List your influence thread v1.0

Thanks Chris

Barnabus Rox
- for having the admirable courage to post stuff that he knew was pretty much crap, publicly admit as much, and then letting the world watch and help as he slowly, and with great effort, successfully clawed his way slowly towards getting better and better each week.

And its' still crap :lol: :lol: :lol:

My influences as far as my playing goes , is actually listening to you guys , P Bee , Gerry , Vic , Celt , just to name a few ,

I have a theory , why try to be like the professionals ? I ain't ever going to be that good , so why not enjoy what I can do and that is make crappy music with crappy vocals and hopefully one day I will be playing half decent enough to show off in front of "Non-cyber " people .. :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink:

I had TONS of influences, as I understand the definition. Everything I hear, good or bad, and everything I see. I picked up the guitar because I thought I wanted to sound like Gilmour doing Comfortably Numb solo on Pulse or Knopfler doing his Brothers In Arms slow lead. After I picked up the guitar, others followed and in some cases replaced the originals. Keith Richards comes to mind first and foremost. I didn't fully appreciate what he does/did until I started playing. It's tough to single or even list 'em all out.

There are loads of people on this forum that have contributed as others have previously mentioned. I've not had any of those moments of despair or anything like that where I needed encouragement. I did, however, gain much knowledge just "listening" and asking seemingly stupid and obvious questions.

I guess the final one would be anyone who does this live for fun. I've jealous on a couple levels for that.

OK .....

KISS - Made me want to play guitar, so I did. That is an infuence? Correct?

Led Zeppelin - I developed my Idea of what lead guitar should sound like from listening to Led zep II over and over again before I even played guitar. I was learning blues scales and didn't know it.

Black Sabbath - Dark tone, palm muting ... all parts of my style I would credit to them.

There are a lot more, but that is the core influence of the TR sound.

Hmmmm....
Well, I listen to a lot of different kinds of music.

I'd have to say that it was Paul Kossoff of Free that really made me want to start a band....
And starting that band, then fighting to stay in it and have some influence over it's direction
was how I started playing guitar.

Koss is also a playing influence, and bits of his rhythm and lead playing can be found in my own.
(More so when I was young regarding rhythmic style)

Also when I was young; Joe Walsh's James Gang rhythm was a huge influence. (Chucka Chucka Chucka!)

For as much as I BASH Clapton, HE more than any other single guitarist can be creditied with having the MOST significant influence on my playing style.
I have learned a LOT from EC.

And of course the blues guys: BB & Albert King licks show up often in my leads.

Peter Green is my favorite guitarist.
And yes, I have my PG moments, as well as a Danny Kirwan influence.

Syd Barret's 'Offness' surfaces quite a bit in my originals :mrgreen:
(And yes cnev.... Syds 'perm gone bad' influenced me to get one myself! 8) ) (Which he was influenced to get one because of Jimi Hendrix; So by proxy....?)

Alvin Lee was my first guitar hero.
Oddly enough, it's his acoustic rhythm work that has worked its way into my originals.

The Beatles and the Stones.... Not so much their playing (save George Harrison's ULTIMATE use of arpeggios, which I have unashamedly copped a few times for some originals :wink: ).... No
I look to the Beatles and the Stones for their studio production techniques and style.
Both without peer in that catergory!

Neil Young I guess had a huge influence over me.
It was a simple Neil Young songbook that really got me going.... if those songs were actually correct is another matter!

Van Morrison, who thankx to him got me to play my first song (Gloria) AND SING while I played!
His Astral Weeks album is still an influence and inspiration.

I'm sure there are many more, though like TR said: That's more than likely my 'core' of influence :wink:

Ken

The ones that made me want to play guitar:

George Harrison

Jimmy Page

Ace Frehley

Pete Townsend

Alex Lifeson

The ones I've come to admire since I started playing:

David Gilmore

Tom Morello

Bucket Head

Scott Henderson

Mark Tremonti

There are tons more, but those are the ones that come to mind right now.

Dan

the ones that really, reaaly made me want to play guitar? The Beatles, back in '63 when I was five years old - oh, there have been other influences since, but the Beatles were there first - EVERYBODY wanted to be a Beatle, back then.

As much as I love the Stones - they were struggling to come up with something for a second 45, till John and Paul gave 'em "I Wanna Be Your Man" -

so it'd have to be the Beatles - they turned EVERYBODY from my generation onto guitar bands. After being told by Decca Records, "Sorry - we think groups of guitars are on the way out...."

:D :D :D

Vic

They are all really cool lists, and I too am in the "everything I've ever listened to category", but I did want to add this;
When I was studying classical guitar as a youngster and being totally bored with it, and not really having any real influence to draw upon, I eventually stopped learning of course. A few years later I started working in a HiFi store, and the guys there were always using Earl Klugh as demonstration material. That's when I first heard the sort of music that I wanted to play. I've never forgotten that and whilst I hardly ever listen to Earl Klugh these days, I always remember those pivotal moments.

Wow, this is tough, I have had lots of different influences over the years.

My first influences were Country artists like Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Buck Owens and many others. My Dad was always playing Country on the radio and record player and this gave me a love of music.

The Beatles were huge, not for me as a guitarist, but after seeing them I thought that being in a band would be the coolest thing ever.

After I started playing I had lots of influences. I admired Hendrix because of his passion. I liked Eric Clapton because I could actually follow his music, he is a great string bender too. Jimmy Page was a huge influence, I realized the guitar could be played many different ways with open tunings or sliding chords up the neck. Very musical too. I was into Steve Howe of Yes, very free. I loved Paul Kossoff, best vibrato ever. Alvin Lee was a big influence as well, I even liked Ted Nugent.

I learned you could do lots with just chords from Peter Townshend and Keith Richards, great chord riffs.

I like so many guitarists, it would take forever to list all of them. But these are a few of my favorites.

Chris: (the cnev one :P) influences can be on many levels. Clearly all of us have been influenced by Bach, the impact he has had on the development of western music is so huge you can't avoid it, whether you play death metal or country. On a slightly more specific note different genres have different structures. If you listen to a lot of country chances are high your own songs will feature a similar structure. Then you have instrumentation: your ideas of how the 'ideal' band is made are very much influenced by the kind of music you like. If you're into metal then one drummer, one bassist, one vocalist and two guitarists will be your standard concept of a band, whereas if you were into Irish folk you'd be probably thinking more about Irish flutes and fiddles. Then you have the 'melodic foundation': if you listen to a lot of music by one guitarist you tend to burn some of their licks into your muscle memory, and you'll use them when improvising. It can be thematically, if you listen to a lot of Leonard Cohen yoru songs will probably be quite a bit more bitter then if the Beatles were your favourite band.

Now this can all be mixed. So if you're an Irish immigrant in the southern US with a fondness for Leonard Cohen you might end up making very sarcastic and bitter songs with Irish instrumentation and the structrue of country classics. it might sound very unique but the influences are there. Unless you live in a cave you cannot be anything other then influenced by someone. And if you are living in a cave right now you probably are under the influence of something, don't know if that counts.

Finally there is a more concious form of influence. With a lot of Radiohead songs I'm really stunned as to how they pulled it off, so I spend some time unravelling it all. That gives me a lot more concious knowledge of what I like and what I don't like, which obviously influences me when writing my own songs.

Green Day.

i have no idea how many cds and mp3s i have... then there's the relentless influence of tv and movie music and jingles... people i've played with and watched live... other people's music i've listened to in their homes or cars or in clubs or bars...
i couldn't make a complete list, but i like lists and so here goes
bob dylan and his various backing bands, van morrison, bach, uncle tupelo, hank williams, blind willie mctell, miles davis, coltrane, bird, louis armstrong, wilco, son volt, u2, kaki king, ani difranco, keller williams, bob marley, woodie guthrie, leadbelly, radiohead, rchp, ratm, doobie brothers, allman brothers, black crowes, eric clapton, the beatles, the stones, led zeppelin, jimi hendrix, neil young, jay farrar, tom petty, the mars volta, elliott smith, dan bern, my brother, dave matthews, grateful dead, jaco, dr dre, lucinda williams, maroon 5, the samples, the replacements, joni mitchell, the pretenders, srv, beck, green day, willie nelson, the band, pink floyd, metallica, nirvana, the pixies, stp, alice in chains, pearl jam, guns n roses, iron butterfly, ac/dc, white zombie, segovia, beethoven, mozart, robert johnson, mississippi john hurt... i give up.