Which Guitarist squandered their talent the most?

Dexter Inferno said:
I can see that. I was more thinking of his overall career, which has been fairly non-existant for decades now, apart from the Lizzy tribute shows. And more due to a series of poor decisions, failed auditions and stuff like that rather than substance abuse. A couple of singles which pretty much nobody's heard over the last 20 years isn't exactly productive. Such a shame, as he's a brilliant player at his best.
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He is incredible at his best. I'll put up with a so so song to hear him play. Maybe he isn't a people person?
 
Peen Simmons said:
I’m not sure about that. Dude put some indelible parts on some of the most beloved singles and LPs in the rock canon and caught a second wind to craft a signature slide sound that is pretty recognizable as the “George Harrison thing” when other people cop it. Oh, and he became a pretty damn good songwriter.

If anything, dude squandered his potential as a songwriter/record-maker and touring performer in the later 1970s and 1980s because he was bitchy and preachy and contrary and an introverted weirdo who couldn’t be bothered because he was more into race cars and film. But, I mean, he’d been to the top of the mountain and just seemed to lack the insane, insatiable ambition and energy of his buddies Paul and Bob.
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Just saying he wasted his chops, not that he didn't do good things out there. I just think he could have been that much more.
 
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DinoMikeSr said:
I don’t understand Derek Trucks placement. He’s the best slide player on the planet revered by all who simply know. His slide playing intonation has been spot on for ever. He steers a 13 or 14 piece band that puts out some of the best jam music of the times. Along with his crew makes up about 23 to 25 people he’s been taking care of, business wise, for a long time. He’s just 44 years old. I just listened to Revelator and Made Up Mind again last week. Just incredible listening. He’s a huge talent and success in the industry. Plus, never been a junkie, never been a drunk, never been an asshole.
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I can't speak to the rationale from the person that brought up Derek, but the Derek Trucks Band was very much exploring more...

The band was playing and writing songs that either were jazz and/or Indian OR highly influenced by these musics harmonically and rhythmically, while still incorporating blues and rock. A kind of world fusion blues jam band. As the band grew and TTB came to be a big band, that free-er approach was reined in. That said, they still do stuff live with subsets of the band that do more improvising.

I don't think there's a better guitarist than Derek right now regardless of genre. I'd go further to say that there are very few musicians that are "better", with 100% understanding that this is ALL subjective. He can hang with heavy improvisors in many areas. His style adapts well to acoustic, but he also approaches acoustic a bit differently.

It's understandable that if you aren't a fan of what TTB does, that you wouldn't necessarily care for what Derek is doing in that context. All the more so if you dug his previous path. It reminds me of never really getting into Dimebag because I wasn't a fan of Pantera. This is essentially because of Phil...not him as a person, but if I don't like a singer in a band, I'm not going to listen to that band. This doesn't take away from what a band does and the perceived quality of what they are doing.

TL/DR:
Derek Trucks as squandering guitar skills is the HOTTEST of hot takes.
 
As to the growing list here, I'd say there's a big difference between squandering due to:
- resting on one's laurels, which Eddie was accused of by many,
- drinking/drugging away your greatness or potential to trash of mediocrity,
- mental illness disrupting a life or career, which can point back to the previous notion

Syd and Peter (and even Jaco, yeah bassist, but still) used to be dismissed as drug casualties, but a deeper analysis into their lives and continually evolving understanding/exploration of mental health has lead to rethinking their mental and related artistic decline. Further, as most here know, lot of drug addiction is related to mental health issues and self-medicated to address those issues, often without the person even realizing it.

In some cases, a musician was more potential than creative ability, which was merely exposed by time. In other cases you have people that hit a wall, where their playing is/was as evolved as it was ever going to get. Not every player can blaze like Yngwie or think like Frisell or write like Neil Young or wants to do anything more than just support a song.

I guess I'm more or less rejecting the premise of the thread, while also being interested in who people list.
 
wok said:
Yngwie Malmsteen. So much talent and playing the same guff for 40 years
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I feel like Yngwie gets a Lifetime Achievement pass for not reinventing himself over the years. He innovated one style, but that innovation changed everything for hard rock/metal.
 
Dogsinplastic said:
I can't speak to the rationale from the person that brought up Derek, but the Derek Trucks Band was very much exploring more...

The band was playing and writing songs that either were jazz and/or Indian OR highly influenced by these musics harmonically and rhythmically, while still incorporating blues and rock. A kind of world fusion blues jam band. As the band grew and TTB came to be a big band, that free-er approach was reined in. That said, they still do stuff live with subsets of the band that do more improvising.

I don't think there's a better guitarist than Derek right now regardless of genre. I'd go further to say that there are very few musicians that are "better", with 100% understanding that this is ALL subjective. He can hang with heavy improvisors in many areas. His style adapts well to acoustic, but he also approaches acoustic a bit differently.

It's understandable that if you aren't a fan of what TTB does, that you wouldn't necessarily care for what Derek is doing in that context. All the more so if you dug his previous path. It reminds me of never really getting into Dimebag because I wasn't a fan of Pantera. This is essentially because of Phil...not him as a person, but if I don't like a singer in a band, I'm not going to listen to that band. This doesn't take away from what a band does and the perceived quality of what they are doing.

TL/DR:
Derek Trucks as squandering guitar skills is the HOTTEST of hot takes.
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from comments made in the past, I think he was brought up because he had the potential to really push things musically with some of the other influences you mentioned, east meets west kind of stuff, but with the TTB he hasn’t.
 
Frank Prince said:
I feel like Yngwie gets a Lifetime Achievement pass for not reinventing himself over the years. He innovated one style, but that innovation changed everything for hard rock/metal.
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Absolutely. And he's still writing/recording music and doing tours, like his music or not.
By default you'd have to add Eddie as well to the squandered list if Yngwie's on there, and Eddie hardly did anything at all the latter part of his life - well other than giving Eagles a good run for the title of the band with the most number of pointless reunion/farewell tours without actually making any new music..

The one who would have been very interesting to see how he'd develop later on would be the one of the hard rock/metal innovators that actually died early on. Randy. By far the most musical of the three and he could probably have done anything he wanted, and you did get the sense that he wasn't going to stay in the hard rock/metal bubble for much longer even back then..
 
Andrew Sak said:
He is incredible at his best. I'll put up with a so so song to hear him play. Maybe he isn't a people person?
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I do think there's something off with him. So many failed projects and auditions, record deal contracts cancelled and stuff like that. At one point he was supposed to be in what later became The Winery Dogs, but like many other things he had planned for it never actually materialized. And now TWD is probably one of my favourite bands. A project like that would have been a great way for Sykes to escape obscurity. Maybe he's just given up on the whole thing.
 
John McLaughlin is another one.

Presence and intensity with Miles, first Mahavishnu and Shakti were killer….

And he’s spent nearly all of the past 50 years on tasteless shit. So much muzak and elevator music, so much wanking over digital tracks and metronomic beat rhythms.

It’s never a good sign when a musician like that who’s in the position who’s in the position who can play with other greats… and who just don’t.

Having shitty taste is a problem.
 
rhino said:
from comments made in the past, I think he was brought up because he had the potential to really push things musically with some of the other influences you mentioned, east meets west kind of stuff, but with the TTB he hasn’t.
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That's what I was saying, and he did do a lot of exploration for about a decade. TTB is not that and was never sold as such. He gets to play music with his family every night, music they all have a passion for, much of which they've written together. It's more focused on American roots music, which we can fairly say rock n roll is a part of, and he still goes Eastern when he's feeling that way.

Again, the premise doesn't really work for me. It reminds me of that article in Musician not too long after the Ernie Ball EVH guitars came out written by Matt Resnicoff where he was talking to Eddie, Lukather, Albert Lee, and Steve Morse at the NAMM show or some other showcase. Resnicoff essentially suggested that Eddie could've been so much more than what he'd become with Hagar and the music he'd created to that point. He talked about how Lee and Morse were still at the top of their game and still pushing themselves as players, while Eddie was basically still doing the same stuff 15 years after he revolutionized guitar playing...wondering why he didn't dive deeper into more interesting music, following a path not unlike Holdsworth. It was super strange, as if any musician should feel like they have anything to prove to anyone other than themselves. Yet, I'm sure there is some validity to it if you're looking at the notion of potential and have any ideas that what has/had been achieved was just a point along a limitless trajectory.

As I mentioned previously, not every musician is about their evolution as a soloist, some are far more interested in writing songs...some even focused mostly on a single genre. Guitar skills in service of themselves do little for me. As part of a great tune, that's what gets me. Often I don't even think about the instrumentation of the parts, I just hear the song a cohesive union of sounds...is that a guitar, a kahzoo, a washboard??? I don't care, as long as the song sounds good.

We all know you can't please everyone, everyone's a critic, etc., and if you're a musician, I hope you don't get mired in this shit about what other people think you woulda, coulda, or shoulda done. Hopefully you're at peace and are doing what you love.

Cheers.
 
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