Your Mount Rushmore

Shawn@PRS

yogi
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Eddie's passing has obviously brought on a lot of emotions around the PRS factory and the conversation has come back the "Mount Rushmore" comment. To me Eddie belongs up there with some others. He wasn't necesarily my favorite player, but he kicked the door down and changed the facing of guitar playing.

Here are the "Mount Rushmore" candidates from a couple PRS employees. Again, these aren't necesarily their favorite players, but the people they feel revelutionized the game.

Who would be on your Mount Rushmore?

Russell:
Jimi Hendrix
Eddie Van Halen
Les Paul
Chet Adkin

Sean:
Jimi Hendrix
Eddie Van Halen
B.B. King
Robert Johnson

Andrew:
Jimi Hendrix
Eddie Van Halen
Chuck Berry
DJango Rienhardt
 
Man, this is tough. I always look at this from the perspective of how they influenced the next generation of guitar players. There are so many early players that influenced the greats of the 60s that we now hold in high esteem, and give Rushmore status to. I mean, Clapton is God, but there was someone doing it before him (Buddy Guy, for example).

Anyway, here is mine:
Clapton
Hendrix
EVH
SRV
 
Hmm, I cannot decide. There are so many ground-breaking and influencing players already mentioned, it seems an impossible task.

So I applaud those of you who have been able to filter down to four. My Mount Rushmore would have Jimi for sure, I suppose, and it seems apropos for EVH to be there - he brought a whole guitar generation to life. (Curiously neither are my favorite guitarist, maybe not even top five probably, for me.) But after that duo, there are so many other awesome influences, including all the names already mentioned, and then a hundred more, that I just can't do it.
 
This is tough. The temptation is to go for favorite players, and my personal Rushmore would be different than the ask here. What makes it difficult is that, while we can have an appreciation for what the people before our times did (Robert Johnson, Les Paul, Chuck Berry, etc.), we'll never really understand what that impact felt like. Hendrix was during my lifetime, but I was too young to pay attention or appreciate what he did. I can understand it, but his impact is always a little diminished because I didn't feel it. Likewise, younger players can appreciate and marvel at what EVH did, but they'll never know what it felt like to have him come on to the scene that existed back then.

Have I delayed long enough? Is this thread over? D@mn...

  • EVH - His impact on guitar can't be denied. Visibility, ability, advancing the instrument, it's all there. Perhaps not the most prolific output, but it's hard to go through his catalog and find any examples where he's subpar. There are a lot of guys who can do what he did, but when you hear them, you never think it's Eddie. His phrasing was just unique.
  • Jimi Hendrix - He took rock guitar to a new level. His influence was written on the genre at large.
  • Les Paul - You can debate how much influence he had over the actual design of the Les Paul model, but you can't deny the impact he had on music as a whole. From multi-tracking to solid body guitars and so many other things, our world would not look the same without his hands in the mix. And he could play, even with an elbow locked in place.
  • Muddy Waters - Picking someone in the blues world was hard. So many great players with so much influence. But Waters was one of the originators of the electric Chicago blues, and that earns him my vote.

My personal Rushmore would be different because there are other players who had greater impact on my playing and desire to pick up the instrument, but that wasn't the question.
 
I was actually thinking about this last night. There are so many guitar pioneers that getting down to just 4 is extremely difficult and those giants that will be left off could fill another 3 or 4 more Rushmores all by themselves.

So here are my 4 based off of impact on future players and innovation of style:

T-Bone Walker
Chuck Berry
Hendrix
EVH
 
Man! This is such a tough one! Mine changes almost daily, because I have so many. However, the passing of Eddie has made me really look back to the guys that had such an impact on me long before I ever even picked up a guitar.

Eddie VanHalen
David Gilmour
SRV
B.B. King
 
Jimmy page for distilling the blues rock, David Gilmore for the spacey strat, & the young brothers for the rock riffs

I know all the other famous names mentioned above have their place in time and genre, but they have never tickled my ears for any length of time
 
It’s challenging to filter personal tastes out of this. Choosing up side for the mountain top, I’m going with:
Hendrix - first guitar player to make me stop what I was doing to listen
Jeff Beck - his guitar truly is a voice
EVH - no denying he moved the bar for what new players had to do
4th spot could be many and I’d like the next generation to be represented, I just don’t know who will influence the freshman of today most.

A few players I love, but didn’t put on the mountain: SRV - oozes soul but just excelled at an existing model. BB King - a unique style, but didn’t really change what people were doing. John McLaughlin - an incredible talent, but too small an audience to be a huge influence....
 
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