Neal Schon Reacts To Not Being Included In “Greatest Guitarists Of All Time” List
Journey's Neal Schon for Ernie Ball: String Theory - Ernie Ball / Youtube
Renowned arena rocker Neal Schon of Journey has created his own legend as a fabled guitar player. Born on February 27, 1954, in Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, Schon’s musical journey began at a young age when he showed prodigious talent on the guitar.
This talent made him a highly sought-after young guitar talent and he even refused to join the band of fellow guitar deity Eric Clapton. Schon ended up playing for Woodstock icon Santana before ultimately finding success with Journey.
Hence, the guitarist was understandably miffed when he was not included amongst the luminaries listed by Rolling Stone released just recently.
When a fan replied to him on X (formerly Twitter) and brought up this glaring omission, Schon didn’t mind it that much but subtly criticized the music magazine by saying “RS is bought….$$$$”
Neal Schon shrugged it off, although he also delivered a subtle jab
Schon posted a video of himself jamming to a song, casually enjoying a Friday evening when a fan brought up the infamous Rolling Stone list.
An X user named Gene Frenkle replied to the video post and said, “Rolling Stone list of top 250 guitarists and they didn’t even put you on the list????? Rick Beato is furious. So am I.”
The indignant fan went on to call the commotion “bull crap”. Schon shrugged it off and delivered the subtle jab, “It’s ok. I’m in good company. RS is bought….$$$$”
Producer and YouTuber Rick Beato, whom the fan mentioned, has taken issue with Rolling Stone magazine’s list, deeming it “idiotic”. Beato delivered his disagreement via the video below, and yes, that’s a thumbnail calling the whole thing a “sh*t list”.
“We should all make a list of our own favorite guitarist”
The Journey guitarist then replied to a fan on another thread, who mentioned him in a reply to Guitarist Magazine’s post calling out Rolling Stone for excluding some other guitar maestros.
When X user Laura tagged him as among the creative exclusions, Schon responded by once again saying that he is “in good company”, even urging fans to create their own lists.
“We are all in good company. Think we should all make a list of our own favorite guitarist,” the guitarist said.
Schon was ranked as the 40th greatest guitarist of all time by Guitar Magazine in their ‘The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time’ list. The top position on the list is held by Brian May, with Jimi Hendrix closely following as the second greatest guitarist.
Rolling Stone had previously stirred controversy earlier this year
Rolling Stone has previously stirred controversy with its compilation features published online earlier this year, such as the 200 Greatest Singers list and the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time.
The latest controversial Rolling Stone list, The 250 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time, has been curated by the magazine’s current editors and writers and includes a diverse array of guitarists like Yvette Young, Keith Urban, H.E.R, Nuno Bettencourt, Muddy Waters, Slash, Lucy Dacus, and numerous others.
In the past, the publication had also released an original list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists in 2011, which was compiled by a “panel of musicians, mostly older classic rockers”.
Some of the guitar greats who were questionably excluded were Michael Schenker, Gary Moore, Buck Dharma, George Benson, Al Di Meola, Yngwie Malmsteen, Peter Frampton, Zakk Wylde, Guthrie Govan, Buckethead, Rik Emmett, and many, many more.
