10 Best Classic Rock Guitarists Of The '70s
The original Guitar Heroes.
The '70s has become known as the unofficial golden age of rock and roll. At a time when most bands were coming out of the idealistic dream of the '60s, the real saviors of the rock world were taking your average rock tune and turning it into something much larger. Rock music was definitely turning a corner, and it was starting from the guitar outward.
Whether or not anyone really wanted to admit it, the '70s became the era of the guitar god, with some of the fastest players imaginable rising up the ranks for the spot as the greatest of all time. While some were sticking with the traditional blues based playing of the previous decade, the best of the time were the ones who put their own unique spin on the classic sound, from adding elements of jazz and fusion to reshaping the mindset of how guitar was to be played.
As opposed to the shredders that would appear later down the line in the '80s, these were the guys you went to if you wanted to make the guitar sing. The rock and roll frontman may have been born in the '70s, but if you had guys like these providing the licks, you didn't really need too much else.
10. Ace Frehley - KISS
For all the smoke and bombs that flew around, KISS were never the most complicated band of all time. No matter how many mind-blowing stage theatrics they put on their live stage, half of the songs that were written by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were some of the more generic guitar riffs of the early '70s rock sound. As opposed to the straightforward rock style of the shock rockers' early years, they did have one Swiss army knife in Ace Frehley.
While Frehley himself claims that he isn't that good of a guitar player, everything that he played was perfect for the song that he was on at the time. Across every one of the group's great records of the '70s like Dressed to Kill or Love Gun, Frehley is flying off the handle at every turn, wearing his influences of Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton on his sleeve as he tears through songs like C'mon and Love Me and I Stole Your Love.
In addition to his flashy leads, Frehley's way with songwriting also resulted in some of the group's heaviest tracks, like the stomping run on Parasite or the tone-bending riff on Shock Me. Though Ace may have had his issues with drugs and alcohol in the early days, he gifted us with a blueprint for later metal bands without even knowing it.