The guitarist Johnny Marr said everyone should emulate: “One of the Ten Commandments of guitar”
When The Smiths first landed on the charts in the 1980s, guitarist Johnny Marr seemed to effortlessly wield a uniquely gripping sound entirely his own.
Plenty was floating around in his shimmering jangle. Post-punk’s iconoclasm, the bright resonance bursting in pop’s gooey centre, and just enough of the rock pioneers’ hefty attack before their strutting into 1970s self-parody could be detected across The Smiths’ irresistible guitar lines.
But such influences were buried deep in Marr’s foundations. Deploying his easy gift for jumping between melody and rhythm, Marr’s unmistakable chords and fretwork all dance together with a multi-dimensional spirit.
It’s a sprightly and affecting touch that’s never dimmed, from the earliest work with The Smiths to his recent solo records, and any of the bands he’s jumped into for the odd album, from The Cribs, Modest Mouse, or The The. Marr was a guitarist paying close attention to the way his heroes paved the way before him, crediting two guitarists as foundational pointers on his musical journey.
“A big lesson I learned when I was very young – maybe 11 or 12 – was when I read an old interview with John Lennon,” Marr recalled to Guitar World in 2022. “He was talking about serving the song and being a really good rhythm player.” Understanding the important driver of the rhythm role, The Beatles’ major pop asset owed much to their co-frontman’s sturdy yet hooky riffs, leaving enough space for George Harrison’s sophisticated yet unflashy solos during Beatlemania’s peak.
Yet, one towering figure of the rock canon stood apart from the rest with biblical prowess. “And then growing up in the ’70s, it seemed as if one of the Ten Commandments of guitar was, ‘Thou shalt be like Keith Richards’ – you know, be the engine of the band.”
Another guitarist able to jump between rhythm and lead as is necessary, The Rolling Stones’ riff bag made it look easy, but Richards’ organic brew of bluesy guts and seductive groove worked magic on his band’s golden era, tumbling out the speakers with a laconic skulk over the day’s showboating peacocks across rock arenas. Such rhythmic style serves The Stones well, soldiering through the ebbs and flows of their original run, powered by Richards’ riff magic even into the 1980s.
Richards was rarely able to offer much in the way of explicit advice or technical pointers, but it always added to The Stones guitarist’s mystique. Many a slice of sage wisdom shone underneath his weathered, veteran life advice, however.
“I firmly believe if you want to be a guitar player, you better start on acoustic and then graduate to electric,” Richards once said. “Don’t think you’re going to be Townshend or Hendrix just because you can go ‘wee wee wah wah’, and all the electronic tricks of the trade. First, you’ve got to know that fucker. And you go to bed with it. If there’s no babe around, you sleep with it. She’s just the right shape.”
