I Axe You

In 2003, when I was beginning my first novel, A Line through the Desert, I was also going through something of a musical renaissance. I had discovered, or re-discovered really, Led Zeppelin.

Like all right thinking, hetero teenage boys in the 1980's I loved Zeppelin, but superficially so. It was not until I was a thirty year old man, with years of listening to big bands and classical, especially classical, that I really came to appreciate Led Zeppelin.

One afternoon I was lifting weights and playing air guitar along to Jimmy Page when it occurred to me that it would be really cool if I could make a guitar do what Jimmy Page makes a guitar do.

Now, I was at the stage in life where I was getting some confidence. Finally earning my degree was a start, and that fall I took up running. I'm a big guy and had never been able to do it before. This time I stuck with it and fought through the pain, god it hurt. By the spring I was doing two miles a day, every day.

Anyway, having accomplished a few things by them I decided, what the hell, let's give the guitar a try. What not?

Twelve years later I can say that for ten years, I have played guitar, by which I mean I'll sit on my front stoop and play an acoustic while my daughters are running about, or I'll sit on my couch and make an electric scream.

Funny thing, the mystery of it all is gone, now. That ethereal, pre-Roman British mist that seemed obscure Led Zeppelin has been lifted by my ability to do the things Jimmy Page does. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not as skilled or clean or technical as Page. But I can play just about any Led Zeppelin tune, and I can imitate Page's leads. I can rock, I can shred. I can do Jimmy Page at MSG, I can hump my guitar like Ted Nugent, I can even do Jimmy Hendrix and Monterrey.

So this is my question my 'Axe you' ha! What makes a great guitar player? I don't know. Who are the great guitar players? Ten years ago I would have said, Page, Angus Young, Eric Clapton, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian May, oh god yes, Brian May....you get the idea.

What's harder to do, create a classical score for guitar like Yngwie Malmsteen, or play the notes just right as George Harrison does on say, Here Comes the Sun? 

We all have our lists of great guitar players, let's add Kirk Hemmit and Dave Mustaigne to mine. The Edge? Jack White came up with an immensely catchy guitar riff, whose prepared to argue he's not a guitar god?

I mean, what's the degree of difficulty? Like I said, I can do Jimmy Page. But ya know whose the toughest for me to get? Angus Young. The way he plays guitar is so violent but so masterful, and the damn thing is practically as big as he is.