The 5 most underrated guitar players in my book

This list consists of some guitar players whom you might have heard off and some I will almost guaranty you haven't heard off. Cause to me a great guitar player is not measured in how he influenced the music scene or how popular his or her music is. It can help when you're talking about and measure different guitar players but in my book capability comes first. that is why my favorite guitar players are not the ones whom I think are the best. But some of my favorite and the ones I rate as the best are really underrated and highly unknown. Here is my top five over amazing guitar players who fly under the radar of mainstream and popular music.


5. Nuno Bettencourt

Nuno is right now getting a lot more attention then he was when he was shredding around in Extreme. Cause right now he is the touring guitarist for Rihanna and even she/her touring manager are letting him go a couple of times each show. Nuno has a unique ability. He is the master of the challenging and complex rock riff that is almost constantly evolving. during the 90's he was composing riff after riff after riff that turned into great heavy rock songs. His signature guitar, the Washburn N4, proved to be an amazing and durable metal machine that showed the world that Washburn could make some really good guitars along with the Dime (Dimebag Darrel's siganture Washburn guitar). He is one of the few shredders who have had success in pop as a session and touring guitar player. If you don't believe me check out More Than Words and look for yourself.


4. John Sykes

One of my best memories of music as a kid was seeing Thin Lizzy live in 2005 when I was 12 years old. My father had bought the live album One Night Only in 2000 and I adored it. It was songs i knew but they were so much more then they used to be. Loud and improvised solos with blistering speed and Sykes' vocal was really good to my surprise. Watching Sykes with his fabled "Black butty" at his site was like a dream come true when he handed me one of his guitar picks. Even though Sykes was in both Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake he is not a house hold name. He is seen as one of the guitar players in Whitesnake and thin Lizzy that wasn't that important. But he was one of the guitar players on the Album "Whitesnake" from 1987 before Coverdale went crazy. His influence on The thin Lizzy album "Thunder and Lightning" was clear it was much heavier and whit more demanding guitar parts. And by god is he a beast when you set him free. He has incredible speed and his technique is very unique cause he has some pitched long runs that I have only heard in a way from Gus G, but Sykes' runs are longer and more screaming.


3. Reb Beach

Reb Beach was one of the forgotten guitar players of the 80's. He himself has talked about how everything was Kirk Hammett this and Kirk Hammett that in the late 80's. He played in a band that was part of the glam rock era and therefor got lost in all the bands that looked just like them. Winger though, had nothing to be ashamed of. they had already showed their ability when they released "Winger" in 1988. The hits Headed for a heartbreak and Seventeen are classic 80's rock songs and both of them show of what makes Reb special. He is a tapping master. He has a unique technique, where he pulls the string above (above tonal) the one he is tapping at with his ring finger on the tapping hand, to get to the next string. I have never seen anyone els do that. Ad the coolness of fast tapping with the look af an Ibanez Voyager and result is the essence of the 80's. Right now he's playnig along side Doug Aldrich in Whitesnake so check out the guy standing with a Suhr Koa on the opposite side of Doug.


2. Goncalo Peraira

Some guys are rated, some are overrated or underrated but Goncalo isn't rated at all. He is the only guitarist I now from Portugal but my is he exciting. When I saw him for the first time he used a Mesa-boogie stack with a PRS Custom series guitar and that would be enough for me to go crazy but then I heard his live show from his DVD "Another day in Another world" and it took my breath away. It seems that he has gotten the best musician in all of Portugal to back him up and the end results are some gorgeous instrumental songs. His album "G-Spot" is amazing and you wouldn't believe it came from his own studio and wasn't some big spending California recording. Check out the DVD songs Pastel de Nata and Sessão Geleia.


1. Shawn Lane

Shawn Lane's album "Powers of Ten" opened up a whole new world to me back in the day. He was my first real experience of a REAL shredder in action. He had an incredible mind and was such a talent at work you could not help but to be amazed. Grey pianos and  Get you back are beautiful songs with his amazing feel and speed mixed with fusion chords and cheesy synths. He is a guy whom only guitar players know and not even everybody knows him as well as they should. At a NAMM show on the January 15th 1993 Reb Beach, Andy Timmons, Paul Gilbert, Steve vai, Joe Satriani and Alex Skolnick were blown away by Shawn's shredding in a jam over "Going Down". He died in 2003 after life long osteoporosis but left a permanent mark on my soul in 2001. Shawn had been working on Indian music with the Swedish bass player Jonas Hellborg and at "New Morning" in Paris the gates of heaven opened and out came the most vulgar display of power I had ever seen. Time stood still and I couldn't believe my ears and still to this day this on show can make me slip away and forget everything. He was a century talent and there will never be another Shawn Lane.