Players: Your Influences?

Without these truly awesom guitarists in my life i would have never picked up an axe

Jimmi Hendrix
Jimmy Page
David Gilmour
Kieth Richards
Eric Clapton
Buck ? (guy from BOC)
Eddie VanHalen
Kurt Cobain

Dharma.

Yes, Thank you Cheese.. Buck Dharma is his stage name..

His Drivers License reads Donald Roeser...

http://www.buckdharma.com/Main.html

I should include Joe Walsh, Stever Cropper, and Dick Dale

I'm a drummer and 5 years ago I would have said that the drummer I admired the most was Keith Moon and his incredible overactivity with the toms (just listen to "Heaven and Hell" from "Live at Leeds"). But with the passing of time my tastes have derived towards a more delicate and intricate drumming and now my absolute idol is Bill Brufford (and for an example I would choose "Heart of the Sunrise" by Yes).
One of the few drummers I liked from the very beginning and that I still worship is the great John Bonham. That bass drum... incredible! Listen to "In my Time of Dying", what an experience!

let's see, let's see...I'd say that my main influences are Lennon, Harrison and Gilmour.
Lennon and Harrison, because I've learned how to play guitar with the help of my dad's beatles tab books, so basically there's some beatles style in my playing.
Gilmour, because he's always been my favorite guitarist and I spend most of my free time trying to play just like him. I'm very aware that it will never happen...

So many guitarists have influenced my playing, but I never would have played guitar had I not heard a particular song. I'll never know why but when I first heard Behind Blue Eyes a long time ago it inspired my to pick up my neglected guitar and after that I took off.

Could it possibly be that Ole' Petey is a fantastic player and has influenced the playing of millions of guitarist worldwide (myself included)......

I would have to say that I never would have picked up a guitar without the influence of Jerry Garcia. The things that he could do with a guitar blow my mind. And to think that he did this all at a disadvantage to most (all?) other players, he only had nine friggin fingers!

But I would also have to agree with Lily, as our experiences are very alike. I too learned my first riffs and chords and chord progressions from a borrowed beatles songbook and I love Harrison (the master of the chord of C!) and Lennon (master of the 3/4 waltz time sig). But I tend to be more drawn to the music of the Dead lately, just a phase in my development I guess. Big Dave is too obvious to mention really, but cannot be left out.

I just love the Jerry style solos though. No two are ever alike! Is anyone here familiar with the process that he went about to make those sounds with a guitar? Fulgy? The improvisation? It would all be notes in a particular scale, correct? With nine fingers? Everytime I listen to any great Dead songs Jerry's guitar riffs seem like they keep the same cadence and syllabic (word?) structure as the chorus of the song. I can hear the guitar singing. It follows the music to a ridduclous detail. Like Tennesse Jed or Sugaree, some of Jerrys guitar riffs follow the cadence and structure of the chorus to a note. It literally sounds (to me at least) like Jerry could make his guitar sing, like it was an extension of his vioce, and what a voice it was!

have you realised they used the B7 chord in almost all their freakin songs? I hated that chord because I couldn't do it properly, due to finger inflexibility, common among starters, and my tiny hands. I would say "oh which song am I gonna learn today, let's see let's see, hope there are no B7....F*CKING HELL THERE'S A WHOLE BUNCH OF 'EM!!"

yeah I, errr GlassOnion, definately ran into that problem. Alot of B7's too. And if you look at a song like "You Never Give Me Your Money" it has like 30 friggin chords in it. Out of control

Hey, I got all day. Want to see if you can add new users as fast as I can ban you?

You really need to sort some issues out, mate.

Hmm... my first influence on guitar was my dad, as I was 8 yrs old when I decided I wanted to learn and I hadn't joined the "generation gap" yet. Him strumming away on old Hank Williams tunes inspired me.

Years after when I finally discovered I could play "rock" solos, I'd have to say my initial influences were Hendrix and Blackmore, ie; lots of Strat noise and feedback with whammy bar action.

Over the last 20 or so years, my style has become a sort of mix between DG, Steve Howe and Malcolm Young (not Angus).

My compositional style (such as it is) is inspired by Wagner and Miles Davis filtered through The Who crossed with PF

....sometimes with a smattering of Sunn O))) for ambiance and drone.

My well of ideas doesn't usually come strictly from rock music. Like I said, I started with Hank Williams and Wagner.