10 Best Grunge Guitar Solos
3. Reach Down - Temple of the Dog
The entire Temple of the Dog record feels like a grand catharsis for the grunge community. Rather than let the memory of Mother Love Bone singer Andy Wood fade into obscurity, Chris Cornell managed to pick up the pieces with the rest of the members of Mother Love Bone and create one of the most touching tribute records of all time. Even though he wasn't in the trenches with either group, Reach Down announced the arrival of the next guitar god of the Seattle scene.
When assembling tracks for the record, Cornell had come up with Reach Down's backing track as a way to piss off the label, aiming for it to be a Neil Young-style freakout song that is almost entirely comprised of guitar solos. Aiming to live up to the rock god's reputation, McCready delivers some of the bluesiest lines of his career, as he whistled through the entire solo in just a handful of takes, with at least one involving his headphones flying off of his head as he wailed away on his guitar.
When speaking about it later, Cornell was amazed that his original vision for the song wasn't going to be a joke since they had a guy who could pull it off. After eventually going their separate ways, Cornell returned to the stronghold of Soundgarden and the newly formed Pearl Jam had just found one of the best players of their generation.