what you want about those albums but it is undeniable that there is some spectacular guitar playing on them. After "Whitesnake" was recorded in '87, Coverdale canned the entire recording band for reasons I've never heard explained. He then got together the supergroup version of Whitesnake with Vandenburg, Campbell, Rudy Sarzo on bass, and Tommy Aldridge on drums. Steve Vai later replaced Campbell.

Sykes most recently was supposed to be going on tour with Thin Lizzy. He had been both playing guitar and singing for them. It's crazy that he played on some of the most well-known tracks of the 80s and hardly anybody knows who he is.

 

[marnold]

The thing is that everybody and his monkey knows who Lindsey Buckingham is. Those two Whitesnake albums sold a million, skillion copies and the videos were all over MTV, but people never even saw John Sykes much less know who the heck he is.

I will say that I didn't really know about Lindsey Buckingham's playing (Fleetwood Mac really isn't my thing) until the acoustic version of "Big Love" came out. It turned a barely tolerable song into something that almost made me drive off the road the first time I heard it.

Now I've got the Bob & Tom "Sing like Stevie Nicks Kit" bit going through my head.

 

[Geraint Jones]

I`m going to pick Pino Palladino a bass player who defined the sound of the `80s for me . He's played with just about everyone and he's a local boy . One of the stand outs was Paul Young's Wherever I lay My Hat , the fretless bassline much imitated .

 

[sunvalleylaw]

I had never heard of Pino til the Mayer Trio. I had no idea he was active in the 80's. I can't really pick any under rated 80's guitarists, at least better than the one Marnold picked.

 

[Lev]

Who played guitar on Alice Coopers Poison? Turns out to be the same guy on John Waite's Missing You, and Cindi Laupers Time After Time and Belinda Carlisles Heaven is a Place on Earth and pretty much every Billy Joel record from the 1980's.

The guys name is John McCurry and he's a complete unknown, no website, no wikipedia entry but he's played on dozens of hit records from the past 30 years or so. Check is discography here: http://www.artistdirect.com/artist/credits/john-mccurry/465604

It's pretty amazing that some guys with one record end up on the front page of every guitar magazine but someone like McCurry who's guitar lines were the soundtrack of a generation remain complete unknowns. Would love to know his full story but I haven't been able to dig up much on him on the web.

The only reason I came across him was to settle a bet with a friend of mine on who played on Alice Coopers Poison, I then found all his recording credits and was pretty amazed.

 

[R.B. Huckleberry]

Slide It In? 'Cept for a couple of overdubs, that was Mel Galley, wasn't it?



(just goofin'. Your point is taken, and Sykes should be more appreciated than he is...)

 

[bluliner55]

Hello!
I'm new to the forum, thought I'd chime in on this topic.
This sort of topic usually needs to be put in the perspective of genre. Agreed, Sykes was a relatively unkown hard rock/metal guitarist. But think about where someone like Holdsworth was in the 80's. Even after a major endorsement by a visible figure like VH, Holdsworth still languished in relative obscurity. His music has never been the favored flavor, never had a top 40 hit.
Sykes at least had the boost of being a previous player in a pretty-biy band, sorth of the boost that Quiet Riot got when they re-formed after RR's death.
All this is to say that there a hundreds-if not thousands-of underrated players that are far less visible than Whitesnake was.
By the way, I love Sykes's playing, so this is no knock.