We can pick guitarists who have gone through a brief spell of Holdsworthian playing and moved on - Scott McGill  during interview admitted Holdsworth's influence in his early playing e.g. with Finneus Gauge, but clearly 20 years on is his own man. Alex Machacek seemed mortified by reviewers suggesting his debut  album Featuring Ourselves, to be a sort of 80's Mothers with Holdsworth as lead guitarist, that his subsequent albums have been free of the obvious. Other guitarists have the occasional Holdsworthian moments but also have drawn on a broader range of influences and along with their own originality, e.g. Nguyen Le or Susan Reinert. Do others find with the pairing of Holdsworth and Frank Gambale on MPV's Truth In The Shredding, that it was difficut to tell the guitarists apart - when Gambale  has a fairly distinct sound on his own recordings? And I may go as far as including It Bites' Francis Dunnery in this listing, who in a UK specialist guitarist magazine at the end of the 80's, discussed his love of Holdsworth and Genesis - which goes a little way to my then thinking It Bites has a small percentage of UK and a larger percentage of Gabriel period Genesis in their albums. And then those who have stuck being Holdsworthian through several albums and those who have been limited to one album only (e.g. Jacque Le Greca, Elliot Freedman). Then there is that odd 80's period of Bill Connors' career with three solo albums that had him accused of being Holdsworthian - whilst ignoring the originality of  his earlier RTF period???

 

So following on from that preamble,some questions/requests for your input:

1. Which guitarists do you think have a distinct voice (and you may like to add which subsequent guitarists have "borrowed")?  I would say McLaughlin (although Larry Coryell has claimed to have added to McLaughlin education in the early 70's) , Holdsworth, Metheny, Montgomery, Jim Hall, Les Paul, Coryell.

 

2. Which Holdsworthian guitarists and their recordings would you recommend?

 

 

*On which  Malmsteen at least tackled UK's In The Dead Of Night and avoided being Holdsworthian.

Cosey's break into the jazz and fusion world came with Miles Davis. Cosey contributed some of the finest and most original electric guitar work ever on albums like "Get Up with It" and "Agharta".

Cosey's playing is grounded in the blues, but years of wood-shedding have led to an incredible technique that rivals the best. Rock guitar ace Robert Fripp has referred to Cosey's playing as "wallpaper shredding".

After Miles, Cosey went back to quietly working on his technique until Bill Laswell called on him for work on his many projects. Cosey has never recorded a solo album, but remains active often showing up on Laswell records and other artists associated with the NYC scene.

as well as Hugh Ferguson's A D D

and Corrado Rustici - Deconstruction Of A Postmodern Musician

Also, Sonny Sharrock. Meola? David Fiuczynski does seem to have a rather original style, with influences no doubt. Jeff Beck and Santana are very original imo, although more toward the rock genre.

John Goodsall may have a bit of Holdsworth? Hmm, maybe not. John Etheridge as well, but he does seem to have more of a McLaughlin influence.

Concerning the jazz genre proper, I'm still a newb at differenciating guitarists. Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, all considered great ones, but I need to pay close attention to notice the differences.

A band that you might be interested, if you don't know yet, is Exivious from the "Metal Fusion" genre, the guitarist reminds me a lot of Holdsworth, despite the metal riffage:

Still waiting to hear those.

 

Might not quite fit here, but Jukka Tolonen was pretty impressive guitarist in his own fusion band and works ... at least I thought that could/should be considered fusion.

 

How coincidental? I've had in my mind to find time to briefly mention here Mongol's Doppler 444, which I recently discovered. Virtually every guitar solo has a strong Holdsworthian input.