10 Most Underrated Guitarists In Rock Music History

The entire grunge movement seemed to signal the death of the guitar hero in most people's eyes. Since we had people like Kurt Cobain playing from the heart and putting together anti solos by strangling his guitar, the age of Slash and Eddie Van Halen playing a mile a minute wasn't really in the cards anymore. The focus was about serving the song, and Jerry Cantrell was able to find a middle ground between classic rock and alternative in Alice in Chains.

While most of Jerry's licks tend to be fairly simple on songs like Man in the Box, there's a lot more that goes into his songwriting than just throwing together a bunch of chords. Outside of the occasional dark riff like Would?, songs like Them Bones thrive off the moment where the guitars explode, with Jerry having a healthy respect for the wildness of Jimmy Page and Hendrix, sticking primarily to the bluesy side of the spectrum and making the guitar almost sound like it's crying out in pain on songs like Whale and Wasp and Angry Chair.

Aside from the Sabbath worship though, there's also a healthy dose of funk in his style of playing if you look for it, like the chord stabs that happen during the chorus of God Smack or the almost disco tinged wah wah sounds that happen throughout the ending of Man in the Box. Grunge may have put the entire Seattle scene in a box, but you had to be a much more rounded musician like this if you wanted to be discovered amid the Nirvanas of the world.