The guitarist Johnny Marr stands in reverence to: “An almost monastic approach”
As anybody who has ever tried to replicate his riffs can attest to, Johnny Marr is among the most inventive and endlessly skilled guitarists that the world of indie rock has ever produced, and his talents have only seemed to expand since his early days with The Smiths, making him a certain figure of worship for budding young floppy-haired guitarists everywhere.
In many ways, Marr’s playing style is at odds with the punk influences he was immersed in during the early origins of The Smiths. During an age of three-chord indie and deliberately simplistic riffs, the Mancunian master managed to play a litany of complex riffs and rhythmic masterpieces, forming the backbone of The Smiths sound and forever committing the word ‘jangly’ into the back pocket of music journalists, for better or worse.
Inevitably, then, Marr defined a core part of what indie guitar music was back in the 1980s and, to an extent, that style still prevails to this day. Although many have attempted to emulate Marr’s distinctive playing style over the years, though, his unique voice and seemingly effortless playing style have never truly been matched.
That is a fact that Marr himself is seemingly able to recognise. He has, after all, always appreciated guitarists with their own unique voice. Giving advice to his young devotees, the guitarist once told Fender, “If you focus on what your direction is, in anything you do, and you decide in a way some of the things you don’t want to be, that could be really helpful in finding your own true voice.”
Finding that unique voice is key to guitar greatness, according to Marr. After all, even if you spent the rest of your life dedicated to replicating the riffs of Jimi Hendrix note-perfect, you still wouldn’t be able to capture the same power or passion as the man himself.
“Because I do believe there are a ton of people who play the guitar that are not necessarily individual voices,” Marr continued. Some of the best and most interesting musicians and guitar players to me have a limited vocabulary and do one thing well.” Adding, “Well, unless you’re John McLaughlin, who has an almost monastic approach that I revere. He’s incredible.”
McLaughlin is the gold standard of guitarists as far as The Smiths’ songwriter is concerned, with a voice unique enough to blend the relatively disparate worlds of jazz, blues, classical music, and a vast plethora of other styles from every far-flung corner of the globe with apparent ease. Unlike countless other guitar hopefuls, McLaughlin managed to perfectly blend a distinctive playing style with inarguable skill.
First emerging from the soot-strained surroundings of late 1960s Doncaster, McLaughlin’s expansive style has rarely afforded him much in the way of mainstream success, but his progenitive jazz-fusion afforded him the respect and admiration of everybody from Miles Davis to Jeff Beck – as well as, of course, Johnny Marr.
Marr himself might never have fully embraced the style of jazz-fusion pioneered by the South Yorkshire six-string master, but that hasn’t stopped his unique voice from being a continued driving force for originality and skill within the expansive discography of the indie hero.
