50 Great Guitarists, All Better Than Slash (In No Particular Order)–Part VI

26. Lindsay Buckingham

Sure, founding member Peter Green had a pretty cool guitar style, but really, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks made Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham’s guitars achieve a strange, almost paradoxical tone: hard rock chunkiness by way of New Wave-thin; Brian Wilson-influenced melodies by way of punk rock; songs that ache with classic pop harmony but still remain unavoidably dark. Coke-fueled Rumours secured an already great legacy, but my favorite Mac album is, of course, their White Album, Tusk.

I hate to admit it, but I prefer this version of “Go Your Own Way” (dig the percussive guitar solo at the end)–

–to this one from the 70s. You tell me which is better.

27. Junior Brown

Genre-defying Junior Brown built his own guitar/steel guitar hybrid, “Big Red,” an improbably shrewd instrument of shred. Brown’s eclectic mix of country, blues, rock and roll, hillbilly, and even classical playing has probably kept him off of more radio stations than is fair, but his brilliant music has led to a huge following. Observe:

28. Lee Renaldo

Self-confessed one-time Deadhead, Lee Renaldo was the “old guy” in Sonic Youth from the outset. I’ve always imagined that his sense of melody and his quiet, intense disposition are what anchored Thurston Moore’s manic tendencies and Kim Gordon’s dour art poses. Plus, I’ve always liked Renaldo’s solo stuff the best. And then, of course, there’s the Reed Richards look he’s been kickin’ for the past couple of years.

29. Les Paul

When Les Paul was injured in a terrible car accident in 1948, he had his arm set at a permanent right angle so that he could still play guitar. Now that’s dedication. Les Paul’s flashy, futuristic multi-layered tracks still sound ahead of their time.

Fantastic footage:

30. Ben Chasny

Ben Chasny is heir to a tradition that began with Robbie Basho and John Fahey. As Six Organs of Admittance, he makes strange, beautiful psychedelic music that mixes tropes of Western folk with the exotic motifs of Eastern ragas. Very heady stuff. His new album, Shelter from the Ash, set to drop any day now from Drag City records, picks right up where last year’s gorgeous Sun Awakens left off. Great stuff.