Guitar men in a row - Live
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Polls
Forum Description: Create polls on topics related to progressive music
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=134286
Printed Date: February 06 2025 at 20:34 Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Guitar men in a row - Live
Posted By: Heart of the Matter
Subject: Guitar men in a row - Live
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 07:13
You likely enjoy the three of these prog gtr icons performing live, but hardly to the same degree.
NOTE: "Fripp & Howe" means "both equally", NOT "both together against the other guy".
One vote. Speak your mind and preference. Post favorite videos, if you had the time!
|
Replies:
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 07:16
Three quite different guitarists, no preference.
|
Posted By: Jared
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 07:30
Cristi wrote:
Three quite different guitarists, no preference. ![](https://metalstorm.net/images/smilies/noidea.gif) |
agreed
------------- Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
|
Posted By: Mormegil
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 08:03
Hackett > Howe > Fripp, based purely on how often their records are on the turntable.
Other than that, totally agree with the "Three different guitarists" comment.
------------- Welcome to the middle of the film.
|
Posted By: Octopus II
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 08:05
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 08:43
Posted By: Lewian
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 11:24
Voted Hackett & Fripp > Howe. I like Fripp most of these on albums, but Hackett (as well as Fripp) gave me several very enjoyable live performances, and for this specific poll I will also take into account how warm and nice he comes across on stage.
|
Posted By: jamesbaldwin
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 12:09
Fripp >>> Hackett > Howe.
------------- Amos Goldberg (professor of Genocide Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem): Yes, it's genocide. It's so difficult and painful to admit it, but we can no longer avoid this conclusion.
|
Posted By: Duddick
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 12:31
Fripp. I don’t really care for the other two.
|
Posted By: progaardvark
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 13:00
Fripp > Hackett > Howe. I hope the extraterrestrials like my videos about washing machines.
------------- ---------- i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions
|
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 13:05
progaardvark wrote:
Fripp > Hackett > Howe. I hope the extraterrestrials like my videos about washing machines. |
|
Posted By: progaardvark
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 13:15
^ Washing machines have many hidden talents.
------------- ---------- i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions
|
Posted By: Big Sky
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 14:36
Howe, Hackett, Fripp. Howe in my opinion is the most versatile guitarist between the three. Steve Morse and Rik Emmett, two very versatile guitarist too, have mentioned how big an influence Howe was on their playing.
Not that polls are everything, but during the 70s and into the mid 80s Howe was a constant winner in these polls. He won Guitar Player Magazine's Best Overall Guitarist five times in a row. He was the first guitarist to win any of the categories ( rock, jazz, classical, country, etc) five times in a row. Howe was ineligible to win that category going forward ( Morse was to win the Best Overall five times in a row following Howe).
I have played guitar for about 45 years now and back during that time, Howe was a heavyweight. It was Eddie Van Halen, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, Alex Lifeson, Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, Alan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny, as well as Morse. Hackett and Fripp were appreciated, but really they never came up much in the discussion among the guitar players I knew during those days.
Howe was seen not only as the more versatile guitarist, but his lead guitar playing was considered better than Fripp and Hackett.
It's all subjective. All three are tremendous players with very different styles. I think Howe since those days has seen his reputation go down based somewhat on the politics within Yes and a discography that has seen more mediocrity than highs with a few duds mixed in ( talking the music, not so much the guitar playing). Hackett and Fripp have been more consistent since those days. Hackett seems to be a more pleasant person to be around too.
|
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 19:20
^ It's not subjective to say Howe was the most versatile or overall best player, because he was. Not better than Hackett or Fripp, but certainly more multi-skilled. Versatility is a funny thing, it's like Jack of all trades, Master of none. Whereas Holdsworth, Hendrix, Van Halen were all superb at what they did, but couldn't compete with Howe as far as being able to play country or classical or folk in addition to being a great rock player.
------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
|
Posted By: Big Sky
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 20:03
Atavachron wrote:
^ It's not subjective to say Howe was the most versatile or overall best player, because he was. Not better than Hackett or Fripp, but certainly more multi-skilled. Versatility is a funny thing, it's like Jack of all trades, Master of none. Whereas Holdsworth, Hendrix, Van Halen were all superb at what they did, but couldn't compete with Howe as far as being able to play country or classical or folk in addition to being a great rock player.
|
Don't disagree, although some guitarists who are versatile are also masters of various styles. Check out virtuoso classical guitarist Matt Palmer, whose technique is as good as it gets. Before he decided to become a full-time classical guitarist, he was a neo-classical heavy metal shredder in the mold of Yngwie Malmsteem, but with restraint when called for.
My point was more that this would have been a no contest back in the 70s to mid 80s. Howe would have won handily as he was one of the giants. Hackett and Fripp were well respected, but never were the "guitar hero" that Howe was.
|
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: January 24 2025 at 20:13
No they weren't, and still aren't. Most people have never even heard of Robert Fripp. Randy Rhoads started with classical and became great at it which you can hear on the first two Ozzy records, but adapted his skills to be one of the finest hard rock players of all time.
------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
|
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: January 25 2025 at 02:52
I've seen Howe 8 times (Yes between 1995 and 2005 and with Dylan his son a couple of times after that and once with Asia on the Phoenix tour), Hackett 3 times with his band and Fripp just the once with the 3 drummers line up. Hard to weigh them up on those numbers. It's a random thought but I would love to have seen any of them play with Keith Emerson then I would know which I prefer! I find it odd that Howe has almost become a villain in modern prog circles for his apparent vice like grip on Yes. He always comes across as affable and personable as does Hackett. Fripp has always been an odd sort but his marriage to Toyah has done him a power of good and I find myself warming to him. I suppose it's Howe > Hackett > Fripp but really they are all equals.
|
Posted By: Hrychu
Date Posted: January 25 2025 at 03:09
Both.
------------- “On the day of my creation, I fell in love with education. And overcoming all frustration, a teacher I became.” — Ernest Vong
|
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: January 25 2025 at 03:26
Hrychu wrote:
Both. |
|
Posted By: Heart of the Matter
Date Posted: January 26 2025 at 07:42
So far, we're witnessing a certain Fripp predominance, the guy who in 1974 said to Guitar Player "I don't feel myself to be a jazz guitarist, a classical guitarist, or a rock guitarist. I don't feel capable of playing in any one of those idioms, which is why I felt it necessary to create, if you like, my own idiom."
|
Posted By: Hector Enrique
Date Posted: January 26 2025 at 19:02
1. Hackett 2. Howe 3. Fripp
------------- Héctor Enrique
|
Posted By: Fischman
Date Posted: January 29 2025 at 20:06
I'm gonna do like a farm kid and go 4H
Holdsworth>Hackett>Howe>Hillage
|
Posted By: Nogbad_The_Bad
Date Posted: January 29 2025 at 20:13
Fripp > Hackett > Howe
------------- Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/
|
Posted By: Big Sky
Date Posted: January 29 2025 at 20:57
richardh wrote:
I've seen Howe 8 times (Yes between 1995 and 2005 and with Dylan his son a couple of times after that and once with Asia on the Phoenix tour), Hackett 3 times with his band and Fripp just the once with the 3 drummers line up. Hard to weigh them up on those numbers. It's a random thought but I would love to have seen any of them play with Keith Emerson then I would know which I prefer! I find it odd that Howe has almost become a villain in modern prog circles for his apparent vice like grip on Yes. He always comes across as affable and personable as does Hackett. Fripp has always been an odd sort but his marriage to Toyah has done him a power of good and I find myself warming to him. I suppose it's Howe > Hackett > Fripp but really they are all equals. |
Richard,
It's interesting that Howe gets the hate for his iron grip on Yes when it was Chris Squire who canned Jon Anderson for monetary demands he made of the band and not being honest about his health which led to Yes cancelling a tour. Yes had waited on Anderson for about 4 years to start touring again and that was the last straw for Squire.
What's interesting is Alan White, by all rights a decent person was in agreement with Squire on firing Anderson ( as was Howe). Anderson seems to get a pass by many when it comes to Anderson not being in Yes. It seems that the band, also didn't particularly care for how demanding Anderson could be or that in some instances undermined members in the band in the studio. Upon Squire's death the rights to the name Yes passed to Howe, which is what Squire wanted.
As for Keith Emerson and you may know this being a fan of Emerson, he stated the one guitarist that he wanted to play in a band with was Howe. Apparently, they had jammed together after guitarist David O'List had been sacked by the band, The Nice, for being unreliable. It went well and Emerson asked Howe to join the Nice. Howe declined for some reason. But both Emerson and Howe had a lot of respect for each other going forward from that jam session.
|
Posted By: Heart of the Matter
Date Posted: January 30 2025 at 05:01
^ Maybe in the explanation of who gets the public hate, and why, we'd have to consider more likely their public demonstrations, than their private ones. I've seen Howe reprimand Downes on and on, during a concert with Asia, and the poor keyboardist look away, shake head, and keep playing while saying nothing. Later on, one maybe reads about who did this or that - in PRIVATE - but by then the opinion is already set.
|
Posted By: Big Sky
Date Posted: January 30 2025 at 12:07
Heart of the Matter wrote:
^ Maybe in the explanation of who gets the public hate, and why, we'd have to consider more likely their public demonstrations, than their private ones. I've seen Howe reprimand Downes on and on, during a concert with Asia, and the poor keyboardist look away, shake head, and keep playing while saying nothing. Later on, one maybe reads about who did this or that - in PRIVATE - but by then the opinion is already set. |
No, the explanation is that Anderson knows how to play the PR game. The "I was fired from Yes, because I was unhealthy and unable to tour." Or "I would love to be in the band and would go back today, it would be magical." Or "you would have to ask Steve or Chris why they don't want me in the band." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing, but these are comments Anderson has made.
Anderson leaves out the fact that he made demands to get a greater share of the money than the other band members. Demanded that he have even a bigger say of what would appear on an album. That he kept the band waiting to tour for 4 years. Not being honest about his health and allowing the band to commit to a tour and then have to cancel when it was found out only after Wakeman went to visit Anderson and saw he was very ill and would be unable to tour.
Several band members have talked about how demanding and at times unbearable Anderson was in the studio. In some instances he went around band members back to get things done ( Union album in particular). Big Generator sessions saw Trevor Horn try to keep Anderson away from the writing process. According to Rabin, Squire and Anderson were not getting along and Squire was fine with Horn trying to keep Anderson at arms length in the studio. According to Kaye, Rabin had already written a fair bit of material prior to the Big Generator sessions, but Anderson wanted Rabin to go "crazy" and do Stravinsky like music, which the rest band was not interested in. History shows the recording of Big Generator was difficult.
Anderson has stated that he always wanted to record a studio album with ARW. Indeed, files were passed between Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman, but eventually no studio album would come forward. Rabin and Wakeman cited time demands as the culprit, even though both men were known to work quickly in the studio. I think the real reason is Rabin and Wakeman did not want to deal with the headaches with working with Anderson in the studio.
In public, Howe can come off at times as a curmudgeon, whereas Anderson seems to be quite pleasant. Anderson is great at PR and Howe will lose that battle no matter that there may be more to the story.
|
Posted By: Heart of the Matter
Date Posted: January 30 2025 at 15:01
^ I'm not a fan of the people who model themselves to satisfy the needs of publicity either, I rather like Steve with his rants and sincerity on the sleeve. I was just saying that there's a price to pay for that, which he's paying.
|
Posted By: Big Sky
Date Posted: January 30 2025 at 20:45
Heart of the Matter wrote:
^ I'm not a fan of the people who model themselves to satisfy the needs of publicity either, I rather like Steve with his rants and sincerity on the sleeve. I was just saying that there's a price to pay for that, which he's paying. |
Oh, no doubt about that. Howe lets you know where he stands for better or worse and many people do not like that. Sometimes he does come off looking bad as with his backhand compliment of 90125 as being a good pop rock album but was it really Yes music. Which my response would be is it was not supposed to be a Yes album and only became so after the fact.
Further could someone make the same criticism of the Drama album? It did not have Anderson and certainly did not sound anything like what had gone before ( By the way, I'm a big fan of Drama).
Howe seems to be in his happy place when talking about guitars and guitar players he likes. His rig rundown for Premier Guitar shows Howe in a very good light, congenial and taking his time to answer the interviewers questions.
|
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: January 31 2025 at 01:00
Big Sky wrote:
richardh wrote:
I've seen Howe 8 times (Yes between 1995 and 2005 and with Dylan his son a couple of times after that and once with Asia on the Phoenix tour), Hackett 3 times with his band and Fripp just the once with the 3 drummers line up. Hard to weigh them up on those numbers. It's a random thought but I would love to have seen any of them play with Keith Emerson then I would know which I prefer! I find it odd that Howe has almost become a villain in modern prog circles for his apparent vice like grip on Yes. He always comes across as affable and personable as does Hackett. Fripp has always been an odd sort but his marriage to Toyah has done him a power of good and I find myself warming to him. I suppose it's Howe > Hackett > Fripp but really they are all equals. |
Richard,
It's interesting that Howe gets the hate for his iron grip on Yes when it was Chris Squire who canned Jon Anderson for monetary demands he made of the band and not being honest about his health which led to Yes cancelling a tour. Yes had waited on Anderson for about 4 years to start touring again and that was the last straw for Squire.
What's interesting is Alan White, by all rights a decent person was in agreement with Squire on firing Anderson ( as was Howe). Anderson seems to get a pass by many when it comes to Anderson not being in Yes. It seems that the band, also didn't particularly care for how demanding Anderson could be or that in some instances undermined members in the band in the studio. Upon Squire's death the rights to the name Yes passed to Howe, which is what Squire wanted.
As for Keith Emerson and you may know this being a fan of Emerson, he stated the one guitarist that he wanted to play in a band with was Howe. Apparently, they had jammed together after guitarist David O'List had been sacked by the band, The Nice, for being unreliable. It went well and Emerson asked Howe to join the Nice. Howe declined for some reason. But both Emerson and Howe had a lot of respect for each other going forward from that jam session.
|
For sure Howe and Emerson had shared interests in music especially on the classical side. Howe didn't join The Nice because the timing wasn't right and after Yes became big it become a largely redundant idea. Hilariously the Yes manager of the time rang up Emerson in 1974 (during ELP's world tour I think) and asked him whether he would consider replacing Wakeman in Yes. Emerson declined politely. After that it never seemed possible. Maybe an even better fit for Emerson might have been Hackett stylistically I suspect. Would have been fun if Hackett jumped ship for ELP in 1977 ![Wink Wink](smileys/smiley2.gif)
|
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: February 04 2025 at 00:07
Big Sky wrote:
Heart of the Matter wrote:
^ Maybe in the explanation of who gets the public hate, and why, we'd have to consider more likely their public demonstrations, than their private ones. I've seen Howe reprimand Downes on and on, during a concert with Asia, and the poor keyboardist look away, shake head, and keep playing while saying nothing. Later on, one maybe reads about who did this or that - in PRIVATE - but by then the opinion is already set. |
No, the explanation is that Anderson knows how to play the PR game. The "I was fired from Yes, because I was unhealthy and unable to tour." Or "I would love to be in the band and would go back today, it would be magical." Or "you would have to ask Steve or Chris why they don't want me in the band." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing, but these are comments Anderson has made.
Anderson leaves out the fact that he made demands to get a greater share of the money than the other band members. Demanded that he have even a bigger say of what would appear on an album. That he kept the band waiting to tour for 4 years. Not being honest about his health and allowing the band to commit to a tour and then have to cancel when it was found out only after Wakeman went to visit Anderson and saw he was very ill and would be unable to tour.
Several band members have talked about how demanding and at times unbearable Anderson was in the studio. In some instances he went around band members back to get things done ( Union album in particular). Big Generator sessions saw Trevor Horn try to keep Anderson away from the writing process. According to Rabin, Squire and Anderson were not getting along and Squire was fine with Horn trying to keep Anderson at arms length in the studio. According to Kaye, Rabin had already written a fair bit of material prior to the Big Generator sessions, but Anderson wanted Rabin to go "crazy" and do Stravinsky like music, which the rest band was not interested in. History shows the recording of Big Generator was difficult.
Anderson has stated that he always wanted to record a studio album with ARW. Indeed, files were passed between Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman, but eventually no studio album would come forward. Rabin and Wakeman cited time demands as the culprit, even though both men were known to work quickly in the studio. I think the real reason is Rabin and Wakeman did not want to deal with the headaches with working with Anderson in the studio.
In public, Howe can come off at times as a curmudgeon, whereas Anderson seems to be quite pleasant. Anderson is great at PR and Howe will lose that battle no matter that there may be more to the story. |
I'm not siding with Anderson (I mean, I would love to have him back in Yes, but the band should know who they want to spend all that time working with), but about him in Big Generator, I bet it should have come out better if his wish of them getting more Stravinski influence had materialized.
|
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: February 04 2025 at 00:11
Certainly different in musical styles AND stage presence!
I voted Fripp>Howe>Hackett.
Fripp certainly had a patent on the dark, brooding guitarist on a stool look onstage!
At his prime, Howe was just amazing to watch.
I only saw Hackett once, and while his playing is exquisite, I never found him to be that compelling to watch onstage.
Steve Howe during "Ritual," Solo Albums Tour, Chicago show 1976.
------------- I am not a Robot, I'm a FREE MAN!!
|
Posted By: Heart of the Matter
Date Posted: February 04 2025 at 03:59
^ Wow, I'm getting a massive vibe coming out of that shot. Thanks, Charles!
^^ As for the controversial Stravinsky influence, I agree with Omar (Dellinger), it would have been benefic, probably, but I think it was Steve the partner Jon needed for such an effort, rather than Trevor, who was pushing things in a very different direction.
|
|