September 22, 2025 • 11 mins
This week on Music Time, can Nick and James pinpoint who is the greatest guitar player of all time?
Is it an early innovator or a blues legend, A fret shredder or Rock guru?
With so many great players to choose from, who will be number 1?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from news Talk. Said b Higgs new releases and keeping
tabs on local artists his music time on Wellington Mornings.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Right, it's the time of the week where once a
fortnight we get James E. Irwin from our music department.
He runs all the musical side of all our stations.
He's the genius of music. And a few months ago
I said to him, who's your favorite X man, who's
your favorite guitarist? And that just fired him up. So
morning and welcome and.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, it did fire me out. Good morning, Yeah, good morning,
Kilder totally fired me up. And then it fired up
a whole of people around the building. And there's been
there's been an ongoing as I wander around in the morning,
there's been an ongoing, you know, because you change your favorites.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Don't change your favorite, well I reckon you do?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, well no I don't. My number one has always
been number one. My number one is Jeff Bick And
and you know, like he was always overshadowed in the
you know, like Jimmy Page and Clapton and the birds,
but Jeff Beck and you know, I Reckon. He's a cracker.
But this is gonna be controversial today. There's gonna be
people yelling at their rat It's probably gonna be people
rip ripping the battery out? Are you texting? Start taking?
(01:24):
And now with your favorite guitarist of all time? You know,
So I thought, well, let's let's let's go. I've been
around the building and it's just not it's not gonna
be definitive, and it's going to be subjective, and I
don't mean to upset people. I'm going to make some calls.
I'm going to make some calls and maybe some people
on the Best Guitarists are going to be on the
Worst Guitarist list at the end as well. That's gonna
(01:44):
be controversial.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
My top four will not be on the worst list
because they are the best.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, okay, well I bet, I bet, okay, I bet.
You know, I'm just gonna guess. I bet you've got
a Hendrix in there. Well, of course, yeah, yeah, I've
got a Hendrix in there. I bet you've got Eric
Clapton in there.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I mean, yeah, being stupid now, because of course he's
in the you know, like Eric Clapton's one of the
world's greatest guitarists of all time?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, but could he be on the worst list at
the end as well. Let's wait and see. We've got so,
you know, around the building. I haven't made this the
definitive lift of mine. I've got straight up rock guitarists.
We've got Brian May, We've got Hendrix. We've got Jimmy Page,
We've got Eddie van Halen. We've got Eric Clapton, Dave
Gilmore from Pink Floyd, Jeff Beck. We've got Carlos Santana.
We've got Dwayne Orman who died what he died at
(02:31):
twenty four in a motorbike accident, who was just getting
to his peak. Pete Townsend, We've got the Edge. We've
got Ry Cooder, particularly someone mentioned about in the building
for a slide guitar, which I don't know a lot
about Rykodis. I'm going to go and investigate that he
was like a kind of a one that Wonder did
really well.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So then it got me talking, you know, like guitarists.
Are people identifying great guitarists because of a famous riff?
So let's have a listen to some famous riffs that
we identify the song that maybe the riff has got
bigger than the song. Here, no one made a guitar
talk like him. I don't reckon the maye me feel.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
More a funny Yeah, yeah, he'd been on and off
my list so many times.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh you can't. You've got to be round some.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Deep purple like maybe not the most famous slash, instantly recognizable,
the white stripes. Now it played at every stadium. Gig
Hoops probably plays it over the loudspeakers when he's doing
those things. Lead's it here at Katain There you go,
(03:46):
crowded house, instantly recognizable guitar piece. That So that's what
we're talking about. Neil Finn of course David both.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Beat it.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Instantly recognizable guitar riffs, not maybe the most famous shadows. Yeah,
so we only have a whole can of worms. Sweet Home,
Ala Stone. Where's Keith Ritzon's He isn't even a peer
in on our list? Should he be on the list?
Angus Young Angus and Malcolm Young, both of them sees
(04:27):
so as you can see already, neck it's a it's
a conundrum.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
But nobody plays guitar like Prince. Oh yeah, true I mean.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
How many times have me and Who've banged on about.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
That that while my guitar GEPs.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
From the from the Hall of Fame, Tom Penney or
the guys as you're going to be on my Absolute
Exceptionals list or my Trailblazers list. A bit later, he
could be what about female guitarists? Have you thought about that?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
No, you've got some clips of those.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I haven't got any clips, but let's have a look.
We've got me and you just mentioned it off here before.
The female guitarist who played with Michael Jackson on the
His Story tour and the previous to us, she just nine.
She had the huge hair shredder. She was incredible. Joan Jet.
Maybe the other guitarist in the Runaways, Lesa Forward was
(05:18):
probably more famous, but Joan Jet certainly brought something to
the table with her guitar playing. Who else Joni Mitchell
should she be in there? She's no shredder, but she
was a slight. She did that fingerpicking, and she did
a heap of alternative churnings that no one did back
then when she first came up. Tracy Chapman, I mean
spectacular guitarists, you.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Know, like she's come again.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
You know, she's huge again. Nancy Wilson from the band.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Heart Do you remember Hard of course?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah? Huge, I mean she was. She was a bit
of a shredder. Bonnie Rait, I mean blues slide. Incredible.
Then if we talk blues, what about blues guitarists? Who
would you have in there? Stevie ray Vaughan? Obviously? Would
you have bb King? Of course, of course you would.
Would you have Muddy Waters? I reckon? So would you
have Albert King? Yes? Indeed? Then people are screaming at there.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Hold on, hold on, Wellington. In one of my clubs
we had Bo Diddley.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
He's on the list.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
How would you not have Bo Diddley and.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Bo Diddley with the square was that? Did you get
a good crowd in front?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Oh? Massive?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
That was That was before he became Remember they had
the big advertising campaign with the rugby the football player
in the States. Bo did Bo someone and he became
massive again.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, fantastic he was.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
He was a granded grand a week type thing in
those days.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I bet, I bet, I bet. Well, let's move on.
Let's talk about a really famous a couple of guitarists
who made another person exceptionally famous and probably the biggest
song of all time, which has beat It. Now, these
two guitarists on the song beat It, and we've got
and I know our producer out here, his number one,
Steve Lucater Luke Lucather Lucafer. Now people are going, who's that?
(06:58):
He's the guitarist with Toto's playing this? And then and
then the league break who plaining this? No other than
Eddie Van Halen called it by Quincy Jones. He thought
it was a joke phone call.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Do you know the story. I know the story that.
So he was sitting in his house, just come back
from a tour, tired, has had it.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
And he got the call, got the call. He hung
up on Quincy Jones apparently the first time because and
and they always say Steve Lucafer made that song, because
he came in and basically worked on that riff. Michael
Jackson had Michael Jackson had it, had the riff in
his head, dud do do do do? Steve lucaf dialed
(07:45):
it back because it was too rock and they didn't
want it. They wanted to be popping. Back then, pop
and rock didn't kind of live in the same world,
so he dialed it back. He played the bass on
that line as well in the studio because he was,
you know, the consummate session musician. Okay, so let's go on.
Let's let's move on early innovators. You'd have to have
some early innovators and guitar then why not have been
(08:06):
the big shredders. But they brought, they brought something to
the table in the fifties and sixties. You got him,
you got Chuck Berry, I mean you can't forget him.
You've got Hank Marvin, you got Les Paul And now
everyone thinks Les Paul was a guitar designer. He was
a very competent, incredible guitar guitarist that level. Should to
throw Buddy Holly in the mix? Should we throw Pulp
(08:29):
Finger Fiction's favorite soundtrack? Dick Dale And I tell you
one that I reckon has never had the credit that
he should have. And Scotty Moore and there'll be a
few people agreeing with me out here, and you don't
know who I'm talking about, dude. Okay. So Scotty Moore
was in a band called the Blue Moon Bass Blue
Moon Boys, and he in nineteen fifty four teamed up
with a young guy called Elvis Presley, and he brought
(08:52):
the fingerpicking and that echo sound of his of his
amplifier that really brought in the rockabilly and kind of
defined the early stages of rock and roll. So I reckon,
if anything, he's probably a trail trailblazer. We've got shred
like people who you know, probably my age going what
about Steve Vie, what about Joe Satriani, what about Yan
(09:13):
Yamwi Mulestein, who who are huge? Then you've got the
likes of alternative guitarists like Johnny Marr from The Smiths,
Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. The list goes on. Okay,
it just doesn't start. The text machine is going crazy.
I know for people. People are people are going crazy
at me. Let's have a listen to my trail blazers
(09:34):
I've got. I've got a couple. Nile Rodgers, who played
guitar for Let's Dance with David Bowie. He played on Lafreak,
he played on Get Lucky by Dart Punk and and
of course Prince. But there's also another little number in
here as well that was going to play first David
Gilmore nineteen ninety four. This is Live Greatest Live Guitar
(09:55):
Breaks Pulse two of nineteen ninety four. I'll shut up
go watch just on YouTube. Ninety ninety four David Gilmore
Pulse Tour. Oh it's magnificent. Here we go, Here we go.
What we all wanted, what we waited for. The greatest
(10:16):
guitar player of all time. Prince how the Border claim
he absolutely going berserk. Crowds holding him up at the moment. Ah,
turn up your radio. Someone just teach them, Gary Moore,
(10:37):
you haven't beat you, you mention, Gary Moore, did you
meet you?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Nope, Nope, I'll mean you've got to put over there too.
So many, so many, so many.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Ah. Hey, gigs, gigs. Okay, We've got the John Butler
Trio from Australia tomorrow night at Milnui. That's going to
be a cracker one for the gen X crowd. Pretty
much my age. A band called King Missile who were
pretty big in the nineties for one hot minute with
a song that I can only say the first part
of Detachable Beep, which they own the airwaves in the nineties.
(11:07):
They're playing at Meo Edward Street on Thursday, October the second.
We've got who else? Drunk mums? This is all about alternative,
isn't it? October seventh and vowel hello. That's gonna be
good fun. And why Emmanuel, Tommy Emmanuel. He is on
there May twenty second Opera House. He could be a
trailblazer for his fingerpicking guitarst off.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
We're going to credit hold. We're gonna get him on
the show, Get him on the show. We're going to
get him on the show. That's my aim.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Glenn Campbell as well. I forgot about Glenn Campbell, great guitarist.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Oh so many more. Oh man, he's on fire. He's
on absolute fire. I gotta take a break. I got
to carry about.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks There'd Be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from news Talk. Said b Higgs new releases and keeping
tabs on local artists his music time on Wellington Mornings.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Right, it's the time of the week where once a
fortnight we get James E. Irwin from our music department.
He runs all the musical side of all our stations.
He's the genius of music. And a few months ago
I said to him, who's your favorite X man, who's
your favorite guitarist? And that just fired him up. So
morning and welcome and.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, it did fire me out. Good morning, Yeah, good morning,
Kilder totally fired me up. And then it fired up
a whole of people around the building. And there's been
there's been an ongoing as I wander around in the morning,
there's been an ongoing, you know, because you change your favorites.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Don't change your favorite, well I reckon you do?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, well no I don't. My number one has always
been number one. My number one is Jeff Bick And
and you know, like he was always overshadowed in the
you know, like Jimmy Page and Clapton and the birds,
but Jeff Beck and you know, I Reckon. He's a cracker.
But this is gonna be controversial today. There's gonna be
people yelling at their rat It's probably gonna be people
rip ripping the battery out? Are you texting? Start taking?
(01:24):
And now with your favorite guitarist of all time? You know,
So I thought, well, let's let's let's go. I've been
around the building and it's just not it's not gonna
be definitive, and it's going to be subjective, and I
don't mean to upset people. I'm going to make some calls.
I'm going to make some calls and maybe some people
on the Best Guitarists are going to be on the
Worst Guitarist list at the end as well. That's gonna
(01:44):
be controversial.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
My top four will not be on the worst list
because they are the best.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, okay, well I bet, I bet, okay, I bet.
You know, I'm just gonna guess. I bet you've got
a Hendrix in there. Well, of course, yeah, yeah, I've
got a Hendrix in there. I bet you've got Eric
Clapton in there.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I mean, yeah, being stupid now, because of course he's
in the you know, like Eric Clapton's one of the
world's greatest guitarists of all time?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, but could he be on the worst list at
the end as well. Let's wait and see. We've got so,
you know, around the building. I haven't made this the
definitive lift of mine. I've got straight up rock guitarists.
We've got Brian May, We've got Hendrix. We've got Jimmy Page,
We've got Eddie van Halen. We've got Eric Clapton, Dave
Gilmore from Pink Floyd, Jeff Beck. We've got Carlos Santana.
We've got Dwayne Orman who died what he died at
(02:31):
twenty four in a motorbike accident, who was just getting
to his peak. Pete Townsend, We've got the Edge. We've
got Ry Cooder, particularly someone mentioned about in the building
for a slide guitar, which I don't know a lot
about Rykodis. I'm going to go and investigate that he
was like a kind of a one that Wonder did
really well.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So then it got me talking, you know, like guitarists.
Are people identifying great guitarists because of a famous riff?
So let's have a listen to some famous riffs that
we identify the song that maybe the riff has got
bigger than the song. Here, no one made a guitar
talk like him. I don't reckon the maye me feel.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
More a funny Yeah, yeah, he'd been on and off
my list so many times.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh you can't. You've got to be round some.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Deep purple like maybe not the most famous slash, instantly recognizable,
the white stripes. Now it played at every stadium. Gig
Hoops probably plays it over the loudspeakers when he's doing
those things. Lead's it here at Katain There you go,
(03:46):
crowded house, instantly recognizable guitar piece. That So that's what
we're talking about. Neil Finn of course David both.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Beat it.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Instantly recognizable guitar riffs, not maybe the most famous shadows. Yeah,
so we only have a whole can of worms. Sweet Home,
Ala Stone. Where's Keith Ritzon's He isn't even a peer
in on our list? Should he be on the list?
Angus Young Angus and Malcolm Young, both of them sees
(04:27):
so as you can see already, neck it's a it's
a conundrum.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
But nobody plays guitar like Prince. Oh yeah, true I mean.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
How many times have me and Who've banged on about.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
That that while my guitar GEPs.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
From the from the Hall of Fame, Tom Penney or
the guys as you're going to be on my Absolute
Exceptionals list or my Trailblazers list. A bit later, he
could be what about female guitarists? Have you thought about that?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
No, you've got some clips of those.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I haven't got any clips, but let's have a look.
We've got me and you just mentioned it off here before.
The female guitarist who played with Michael Jackson on the
His Story tour and the previous to us, she just nine.
She had the huge hair shredder. She was incredible. Joan Jet.
Maybe the other guitarist in the Runaways, Lesa Forward was
(05:18):
probably more famous, but Joan Jet certainly brought something to
the table with her guitar playing. Who else Joni Mitchell
should she be in there? She's no shredder, but she
was a slight. She did that fingerpicking, and she did
a heap of alternative churnings that no one did back
then when she first came up. Tracy Chapman, I mean
spectacular guitarists, you.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Know, like she's come again.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
You know, she's huge again. Nancy Wilson from the band.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Heart Do you remember Hard of course?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah? Huge, I mean she was. She was a bit
of a shredder. Bonnie Rait, I mean blues slide. Incredible.
Then if we talk blues, what about blues guitarists? Who
would you have in there? Stevie ray Vaughan? Obviously? Would
you have bb King? Of course, of course you would.
Would you have Muddy Waters? I reckon? So would you
have Albert King? Yes? Indeed? Then people are screaming at there.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Hold on, hold on, Wellington. In one of my clubs
we had Bo Diddley.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
He's on the list.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
How would you not have Bo Diddley and.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Bo Diddley with the square was that? Did you get
a good crowd in front?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Oh? Massive?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
That was That was before he became Remember they had
the big advertising campaign with the rugby the football player
in the States. Bo did Bo someone and he became
massive again.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, fantastic he was.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
He was a granded grand a week type thing in
those days.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I bet, I bet, I bet. Well, let's move on.
Let's talk about a really famous a couple of guitarists
who made another person exceptionally famous and probably the biggest
song of all time, which has beat It. Now, these
two guitarists on the song beat It, and we've got
and I know our producer out here, his number one,
Steve Lucater Luke Lucather Lucafer. Now people are going, who's that?
(06:58):
He's the guitarist with Toto's playing this? And then and
then the league break who plaining this? No other than
Eddie Van Halen called it by Quincy Jones. He thought
it was a joke phone call.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Do you know the story. I know the story that.
So he was sitting in his house, just come back
from a tour, tired, has had it.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
And he got the call, got the call. He hung
up on Quincy Jones apparently the first time because and
and they always say Steve Lucafer made that song, because
he came in and basically worked on that riff. Michael
Jackson had Michael Jackson had it, had the riff in
his head, dud do do do do? Steve lucaf dialed
(07:45):
it back because it was too rock and they didn't
want it. They wanted to be popping. Back then, pop
and rock didn't kind of live in the same world,
so he dialed it back. He played the bass on
that line as well in the studio because he was,
you know, the consummate session musician. Okay, so let's go on.
Let's let's move on early innovators. You'd have to have
some early innovators and guitar then why not have been
(08:06):
the big shredders. But they brought, they brought something to
the table in the fifties and sixties. You got him,
you got Chuck Berry, I mean you can't forget him.
You've got Hank Marvin, you got Les Paul And now
everyone thinks Les Paul was a guitar designer. He was
a very competent, incredible guitar guitarist that level. Should to
throw Buddy Holly in the mix? Should we throw Pulp
(08:29):
Finger Fiction's favorite soundtrack? Dick Dale And I tell you
one that I reckon has never had the credit that
he should have. And Scotty Moore and there'll be a
few people agreeing with me out here, and you don't
know who I'm talking about, dude. Okay. So Scotty Moore
was in a band called the Blue Moon Bass Blue
Moon Boys, and he in nineteen fifty four teamed up
with a young guy called Elvis Presley, and he brought
(08:52):
the fingerpicking and that echo sound of his of his
amplifier that really brought in the rockabilly and kind of
defined the early stages of rock and roll. So I reckon,
if anything, he's probably a trail trailblazer. We've got shred
like people who you know, probably my age going what
about Steve Vie, what about Joe Satriani, what about Yan
(09:13):
Yamwi Mulestein, who who are huge? Then you've got the
likes of alternative guitarists like Johnny Marr from The Smiths,
Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. The list goes on. Okay,
it just doesn't start. The text machine is going crazy.
I know for people. People are people are going crazy
at me. Let's have a listen to my trail blazers
(09:34):
I've got. I've got a couple. Nile Rodgers, who played
guitar for Let's Dance with David Bowie. He played on Lafreak,
he played on Get Lucky by Dart Punk and and
of course Prince. But there's also another little number in
here as well that was going to play first David
Gilmore nineteen ninety four. This is Live Greatest Live Guitar
(09:55):
Breaks Pulse two of nineteen ninety four. I'll shut up
go watch just on YouTube. Ninety ninety four David Gilmore
Pulse Tour. Oh it's magnificent. Here we go, Here we go.
What we all wanted, what we waited for. The greatest
(10:16):
guitar player of all time. Prince how the Border claim
he absolutely going berserk. Crowds holding him up at the moment. Ah,
turn up your radio. Someone just teach them, Gary Moore,
(10:37):
you haven't beat you, you mention, Gary Moore, did you
meet you?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Nope, Nope, I'll mean you've got to put over there too.
So many, so many, so many.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Ah. Hey, gigs, gigs. Okay, We've got the John Butler
Trio from Australia tomorrow night at Milnui. That's going to
be a cracker one for the gen X crowd. Pretty
much my age. A band called King Missile who were
pretty big in the nineties for one hot minute with
a song that I can only say the first part
of Detachable Beep, which they own the airwaves in the nineties.
(11:07):
They're playing at Meo Edward Street on Thursday, October the second.
We've got who else? Drunk mums? This is all about alternative,
isn't it? October seventh and vowel hello. That's gonna be
good fun. And why Emmanuel, Tommy Emmanuel. He is on
there May twenty second Opera House. He could be a
trailblazer for his fingerpicking guitarst off.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
We're going to credit hold. We're gonna get him on
the show, Get him on the show. We're going to
get him on the show. That's my aim.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Glenn Campbell as well. I forgot about Glenn Campbell, great guitarist.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Oh so many more. Oh man, he's on fire. He's
on absolute fire. I gotta take a break. I got
to carry about.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks There'd Be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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