Who was a more influential guitarist: George Harrison or Ace Frehley?

Love both bands....love what both guys do.....both of these guys influenced a different generation of guitar player. Maybe George never got enough credit and Ace sometimes got a little too much but at the end of the day they are both great and influenced thousands and thousands of players....I fall more in the Ace category because I was a kid in the 70's early 80's and thought he was God....I imagine slightly older kids would have thought the same of George.....no right answer here....both guys are tremendous at what they did/do!

 

I don't know anything about Ace, But being a big fan of George I still don't understand the people who think he's a great guitarist ,he fine for the Beatles ,But their are much better guitarists in the Rock field
then him He didn't have great tone ,and didn't get much space to do any solos, The one big solo break on a Beatles song is a shared solo with John and Paul, he's no Hendrix,Santana,Blackmore ,Howe,Gilmore ,ect

of course as a singer and songwriter he's belongs on the top of most lists ,and I think that's more important for Rock/Pop

 

An admission. Wow.

How are you so sure of that? How could you possibly know? I am sure that everyone probably thought Gene was the lead guitarist because he was the focal point of his band. So people that know about guitar think that Lennon played lead and George was a stagehand? Do you believe that?

On the back of Meet The Beatles it states that Jonn plays rhythm guitar and that some guy named George Harrison plays 'lead guitar'. Are you going to say that people didn't read liner notes back then?

So people would automatically say 'John, Paul, Ringo, and George' instead the of the more common 'John, Paul, George, and Ringo'?

Are you sure about that?

 

Does Ace Frehley even have an identifiable style of his own?

And a ton of B.B. King's solos.
This is not a rare thing at all.

 

I'm saying the songs he didn't write in many of the cases he didn't that is correct.

I am not saying his influence is nil but it is much less than John's and Paul's influence and IMHO less than Ace's as well.

 

And as a guitar instructor it can be very challenging to transcribe "guitar flies up in the air like a UFO...smokes...shoots fireworks".

 

Paul McCartney would say you're wrong.

"MOJO: Any other moments where George really brought something to the song?

PAUL: I think George always brought something to all the songs. Me, George and John originally had a little set-up with just the three of us on three guitars. That was our first kinda little incarnation. And we would go to talent shows and lose them with that line-up. [chuckles] So what I mean is, any of us could take the guitar parts. So, for instance, I Feel Fine was John's riff and started off by him leaning the guitar inadvertently against an amp and it fed back so we used that into the... [sings the opening riff]. But often opening riffs - certainly solos - would be George. I could go through 'em all and just say, That's George, that's George, that's George. 'Cos I was there, you know. [chuckles]"

From this post in this thread: #187

The lengths people are going to discredit George Harrison in this thread are ridiculous, but not unexpected.

 

Did you guys know that Jimi Hendrix sometimes played the guitar with his teeth?

 

Who's more influential...Jimi Hendrix or Dimebag Darrell?

 

I stand corrected. I have been reading Geoff Emericks book and the impression he gave was that George was taught many of the guitar parts and he had a hard time learning many of them. It's not enough to change my opinion though.

 

Ace showed him how to do the smoke/fireworks trick backstage at Monterey Pop, but Hendrix goofed it up and ended up setting his guitar on fire. Bloody amateur!

 

I'm thinking that maybe the people who weren't around when the Beatles exploded don't truly understand how influential they were (including George).
Much like those of us that were perhaps a little too old to embrace KISS when they exploded don't really understand their influence.

For me KISS will always be that joke band that friend's little brothers listened to.
I'll bet for some old George has become muzak.

 

I think that we all agree the Beatles were tremendously influential and important to music. I think that people who didn't follow rock music closely in the late 1970s, 1980s or early 1990s do not understand that in interviews, virtually every guitarist named Ace Frehley as an influence.

 

Nope, got my first bass at age 12, I'm 45.

Jaco Pastorius couldn't slap. It just wasn't how the guy played. That doesn't mean that Flea's a superior bassist.
Extended solos with very pronounced melodic peaks isn't what Harrison did. You just can't "woodshed" for an hour and recreate something that you're not accustomed to or even care to mimic. You wouldn't have acquired the muscle memory in your hands and fingers to pull it off. People don't have a natural ability from birth to play an instrument (savants aside, which neither Harrison nor Ace were/are). Like a stroke victim who requires physical therapy to learn how to brush teeth again, it takes time. Playing in a manner that is faster than how you normally approach an instrument takes time. Harrison's focus and drive to grow musically was a very different thing than how Ace approached his instrument.

Harrison went to the grave without leaning to do hammer-on's ala EVan Halen. Doesn't mean he wasn't good. He just never bothered to take the time. It wasn't how he wanted to make his art.

Can Ace mimic any Harrison note sequence? Yup. And it wouldn't take him that long to pull off any given piece from Harrison's career.
Ace has better chops (speed, both fretting and picking) than Harrison developed. It's much easier to quickly mimic a slower playing style when your ability is much faster. And it doesn't mean Ace can compose anywhere near Harrison's level. With that, you either have the gift on that level or you don't.

This is coming a guy (me) who believes that the best, most beautifully crafted song in the entire Beatles' catalog is "Something", with "Here Comes the Sun" in my personal top 3.

Could Harrison have recreated any Ace note sequence? Yes, if he took the time to do so. He never did.

I could have been painter, but I never spent the time to learn.
I could have been a juggler, but I never spent the time.
You could have been an astronaut, but you probably never spent the time required.

 

Well, I guess I just never followed rock music too closely in the late 70's and 80's despite the fact that I was practically up to my eyeballs in it, listening and collecting and playing music and reading tons of interviews, because I don't remember anything near "virtually every guitarist" naming Ace as an influence.

 

Does "influential" mean inspired people to actually play a guitar for the first time (including air guitars?) or have influence and impact, even of subtle nature, on guitar playing? I must nod to George on this one-we do not see a lot a slavish copycats of his styles, the styles more evident in group or in solo work. And he is not t I necessarily the first popular artist in mid 20th century Western culture, I guess, to work the slide, to blend in folkish overtones, or perhaps even delve into "world music," but I submit he brought a lot of those sophistications to a lot of people, and those seeds took off over the years. I am not a Beatle's worshipper-I have SPLHCB and AR on lp and that's all the Beatles I want (though I can not do without the latter). I recognize RS and R, without desire to often hear them, for their influence, and a large part of that influence was George's input. I do not think one can propose R as one of the very most influential contemporary albums-if not the most influential, without recognizing George's part of the totality. I am also not a KISS-slammer--I am not enamored of their art, but I enjoy it for what I think it is, and I air-guitared with the best of them to "New York Groove," but even if Ace made more people pick up a guitar than did George, I still think the latter's influence on guitar-playing is more significant.
Interesting thread topis.
A caveat: I read most of these threads and skimmed through the rest, so if I repeat someone else's discourse in too tight a pattern, my regrets.cwd

 

Go back and read any of my posts, starting with the first one. I never said he wasn't. I've consistently maintained that depending on which generation you were born into, that one of the two would likely have more of an influence to the other.

Look at it this way, to a kid born in the 80's and just starting to learn about guitar when Grunge broke, Kurt Cobain was more of an influential guitarist to those kids than either George Harrison, or Ace Frehley. That would be their direct point of reference. Frehley would have been their parents music, and The Beatles their grandparents. They would have likely had little use for it to be directly influential to them.

Sure enough that I've had more people agree with my posts than yours in this thread, so I'd say I'm off to a pretty good start.

Gene also wasn't the only focal point in his band. With four distinct personalities and looks, it was much easier to tell apart who was who in KISS.

We also aren't necessarily talking about people who know guitar, so much as people in general .

I also never referred to George as a stagehand, nor would I ever. However, back in the early/mid sixties, I don't think as much emphasis was put on who was a lead guitarist, versus who was just a guitarist. Not unless there was something about said person that really stood out about their playing to make it truly noticeable, like an Eric Clapton, or Jeff Beck. The age of the guitar God had not dawned. Good as he was, and perhaps even innovative in one way or another on guitar, Harrison's playing on most Beatles albums, especially the early ones, was there to service the songs more than himself. Because of that, it made him blend into the background more. As the years progressed, and their music changed and grew, he and his style did with it, and became more defining. But when they first hit? I'm pretty sure no one really cared , nor could the average person identify who the "lead guitarist" was

Most kids, especially back then? Probably not. And even if they did, it likely didn't mean anything to them. Not in the way such details would a decade later.

 

I know how to get Ace some more votes.....

Hey guys! You do realize that Ace thinks Gene is an a$$, right?

 

Respectfully ... horse doo-doo.
I still have my stacks of Guitar Player, Guitar World, Musician (remember that one?) that I faithfully subscribed to throughout those years.
Virtually every guitarist? Really?
"So Mr. Vaughan who influenced you? Ace Frehely?"
"So Mr. Knopfler who influenced you? Ace Frehely?"
"So Mr. Setzer who influenced you? Ace Frehely?"
"So Mr. Edge who influenced you? Ace Frehely?"
All 80's players, but I'm sure those players with German or Scandinavian last names and a bunch of those Ozzy guitarists liked him.

You know that during that period Clapton, Beck, Page, Townshend, Blackmore and the rest were still active and giving interviews?
Pretty sure they weren't name-checking Ace.
The 90's you might have a point.
I know all those guys with the pointy guitars loved him.

I'm guessing that when you said "virtually every guitarist" you were indulging in a bit of hyperbole.

 

I have old stacks of those magazines as well, so I am going on memory from what I read in them. But other than Stevie Ray, I was not really into The Edge, Mark Knopfler or Brian Setzer,

 

Much like they were not into Ace Frehely.

 

And neither was I.

 

I am a guitarist and have heard nothing from Kiss that would warrant a 2nd listen.

 

If Ace is good enough for Dimebag Darrell and Nickelbag Nick, he's good enough for me.

 

Geoff Emerick really isn't the most reliable source of information about George. He's known to be very biased.

Wow this thread is a mess.

EDIT: Just another example of how George contributed to Lennon/McCartney songs:

Guitar World: Around the time of "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver," you met Ravi Shankar and went to India to study Indian classical music, which is full of microtonal slurs and bends. When you came back, your guitar playing became more elastic, yet it was very precise. You were finding more notes between the cracks, like you can in Indian music - especially on your slide work. Is there a connection there?

Harrison: Sure, because whatever you listen to has to come out in some way or other. I think Indian music influenced the *inflection* of how I played, and certain things I play certainly have a feel similar to the Indian style. As for slide, I think most people - Keith Richards, for example – play block chords and all those blues fills, which are based on open tunings. My solos are actually like melodic runs, or counter melodies, and sometimes I'll add a harmony line to it as well.

GW: Like on "My Sweet Lord" and the songs on your first solo album [All Things Must Pass].

Harrison: Exactly. Actually, now that you've got me thinking about my guitar playing and Indian music, I remember Ravi Shankar brought an Indian musician to my house who played classical Indian music on a slide guitar. It's played like a lap steel and set up like a regular guitar, but the nut and the brudge are cranked up, and it even has sympathetic drone strings, like a sitar. He played runs that were so precise and in perfect pitch, but so quick! When he was rocking along, doing those real fast runs, it was unbelievable how much precision was involved. So there were various influences. But it would be precocious to compare myself with incredible musicians like that.

GW: When you came back from India, did you intentionally copy on guitar any of the techniques you learned there?

Harrison: When I got back from this incredible journey to India, we were about to do "Sgt. Pepper's," which I don't remember much at all. I was into my own little world, and my ears were just all filled up with all this Indian music. So I wasn't really into sitting there, thrashing through [sings nasally], "I'm fixing a hole…" Not that song, anyway. But if you listen to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," you'll hear me try and play the melody on guitar with John's voice, which is what the instrumentalist does in Hindustani vocal music.