Here I Go Again Guitar Greats

Whitesnake/uFO legend Bernie Marsden pays credit to the path of players who led him to greatness.

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I’ve been fortunate to have a long career, but I can’t begin to imagine how many guitarists I have heard in the years I have been treading the boards. As a budding teenager I saw in my young eyes wonderful players every Friday and Saturday night, sometimes on Sundays at lunchtime pub gigs, but seeing people actually playing their Fender or Gibson was a joy on its own. I thought all of them were the greatest guitarists I had ever heard, and the truth is that some of them were. I played shows as a teenager with Mick Green, Mick Abrahams, Miller Anderson and I was in awe of them all. Turning professional really opened my eyes. I went from being the local hotshot in front of a couple of hundred people in a packed pub, to a real-life pro with UFO in front of 1,500 people at a festival in Germany. I soon realised that I had a way to go, I can tell you.

A guitar player asked a question at one of my clinics recently. It’s a question I am asked on a regular basis, and one I know a lot of people are curious about. He asked whom I thought was ‘the greatest ever guitarist’. I took a while to answer, and I think this frustrated me more than him. I have a problem with the question though, and that is that I believe there is no such thing as ‘the greatest’ or ‘the best’, but just players who make a sound that moves you and delights your ears.