ROBBIE McINTOSH

Robbie McIntosh is a wondrous musician with a distict voice on acoustic guitar (as heard on his own Unsung album) and on electric guitar (as heard on the Robbie McIntosh Band CDs, Emotional Bends and Widescreen, and on countless recordings he has worked on as a session ace). His first worldwide gig was playing in the Pretenders. McIntosh joined the band 1982 and is featured on their Learning to Crawl and Get Close. In the 20 years since, he has recorded with an eyebrow-raising list of musical greats, including Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, George Martin, Paul Young, Joe Cocker, Mark Knopfler, Annie Lennox, and Carl Perkins — not to mention his 6-year stint touring with Paul McCartney.

I happened to meet McIntosh earlier this year in Berlin, Germany, where we were performing on the same bill — he with Gordon Haskell, me with Norah Jones. After the show, we got to talking about some of our favorite guitar solos of all time, and I thought it would be interesting to share his A-list solos here. In alphabetical order (by guitarist), here's McIntosh's top, um, "picks."

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1. "Seven Come Eleven" by Charlie Christian.
2. "All Shook Up" by Ry Cooder.
3. "Midnight at the Oasis" by Maria Muldaur (Amos Garrett on guitar).
4. "Something" by the Beatles (George Harrison on guitar).
5. "Bleeding Heart" by Jimi Hendrix (from the original soundtrack of Experience).
6. "Blues Power" by Albert King.
7. "Help Me Through the Day" by Freddie King.
8. "Sweet Little Lisa" by Dave Edmunds (Albert Lee on guitar).
9. "Tiger Rag" by this Django Reinhardt.
10. "Jump Sister Bessie" by Otis Rush.

Honorable Mention

1. "Nowhere Man" by the Beatles (George Harrison on guitar).
2. "I'm Sitting on Top of the World" by Les Paul & Mary Ford (Les Paul on guitar).
3. "Georgia on My Mind" by Jerry Reed (not a "guitar solo," strictly speaking, but a solo-guitar performance).

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To jump to the official Web site of Robbie McIntosh, click here.