Although he never reached the status of a guitar hero and is better remembered as an incredible singer and songwriter, Neil Young has always been interested in the instrument and other guitarists. Over the decades, he had the opportunity to see and play with some of the greatest musicians of all time and spoke about many of them, even once listing who he believed were the best of all time, saying: “Those are the guys.”
The 6 guitarists Neil Young said are the best of all time
J.J Cale
“(J.J. Cale was) one of the finest, most masterful guitar players. You can hear his influences on Clapton, Dire Straits’ Knopfler. It’s like they have obviously learned a lot from J.J. and hardly anybody know who J.J is. (He) did enough songs so that musicians and people who are in the music really know who he is, but somebody may listen to (a song and don’t know he wrote it).”
“But if you’re really into music then you know who J.J. is but the normal guy in the street will know who Eric Clapton is but won’t know who J.J. Cale is. Will know who Mark Knopfler is but won’t know J.J. He is a defining influence, he really has got the touch,” Neil Young said, mentioning Cale as the first one, who in his opinion was one of the best of all time to Musicians Hall of Fame in 2005 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
In Neil’s opinion, people can call Eric Clapton a guitar God but he can’t play like JJ Cale. “What is it about J. J. Cale’s playing? I mean, you could say Eric Clapton’s the guitar god, but what the fuck does that mean? I mean he can’t play like J.J. J.J.’s the one who played all that shit first. Most of the songs and the riffs—the way he plays the fucking guitar is so … great. I think we’d play great together. There’s no doubt, if it was just the two of us, it’d be somethin’ special.”
Neil Young continued:
“And he doesn’t play very loud, either—I really like that about him. He’s so sensitive. Of all the players I ever heard, it’s gotta be Hendrix and J. J. Cale who are the best electric guitar players. J.J.’s my peer, but he doesn’t have the business acumen. He doesn’t have the idea of how to deal with the rest of the world that I do. But musically, he’s actually more than my peer, because he’s got that thing. I don’t know what it is.”
I must have it, too—but I don’t recognize it, okay? But I know J.J. has it. I’m only saying I have it because, after thirty years I must have something. I’m just doin’ what I like to do. Really, is it original? I dunno… I know it’s what I like, and I know what I like is what other people have done. I’m just doin’ my versions. My music is just a bunch of stuff that comes from other people’s music—and my life,” Neil Young said in his biography “Shakey” (2002) by Jimmy McDonough.
Besides his collaboration with Eric Clapton, another famous song by J. J. Cale that was successfully covered by another band was “Call Me the Breeze,” which was recorded by the Southern Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Jimi Hendrix
The second guitarist mentioned by Neil Young is Jimi Hendrix, who he was lucky enough to have inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in a ceremony in 1992 which had Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding.
“Hendrix was the best at being able to do his expression with his guitar. I’d say out of the 60s as far as someone taking the guitar to another place, Hendrix was number one. There was no other guitar player that came near to Hendrix in the way he handled it playing Rock and Roll as trio. A three man band, guitar, bass and drums.”
“He was so unique, he had his own place. It was the Jimi Hendrix Experience, of all the trios, there was nothing like the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The way they all played together, the bass player and the drummer, it was all three of them together that made that sound. Jimi wasn’t the same when he played with the other bands, it wasn’t the same. It was what happened when he played with those guys that made him free enough to express himself.”
Neil Young continued:
“To go to those places that he went with his echoplex and his whammy bar, the distortion and the multi-amp approach that he used, that vibrates the guitar to the point where you stand in front of it. It’s not that loud for you because it’s behind you and people in front of it get their heads blown off. So you just move the guitar a little bit and let the sound come out of the amp, hit the back of the guitar and vibrate it and don’t dampen with your body and suddenly the guitar just takes off like hell,” Neil Young told Musicians Hall of Fame in 2005 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Although Neil wasn’t a close friend of Hendrix, he had the chance to meet the legendary guitarist a couple of times. He already said that “for his money”, Hendrix was “the greatest electric-guitar player who ever lived”.
Jimmy Reed
The third guitar player mentioned by Neil was Jimmy Reed. “In high school I used to listen to Jimmy Reed. He was really one of my big favorite Blues men. (Jimmy) played a Kay electric guitar and harmonica on a rack. He was just so great, he wrote a song called “Baby What You Want Me To Do”. I love that kind of music, Blues, Boogie Blues, Electric Blues…”
“I’ve listened to this music all my life, I just never had a band that could play it. When I had the Shocking Pinks, when we did that old Rock and Roll show, there was a section of that where we had a horn section just for a while, where the manager, guy who played the manager of the band, came out and gave away a few records and then picked up a baritone sax and then the piano player picked up a trumpet and we had a sax player already, so we had three horns, you know.”
Neil Young continued:
“So we did a couple of songs like that. We did a lot of Blues in the Shocking Pinks, in the show. So it goes back at least that far on my records, where you can see that happening. In my life, it goes way back to the beginning in high school. I used to play Blues with my band, that’s the way I started,” Neil Young said in an interview (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
The legendary Blues musician was famous for songs like “Honest I Do”, “Big Boss Man” and “Bright Lights, Big City”. He was a big influence for other legendary artists like Elvis Presley, Hank Williams Jr., Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. Reed was active from the 1940s until his death in 1976, at the age of 50. His latest album “Blues Is My Business” was released two years before his passing.
Lonnie Mack
Neil Young has also always been a big fan of Lonnie Mack and, curiously, the only time he tried to use the famous Gibson Flying V during his career was because he was inspired by Mack, who used the same model. “Old Black had lost its pickup. I loved Lonnie Mack, and I thought if I had a Flying V, I’d get a lot of the same sounds, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t stay in tune,” he said in an interview for his biography “Shakey.”
When answering a question from a fan on his website about that attempt to use the guitar, Young said: “Flying V was a crap guitar for me. Albert King and Lonnie Mack made it sound great. I could never get it in tune and sold it,” he said in 2018.
Born in West Harrison in 1941, Lonnie Mack did not achieve the same level of fame as many artists from his generation. But he became a huge inspiration for musicians who were interested in his style of playing, like Neil Young. He is remembered as an important artist in the development of Blues Rock and Southern Rock. During his career, he released 11 studio albums and also worked as a session musician on records by Freddie King, James Brown and The Doors, playing bass on some sessions.
Hank Marvin
The only non-American guitarist mentioned by Neil Young, Hank Marvin first achieved fame as a member of The Shadows, the backing band for Cliff Richard from 1958 to 1968. The group also had a successful instrumental career of its own, with influential songs such as “Apache,” “Wonderful Land” and “Summer Holiday.”
“I started off writing instrumentals (When I was 19). Words came much later. My idol at the time was Hank B. Marvin, Cliff Richard’s guitar player in the Shadows. He was the hero of all the guitar players around Winnipeg at the time. Randy Bachman too; he was around then, playing the same circuit. He had a great sound. Used to use a tape repeat,” Neil Young said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1975.
Marvin was a huge inspiration for many other famous guitar players like Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath), David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple and Rainbow).
Eddie Taylor
The last guitarist mentioned by Neil Young, Eddie Taylor was one of his biggest influences while growing up. He never achieved the same level of fame as his contemporaries in the post–World War II Chicago Blues movement. But he became a legendary artist who inspired countless musicians around the world.
He is usually remembered for being a main accompanist for Jimmy Reed and for also having worked with names such as John Lee Hooker, Big Walter Horton, and Sam Lay. Taylor was born in Benoit in 1923 and remained active until his death in 1985 at the age of 62. Some of his most famous solo recordings are “Indiana Wants Me,” “Stroll Out West,” “Blues in the Rain,” and “Big Town Playboy.”