I searched and was surprised to not find a general thread on this topic, only threads focusing on one specific guitarist. What guitarists do you find to be underrated? My pick is Glen Buxton from the Alice Cooper band.
Two that immediately popped into my mind are Adam Granduciel of The War On Drugs and Dave Rawlings, partner of Gillian Welch.
Larry LaLonde, I think is underrated (that he's next to Les Claypool doesn't help). East Bay Ray from the Dead Kennedys is a great player, especially for a punk player.
Malcom Young comes to mind first - he's one of the best rhythm players in rock as far as I'm concerned. Right up there with Keith Richards in getting the tempo and groove just right. Of course, I'd also like to see people like Deniz Tek, Sonic Smith and Bob Mould get more recognition for their amazing talent and style.
John Lees - lead guitarist of Barclay James Harvest. Raymond McGinley - lead guitarist of Teenage Fanclub. Dave Gonzalez - lead guitarist of The Paladins.
...without question Vini Reilly of The Durutti Column. Contemporary of Ian Curtis of Joy Division on Factory Records late 70s / early 80s.....now only big in Japan or so it seems ... The Factory Music Film "24 Hour party People" closes with :- "From God. And the Lord said unto Tony: Vini Reilly is due a revival. You might think about a Greatest Hits. It's good music to chill out to."
Francis Dunnery when he was a member of It Bites, I saw them live a few times in the '80s and he is such a talented musician and singer.
WTF does “underrated” mean for the guitarists being mentioned? All from acclaimed, best-selling, highly esteemed, popular, mostly hugely successful and/or legendary bands that *nobody* to the best of my recollection is running down, dismissing, criticizing, damning with faint praise, or saying anything that equals underrating them. I’d be fine if the idea was to namecheck and extoll guitarists that aren’t talked about enough for their creativity, technique, style, whatever. Or just say you love them and highly recommend listening if you’ve missed their work, that you wish they were more famous, remembered by more people.... But this “underrated” thing is just a plague of bull$hit. It’s a crime to plaster that word all over somebody’s good reputation unless you can back it up with some actual evidence than somebody is talking about these guitarists in a negative or unfair fashion.
I've seen videos of him, and I hate Christian rock for how gutless and preachy it is, but that guy is a great talent.
We have done this, right? Who's your favorite underrated guitarist? » Underrated guitarists? » Name your favorite 'underrated' rock, blues, or jazz guitarist »
Lee Underwood - guitarist for Tim Buckley from Goodbye And Hello through Starsailor. He occasionally worked with him after that. Some of my favorite work of his is on Happy Sad (I really love his solo on Strange Feeling and his backing work on Buzzin' Fly) and throughout Starsailor. He subsequently went on to be a writer and critic and wrote some interesting stuff. He did some later recordings (80s-90s) that bordered on being New Age and unfortunately weren't that interesting.
It's pretty simple. Underrated in this context just means that you don't feel that they have gotten their due respect as a guitarist. Yes, most of them come from respected bands, but few of them get remembered as great guitarists in their own right.