Greatest guitar solo ever, what's your pick? Options

[celicamike]

There are some awesome solos out there, which do you think is the best?

I have to go with "crazy train"

Honorable mention goes to "freebird"

[Mangozac]

^ I disagree about Hendrix. I think he was pretty f-ing excellent.

Guitar-wise, I'm all about Jimmy Page/Zeppelin solos; old skool Prince (the solo at the end of When Doves Cry); definitely old skool Metallica, especially off the One album; Santana; some sweet Slash action whether it be GnR or Velvet Revolver; U2 Bullet the Blue Sky (although that's not really a solo but I really think the song is so contingent on the guitar that it should count) and Where the Streets Have no Name for the same reason

GriffGirl wins another coolness point. Is handy with cars and has good taste in music

thats another one that everyone gives so much credit but is really not that good. He always plays the same sounding solos. its always at the bottom of the freet bourd and a lot of the songs are in the same key. ill give him that the structure of his solos are always right on, but when your doing the same thing over and over again i would hope that you would get it right.

one thing i will give him is that he has Passion in his music. But all passion and no technical is a bad thing.
but it can also go the other way, Steve Vi. Al structure, no passion.

look at Mark Koffnur( no idea if i spelt that right) the lead singer and guitarist from Dier Straits. Passion, Technical, wicked sounds, fast moving, slow moving. Hes one of the few that i think has it all. Stevie Ray Von is another one. and whats his Face from the Eagles..........i cant for the life of me remember his name, but the lead guitarist for the Eagles has it too.

I'm a guitarist myself so I think that my opinion is perhaps slightly more valid on these subjects. The thing is that sure, guitarist x might be better than guitarist y, but if their styles are different enough then they can't really be compared. I agree that all of the guitarists you mentioned (except Joe Walsh from the Eagles - man that guy annoys the hell out of me) are all fantastic but they all have their own different styles. Note that this thread is about favourite solos, not who is the best guitarist (threads of which I think are totally moronic).

BTW, I learned to play guitar by listening to ridiculous amounts of Santana music and trust me, he is way better then you think. It's only his very latest boring pop stuff that is really repetitive. And besides, it's his cool signature sounds and riffs that is why people love him so much. If you find the right way to do something you keep doing it that way

/rant

I'm going to see Santana in concert in a few weeks! Yay!