Best Prog/Rock acoustic player?

**Rufus** · 10-28-2014

For me its a tie between Hackett, Howe & Page!

**Yves** · 10-28-2014

It has been documented on this site that I am a big fan of Bruce Cockburn's acoustic work.

**trurl** · 10-28-2014

Hmmm, hard to say but I'd be taking a close look at Steve Morse. Howe is very good at Chet Atkins-style picking for a rock guy but real Nashville pickers would eat him for lunch. Hackett is a better nylon player but again, serious classical players would p0wn them both.

**SteveSly** · 10-28-2014

One that comes to mind is Jimmy Robinson. The two times I have seen him solo / acoustic were amazing.

The California Guitar Trio have to be up there as well.

**JKL2000** · 10-28-2014

In his prime, Roy Harper.

**walt** · 10-28-2014

I'll pass on making a judgement on "best" and just say that Shawn Persinger(is Prester John) and Shane Parish(was Perlowin) are truly outstanding in their field(s).

**WytchCrypt** · 10-28-2014

I'll take Hackett on classical (nylon string) and Howe on steel string

chalkpie · 10-28-2014

Can't say he's the best, but Ian is most certainly my favorite acoustic player in the prague world, not only in his tunes/harmonic progressions but also in his exquisite intricate arpeggiated patterns and rhythmic ideas. He is easily as good on the guitar as the flute to my eardrums.

**Garden Dreamer** · 10-28-2014

While I agree that "real" classic players and Travis pickers leave Steve Howe in the dust, I still like what he does. I'm able to play his classical pieces and while I can do Travis pickin' and acoustic blues stuff, his "The Clap" is a knuckle-buster that I still can't manage. I don't have those long spidery fingers! I think his pinnacle is "Turn of the Century". When you consider that Jon brought him the skeleton of the song with two cowboy chords as he usually does, the way he came up with all those lyrical phrasings is magnificent.

A guy I rate very highly is Ian Anderson. While he may not be doing technical stuff, the "feel" always grabs me. It's never much more than strumming chords or doing some arpeggios, but it always sounds great. You can tell he's someone who has no guitar/music training but he comes up with weird chord shapes because it sounds good, not because he's following any music theory that dictates what notes he should be playing. I remember trying to figure out the opening picking to TAAB and while I could come up with the notes, I had them all as fingered notes in standard tuning and it was impossible to play them in the clean, flowing style I heard on the record. It wasn't until years later when I saw some tablature (TAABlature?) that I found he was doing something off the wall with an alternate tuning and/or a capo.

**trurl** · 10-28-2014

Originally Posted by Garden Dreamer

While I agree that "real" classic players and Travis pickers leave Steve Howe in the dust, I still like what he does. I'm able to play his classical pieces and while I can do Travis pickin' and acoustic blues stuff, his "The Clap" is a knuckle-buster that I still can't manage. I don't have those long spidery fingers! I think his pinnacle is "Turn of the Century". When you consider that Jon brought him the skeleton of the song with two cowboy chords as he usually does, the way he came up with all those lyrical phrasings is magnificent.

A guy I rate very highly is Ian Anderson. While he may not be doing technical stuff, the "feel" always grabs me. It's never much more than strumming chords or doing some arpeggios, but it always sounds great. You can tell he's someone who has no guitar/music training but he comes up with weird chord shapes because it sounds good, not because he's following any music theory that dictates what notes he should be playing. I remember trying to figure out the opening picking to TAAB and while I could come up with the notes, I had them all as fingered notes in standard tuning and it was impossible to play them in the clean, flowing style I heard on the record. It wasn't until years later when I saw some tablature (TAABlature?) that I found he was doing something off the wall with an alternate tuning and/or a capo.

Originally Posted by chalkpie

Can't say he's the best, but Ian is most certainly my favorite acoustic player in the prague world, not only in his tunes/harmonic progressions but also in his exquisite intricate arpeggiated patterns and rhythmic ideas. He is easily as good on the guitar as the flute to my eardrums.

I'm right there on Ian. He has a really cool style and you can tell who it is in a heartbeat. And I agree that Steve has had some fine moments.

**flowerking** · 10-28-2014

Can't say that Jimmy Page impresses me much as an acoustic guitarist. Yeah, he is a great guitarist but there are far better acoustic players. Sticking to prog, I'd go with Howe over Hackett because Howe has more styles of which he can play the acoustic. Hackett acoustic is primarily classical, Howe can do classical, bluegrass, jazz and blues all on the acoustic. They would be my top 2. Not sure who would come in third.

**WytchCrypt** · 10-28-2014

I'll add Ian Anderson to my list as well in the category of acoustic guitarist/singers...I agree with others that he really does a great job of coming up with interesting strumming/tuning patterns and there's none other who can sing like him while playing

**Dave (in MA)** · 10-28-2014

I'll go with Ian Anderson, too, and add Anthony Phillips.

**Shadow** · 10-28-2014

Gordon Giltrap

**SuperTed** · 10-28-2014

Chalk up more votes for Hackett & Giltrap - there are dozens of tracks that are just fab-u-lous but here's a couple of faves.

**trurl** · 10-28-2014

Calling him prog or rock is a stretch but we'd be remiss not to acknowledge Leo Kottke...

**Progbear** · 10-28-2014

Allow me a third vote for Giltrap and allow me to add an honourable mention for Heinz Fröhling and Franco Mussida.

Yes, Kottke is not rock, but I do love his playing nonetheless. Possibly my #1 acoustic guitarist of all-time!

**Enid** · 10-28-2014

Steve Hackett, Steve Howe, and Anthony Phillips concentrated on Classical guitar while mastering Rock and Jazz guitar. That honestly being the reason WHY they don't fall into the higher ranking category of players like Julian Bream, Christopher Parkening, John Williams and Lorendo Almeida. However...all 3 players...Hackett, Howe, and Phillips are outstanding and have beautiful tones that for me personally...DO rate along side of players appreciated by a vast majority of the Classical world. Classical guitar alone..and for a serious student, should and actually must be a devotion of 15 hrs a day. 5 hours of practicing Segovia's book of scales, 5 hrs of working out a new piece, and 5 hrs of performing what you've already mastered... alone in a room by candlelight to end the day. If you're preparing for a performance, you dismiss learning a new piece and spend 10 hrs a day performing your show straight through repeatedly for about a period of 2 weeks. This is mainly a focus to the art of performing which you can perfect ...days or weeks after you've retained the pieces where you are independently well off without referring back to the manuscript paper. Hackett, Howe, and Phillips adapt Classical style of writing to their original material. They are impeccable at writing and their background in other styles of music is more to the advanced side of things..for example extended note patterns played rapidly. Anthony Phillips stretches his left hand across many frets ...appearing to be in an awkward finger position, holding down bass notes to be picked with the right hand fingers, while also ringing out several open strings containing a higher pitch in tone. Just like a piano.

**arabicadabra** · 10-28-2014

Karl Eisenhart of Pinnacle is a tremendous acoustic player.....

**WytchCrypt** · 10-28-2014

For those Hackett/classical guitar fans out there, I can't highly recommend enough the album of Erik Satie pieces he did with his brother John on flute, "Sketches of Satie". If you like Hackett's classical playing, you should love this one

**Lieto** · 10-29-2014

Steve Hackett Probably. I'm also a huge fan of Franco Mussida from PFM. His playing live was just incredible. Real emotive. In fact, quite a lot of the Italian prog bands had great, emotive guitar players in their mits.