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So a brief thought on why Eddie Van Halen was one of the three or four greatest guitarists of all time (this applies, incidentally, to other great guitarists like Hendrix). 1/
I don't know if he is the *best*. If you got into guitar playing in the 80s like I did, you could find guitarists who were probably faster, crazier, and more technically proficient pretty easily. 2/
Like, the second half of eruption isn't that difficult, relatively speaking, especially if you played piano. And if you really went down the rabbit hole, you'd find guys like Al DiMeola and Allan Holdsworth who were just insane players. 3/
(you can actually tell that EVH was listening to a ton of Holdsworth starting around Fair Warning and through 1984; the weird solo at the end of "Girl Gone Bad" is plucked from Holdsworth as much as any SRV ripoff of Buddy Guy. But I digress). 4/
What made EVH great was 2.5 things. First, like Hendrix, he was insanely influential, in a way like near-great guitarists like Malmsteen or even Satriani or Vai were not. Just about every kid who picked up a guitar for at least two decades thought "I wanna sound like *him*". 5/
Like I said, there are a ton of extremely talented guitarists you've never heard of out there that would blow your mind, but most of them are only really discovered after you've decided to pick up the instrument. EVH's reach is really probably only matched by 2/3 others. 6/
Second, he was an innovator. All of Van Halen's early albums have something where you'd say "what the hell was that," and when you found out you'd think "wow, that's really cool." 7/
The tapping on Eruption, the tap harmonics on Spanish Fly and Women in Love, the volume swells on Cathedral, I could list a dozen but I'm already past the "briefly" that I promised. But it was an embarrassingly long time before I realized Cathedral wasn't a keyboard solo. 8/
All these things have antecedents in other guitarists work (Page used to barre with his right hand and pulloff with his left which is sort of a reversed tapping) but what brings it all together for me is my half-point, which is that he remained accessible. 9/
When you break down EVH's stuff, he's basically a rock/blues guitar player with insane chops. The main riff for Hot for Teacher (and his riffs are very, very underrated) is basically just a fast boogie-woogie with some power chord fills 10/
So he knew how to couch his technical proficiency and tinkering in stuff you actually wanted to listen to. You can play "So This is Love" and people won't have heard it, but they'll tap their feet along. Play your average Shrapnel Records guy, and people leave the room. 11/
"Now Your Ships Are Burned" is a great riff/solo, but again, it's a definite acquired taste. And that's sort of it for me. I can/could play most of his stuff, but threw my hands up at "For the Love of God" or "Attitude Song." There are probably "better" guitarists. 12/
But in terms of combining raw technique, innovation (I haven't even gotten into his tinkering with effects/guitars/studios etc b/c it's too obscure), influence, and accessibility? Very, very few are even in the same league. 13/13
