What was the first number one song to feature a guitar solo?
It’s hard to put into words what makes a good guitar solo, mostly because there are so many different variations of what makes one good to begin with.
That said, we can learn a lot from those who raised the bar to begin with, like Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Slash, Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck, the list goes on. And most of the time, the context around what makes many of them so great isn’t about precision or efficiency or any of those words we love to use all too often – it’s about how it all makes you feel.
Obviously, there’s a lot of technicality at play that is just as important to unpack. But some of the most defining guitar moments in history are ones that not even the most skilled of players can put into words. Because, often, it’s like a scene from a movie – one where someone stands watching something impossible play out in front of them that they walk away from feeling entirely changed, for better or worse.
When Pamela Des Barres first heard Hendrix play, she thought she was having a spiritual experience. Literally – she felt the winds of counterculture dissolve into nothing as something more primal, eager and energetic took its place. It’s the same feeling Beck felt when he first discovered Hendrix, only, in his case, he was in equal parts awe and fright, having experienced someone whose technique rivalled his and who also came with an inexplicable charm of mystique that he couldn’t replicate.
What was the first number one song to feature a guitar solo?
Several defining guitar players have carried the same feeling, many of them contributing to tracks that have climbed the charts and reinstated the power of a good guitar solo that crosses over into the mainstream. There are several contenders for the best solo ever, from Beck’s ‘A Day in the Life’ to Van Halen’s ‘Eruption’. But what about the first?
As with most things in music, pinpointing the first to do almost anything is an impossible task, mostly because of the gradual nature of things that progress and evolve. But when it comes to locating the first-ever number one to feature a guitar solo, there might have been many before, but it’s hard to think of any that had (and continue to have) as big an impact as 1954’s Bill Haley-charged ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
The first rock ‘n’ roll song to top the charts in both the UK and America, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ is also considered the first chart-topper with a guitar solo, or at least the first rock chart-topper to make the guitar solo a centrepiece that set a new standard in rock ‘n’ roll.
The song had an impact on many names we still discuss today, like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, because it opened their eyes before they even knew what it meant to play a ripping guitar solo. All they knew was how it made them feel, as well as the undeniable pull to pick up a guitar that came after the fact.
