Update to "Top 11"

I've had a little more time to think about my Top 11 list of rock guitar. I'm pretty much satisfied with it as it stands. I did consider adding the fellas from the Eagles (Joe Walsh and the other guy whose name I always forget. Let me look it up - Don Felder. Can never remember that name). Ultimately they stand just outside the list. The one addition, however, that I think I have to make is Mike Campbell from the Heartbreakers.

I spent a long drive listening to TP and the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits and was consitently amazed at the quality of his guitar playing, and at just how important his guitar playing - parts or solos - were to the songs.

George Benson once commented about Kenny Burrell that no one could play finer than he. People could play "better", of differently, but no one could play "finer". Same for Campbell. You couldn't improve on anything he plays. Tone, touch, phrasing, it's all there. And the ideas! You could do something differently, but you couldn't do it any better.

I remember reading Petty talk about how they had recorded "Breakdown" and the line - the "LINE" - only came at the end of the tune, maybe on a fadeout. He played the rough cut for Bruce Springsteen and, as he put it "Bruce got religion" when he heard that line. It was at his insistence that they recut the song making "the LINE" an integral part, not just a throw away idea. That may be Bruce's greatest contribution to music. (I'm not a big Bruce guy).

So, if the list were to be expanded at all, it would be to include Mike Campbell.