They do make guitars strong enough to dig holes with.
Three and a half minutes of Justin Johnson Crankin' Up the 3-String Shovel Guitar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9-ltPsbw9g&list=RDV9-ltPsbw9g&start_radio=1
Posted on 07/10/2025 5:22:50 PM PDT by nickcarraway
With news that a new King Crimson album is in the works, Fripp's past comments highlight the left-field ideas that make him an original
News that King Crimson are at work on a new album has generated a wave of excitement as fans and guitarists thrill to the prospect of fresh music coming from guitarist Robert Fripp.
Rising to prominence in the late ‘60s, when Eric Clapton was deemed a deity and blues guitar was dominating the charts, Fripp separated himself from the pack with a left-field approach to songwriting and what could be achieved on guitar. His talents earned him praise from high-profile supporters, with no less than Jimi Hendrix once hailing King Crimson as the best band in the world.
It seems those feelings of adoration weren’t entirely reciprocated.
Mark Knopfler says it's “awkward” to be called a guitar god and tells who deserves the title A look into the influences that shaped the now 79-year-old Fripp's daring sound reveal how little he cared for his peers and his instrument of choice back in his heyday.
“I've never really listened to guitarists, because they've never really interested me,” he told Guitar Player in 1974.
It was a year that yielded Starless and Bible Black and Red, two of King Crimson's landmark albums. Fripp was at the top of his game.
At that time, Clapton was two albums into his solo career after the demise of Cream. Hendrix was four years gone, but a raft of stellar players had risen to take his place as guitar gods for the 1970s
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Still, the players that were getting raves left Fripp nonplussed.
“I think the guitar is a pretty feeble instrument,” he continued. “Virtually nothing interests me about the guitar.”
I saw Cream live once and I thought they were quite awful. Clapton's work since, I think, has been excessively tedious.”
— Robert Fripp
Fripp's contrarian views on the instrument were shaped in childhood, where he was seduced by “the early Sun records with Scotty Moore” before he discovered traditional jazz at the age of 15. By then, he was no longer going with the cultural currents, a bias that helped him forge an identity of his own rather than one based on earlier genres and players. .
“I haven't been influenced by Hendrix and Clapton in the way that most people would say it,” he explained. “I don't think Hendrix was a guitarist. I very much doubt if he was interested in guitar playing as such. He was just a person who had something to say and got on and said it.
“Clapton I think is mostly quite banal, although he did some exciting things earlier in his life with Mayall. I saw Cream live once and I thought they were quite awful. Clapton's work since, I think, has been excessively tedious.”
As guitarist/producer Steven Wilson observes, Fripp's against-the-grain nature often put him at odds with those around him. Having remixed King Crimson's back catalog, he's well informed of the guitarist's genius.
“Every single Crimson record that’s ever come out was a battle,” Wilson states. “A battle between Robert and the rest of the band in some cases, a battle between Robert and the record company or the management or finances or touring schedules. Everything was against them, like the press telling them they were washed up.”
Rather than buckle to the whims of mainstream audiences, Fripp doubled down on his unique approach.
“I learned that a lot of Crimson records were similar to jazz and avant-garde jazz in the British jazz movement in the early '70s,” Wilson continues. “You realize that what made those records thrilling is that fact that the band were flying by the seat of their pants a lot of the time. The music was on the verge of falling apart in some respects.”
It’s interesting, then, that the one guitarist who escaped Fripp’s crosshairs during his 1974 GP interview was a guitarist that similarly challenged the status quo with his music: Jeff Beck, who was making waves at the time with his album Blow by Blow.
“Jeff Beck's guitar playing I can appreciate as good fun,” Fripp said. “It's where the guitarist and ‘poser-cum-ego tripper-cum-rock star-cum entertainer’ becomes all involved in the package. It's good fun, it's quite enjoyable, very exciting. I wish him all the best of luck.”
As the sands of time shifted and the blues gave way to shred mania in the 1980s, Eddie Van Halen became the new Clapton, the new poster boy of the electric guitar, and the next player that every other guitarist aspired to be like.
Jeff Beck's guitar playing I can appreciate as good fun. It's quite enjoyable, very exciting. I wish him all the best of luck.”
— Robert Fripp
Reflecting on the impact that had on the guitar scene last year, Wolfgang Van Halen theorized that his Dad “kind of ruined the musical landscape” during that period.
“Because,” he explains, “instead of everybody wanting to find out who they are, they wanted to be that.”
Today, it's easy to point to players like Tosin Abasi as the guiding light for imitators. Fripp has never succumbed to such worship, and the fact that he didn't allow his unique, timeless voice on the instrument to sustain.
News of a new King Crimson album, their 14th in total and their first since 2002, brings light relief following Robert Fripp’s recent heart attack. Jakszyk believes that might hinder any future touring plans, but Fripp is at least taking his feeble Fernandes Goldtop into the studio at least one more time.
Regarding Clapton, I think he was called God because he was different than people had heard. In the Bluesbreakers he did something new: yes, he had faster than usual licks, but he also had a totally new sound. He tool an old Les Paul (long out of favor) and plugged it into a newfangled Marshall amp, cranked it up to 11 for recording and invented a magical tone that nobody had heard to that point. I think that's why people thought he was extraordinary, partially technical skill but I think a huge part was the tone that he pioneered and which dominated rock and roll for the next 30 years!
Heard him at his prime 50 years ago Royce hall at UCLA.
His hands prevent him from playing like that now.
What he could do back when was uneartly.
He was still good last I heard him 125 or so years ago but much slower..
Who?
Tommy Emmanuel
I got to see Leo live some years ago. I had my choice of tickets for either Leo Kottke or the Seldom Scene, and I thought I would always be able to hear the (then mostly original) Seldom Scene... a false assumption which I have often regretted.
Leo and John Fahey remain two of my somewhat guilty listening pleasures.
Kottke seems to have a totally unique sound/style.
Very complex torrent of notes.
John Fahey deserves more adulation.
I recently saw Beat - King Crimson with Steve Vai replacing Fripp. (Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, along with Steve Vai on guitar and Tool drummer Danny Carey.)
It was VERY interesting to see how Steve Vai covered Fripp’s technical riffs with tapping and other techniques. He did his own take while capturing the soul of all the KC classics.
They do make guitars strong enough to dig holes with.
Three and a half minutes of Justin Johnson Crankin' Up the 3-String Shovel Guitar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9-ltPsbw9g&list=RDV9-ltPsbw9g&start_radio=1
>> Fripp is so good I’ve never heard of him. He comes across as an ass.
I confess I can’t recall a single King Crimson song at all.
I once won tickets to see Robert Fripp play a college auditorium in Toronto, in the mid-80’s, with an acoustic band he formed called “The League of Crafty Guitarists”. There were six people plus me in a venue that seated approximately 1,000. We all stayed and he put on the show as if the place was full. I never heard of the League of Crafty Guitarists again..
I think half the audience didn’t know what to make of it.
No mention of David Gilmour.
If only I'd thought of the right words. I could have held on to your heart. If only I'd thought of the right words, I wouldn't be breaking apart. All my pictures of you.
I, to this day, *DETEST* Roger Waters. Hendrix, on the other hand, had a brief but brilliant career.
Let’s just all agree Mark Knopfler is and will always be the greatest, and be done with it. Feeble instrument indeed.
Yes I know, Fripp is now 79.
+1.
I found Fripp’s comments to be exceedingly tedious.
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