Led Zeppelin – ‘Whole Lotta Love’

Let’s be absolutely real here, even though a lot of their work was released in the ‘70s, we could still flood this list with Led Zeppelin songs if we wanted to. Jimmy Page never held up when it came to delivering a good guitar solo, and therefore, each of them deserves a place on this list, but that wouldn’t make for much fun reading. As such, we’ve whittled it down to one, and think it’s best that that one is ‘Whole Lotta Love’.

There is something about ‘Whole Lotta Love’ which just stands out. It’s the guitar solo, sure, but also the way that it’s presented to us. The band showcase their engineering skills on the song as it sounds like we drive through a wind tunnel to get to the guitar solo. It means that when those high-pitched speed runs take effect, it really hits home.

Jimi Hendrix – ‘Little Wing’

Jimi Hendrix is another artist who could feature on this list multiple times. Songs like ‘Voodoo Child’ and ‘All Along The Watchtower’ are some of the most exciting guitar songs out there, but his best has to be ‘Little Wing’, given it’s equal parts euphoric and soothing.

There are two solos in this song, the first one comes at the beginning of the track, which is a gorgeous run of finger picking, hammer-ons and pull-offs based around the chord sequence repeated throughout the track. The second comes at the outro, following Hendrix’s sweetly sung “Fly on little wing,” we are plunged into a distortion-heavy, heavenly bit of guitar music.

Cream – ‘Sunshine of Your Love’

Steven Van Zandt once called Eric Clapton the greatest guitarist of all time, and when you listen to his rationale, it makes sense. “Clapton absorbed that,” he said when discussing some of the earliest guitar playing pioneers, “Then introduced the essence of black electric blues: the power and vocabulary of Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin and the three Kings—BB, Albert and Freddie—to create an attack that defined the fundamentals of rock and roll lead guitar.”

Eric Clapton’s guitar playing is some of the most versatile on the planet, and you can hear that perfectly on the track ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. The iconic riff, paired with the abstract lyrics and the varied guitar solo, is a pleasure to listen to even six decades after the song’s original release. 

The Beatles – ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’

Another Eric Clapton entry here. Even though ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ is famously a track written by George Harrison, he asked Eric Clapton to come and solo during the song. There were two reasons for this: The first is that he thought Clapton would be able to do a better job, and the second is that his fellow bandmates didn’t seem to take the track seriously, and he thought getting an external voice involved would help keep them in check. 

The solos on this song are stellar. Let’s face it, given the track is about how playing music can be its own form of escapism, the solo had to be good, and Clapton delivered. Not only does it sound great, though, but it also shows just how good Clapton was at collaborating. He fit right in one of the most renowned bands of all time and delivered a solo which is widely considered their best.

The Beatles – ‘Taxman’

It would be unfair to mention a Beatles song without including another where a member of the band actually plays the guitar solo. Paul McCartney delivered an amazing guitar solo on ‘Taxman’, which was inspired by Hendrix but still sees the Beatle display his unique understanding of rhythm and melody.

“George let me have a go for the solo because I had an idea,” recalled McCartney when discussing the solo, “It was the early Jimi Hendrix days and I was trying to persuade George to do something like that, feedback-y and crazy.”

Deep Purple – ‘Kentucky Woman’

When you look up “Ritchie Blackmore” and “guitar”, chances are you’ll come across the track ‘Smoke On The Water’. That’s fair enough, as it’s one of the greatest riffs ever written and is iconic in its own right. However, if we’re talking about killer guitar solos Blackmore wrote in the ‘60s, there is no other track to discuss other than ‘Kentucky Woman’. 

Blackmore was a guitarist who was always willing to experiment with various styles of guitar playing, and that comes through wonderfully on this track. His playing is varied, sporadic and incredibly exciting to listen to. Of all of Blackmore’s revolutionary solos, this holds up as one of the very best.

The Jeff Beck Group – ‘Beck’s Bolero’

The Yardbirds were probably one of the most important bands in the world when it came to cementing what became known as the classic rock guitarist. Three of their former members were Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and, of course, Jeff Beck. Beck did a lot of great work in The Yardbirds, including showing how much more animated and exciting guitarists could be; however, his best work came as a solo artist.

In 1967, he released the track ‘Beck’s Bolero’, which came out of a jam session alongside John Paul Jones, Keith Moon and Nicky Hopkins. That’s one hell of a line-up, and the result is one hell of a song. Everyone plays their heart out on this track, but the clear highlight is Jeff Beck’s outstanding guitar work.

The Kinks – ‘You Really Got Me’

The A chord, which is used during the main section of this song, is probably the most important A chord in rock history. It’s not just the way it sounds, but the way that’s played as well. There is a tenacity there, one which shakes the walls of the room where you play it. It showed guitarists that simplicity in rock could work so long as it was played with passion.

While the overarching riff is pretty straightforward, that didn’t stop The Kinks from pulling out all the stops with the guitar solo. Following a pained “Oh no no,” a fast-paced and mildly chaotic solo kicks in, and it’s one which is still recognised as the most powerful and exciting to this day. ‘You Really Got Me’ was certainly a huge game changer within the world of rock music.

The Kingsmen – ‘Louie Louie’

‘Louie Louie’ was originally written back in 1955 by an artist called Richard Berry. He recorded and released the first version of the song, which did pretty well, but it wasn’t until The Kingsmen put out their own rendition in 1963 that the track really became globally famous.

There were a few reasons why the song did well. The first was the lyrics, which are borderline indecipherable; they’re fun to listen to and delivered in a rhythm which is pretty impossible to ignore. The second reason people loved the song was the addictive guitar solo, while it is relatively simple, it was a standout at the time and should be recognised for its influence.

King Crimson – ’21st Century Schizoid Man’

It’s hard to pick out which section of this song we can actually classify as the solo. There are hardly any words present throughout, and so most of the track is an instrumental. The music we hear throughout the track is truly revolutionary, and therefore, while the solo might be tricky to pin down, it’s certainly one we can credit with being one of the best ever written.

When you play ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’ in 2025, it sounds ahead of its time now, let alone when it was first released in the ‘60s. Out of all the tracks on this list, the offering by King Crimson is certainly one of the most experimental and exciting.