Aqualung by Jethro Tull, waaay back when I was a teen in an english class… I just loved the raw grit of it all. Opened my eyes to a whole new paradigm in songwriting…
Very cool to read all the stories in this thread (I’m playing catch-up). @Firedance Ant Music, ooh yes… he was awesome.
I know I’ve overchimed in on this one, but another one for me was Cliffs of Dover. As a guitarist, I get instantly hooked by someone who can play with incredible precision, but still make you feel like there is a lot of searching and emotion within it. Making a beautiful melody sound emotive is an incredible skill. Kind of like hearing the solo for Manic Depression, where Hendrix just goes for it. If you asked him how he played that solo, he wouldn’t say " I used an A minor arpeggio with a combination of alternate picking and legato" he’d just say " Anger".
Good lord - Cliffs of Dover. I’d only read about Eric Johnson in the early 90’s in Guitar World magazine, which had the tab for the song. I tried playing it, but having never heard it didn’t really make it past bar 3. Fast forward a few years and I’m in University. The tiny but of money was spent on CDs and concerts. I decided to go for it and buy the Ah Via Musicom CD. Off I went to Piccadilly Circus, home of the famous Tower Records. They didn’t have it in stock. No problem. They could order it for me. The price? £26. To put it into perspective, I picked up Van Halen CDs for £8. So, more than 300% expensive. But I ordered it, waited and then took it home to listen. Just like you @StylesBitchley, the level of playing was so beyond anything I’d heard. What rocked my world completely was hearing those Eric Johnson chords - to this day there’s nobody who can play those chords with that beautiful reverb and delay.
I was lucky enough in 2012 to see Eric Johnson playing in a tiny venue here in Holland. One of the best shows I’ve had the privilege of attending.
I’ve seen him up close about five times, and my jaw dropped every time. He improvises a lot and still pulls it off effortlessly. One of the times was at House of Blues, opening for Joe Satriani. Don’t get me wrong, Joe is an incredible player, but I had a hard time hearing fans of his saying “this guy is pretty good” while EJ was playing. To me, he has a much larger palette. Yeah, he has some go-to pentatonic runs that you’ll pick up on, but he never sounds like he’s playing finger studies like a lot of the shredders.
I’ve also seen Satriani about a dozen times over the years. For me, Satiriani is the lord of guitar! But I know exactly what you mean about Eric Johnson. There’s something ‘not quite of this world’ about him. I couldn’t get over how far he stretches his left hand for some of his chords.
I have a funny story about his gig. He’s known to be fanatical about his sound general, and when the gig started I thought there was something not quite right about his sound. As soon as he started his opening number, he looked a bit puzzled, and in between coats and runs he was adjusting his amp without missing a single note. About half way into the song he managed to hit the sweet spot and you can tell because the crowd all cheered because his sound suddenly became amazing. It was quite surreal to see a guitarist do that on stage during his own song.
There’s a Youtube of him playing in Orlando at the House of Blues. I happened to be at that show. During the first song, his lead Marshall at the back of the stage takes a dump, and you see the frustration on his face, then he immediately steps on the y switch and gets the amp replaced while tearing your face off. Sorry to turn this into a guitar drooling session, but seeing a pro go through that and not missing a beat makes you realize we are mere mortals with high aspirations.
So that it doesn’t turn into a complete guitar love in - here’s some songs for you synth fans. The album that really opened my ears up to synths (and note, I grew up in the 80’s, the decade of the synth!) was the greatest hits of Vangelis. Just beautiful. Got me into synths big time. Moved onto Jean Michel Jarre, and then finally, after ignoring it for many years, Tubular Bells. To then find out that Tubular Bells was an album almost entirely made by one person just blew my mind.
Yes! Mike Oldfield was a very talented guy. I just had his “Ommadawn” come up on my shuffle the other day, the album he made after TB. Honestly those records were some of the beginnings of my inspiration to want to record my own stuff someday, long before the tech to do so became remotely feasible.
Another record that had a similar effect on me was Talking Book by Stevie Wonder. “Superstition” was one of the first keyboard-centric rock songs to really grab my attention. This album was one of the 11 I got for 99 cents from the Columbia House Record Club when I was about 12, in '72. Stevie didn’t do everything, but did the bulk of the instrumentation on most of the tracks. “I Believe” was my pre-teen love-song anthem for several years… 
I got to Talking Book late. My route was his Greatest Hits (Motown) and then I just got into his music. I kind of went from his 80’s stuff (Woman in Red, In Square Circle) and then to Hotter Than July. Everything changed when I got Songs in The Key of Life. From there I picked up Talking Book and Fulfillingness First Finale. The Stevie Wonder album that still floors me to this day would have to be Music of My Mind. That album just jumps out of the speakers for me.
That string of records from Music of My Mind to Key of Life is just unparalleled IMO. Absolute genius. And don’t forget Innervisions! Mind blowing to me that he came out with that less than a year after Talking Book.
I remember that in 1976 when Paul Simon won the Grammy for “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, he ended his acceptance speech by saying “Most of all, I’d like to thank Stevie Wonder, who didn’t make an album this year.” 
Could not agree more - I basically digested every note and word of those albums - to this day I can’t think of anybody who put out albums with that much quality back to back.
On a silly note, I was at a dinner party years ago. So really good friends of mine were there, and as my friends are all music freaks, we started to talk about music and bands and gigs. I had met my friends wife for the first time that evening, so when I asked her about music and bands that she liked, she started naming some really obscure and “alternative” bands with really weird names. She then asked me who I was into, and I told her “Stevie Wonder” as I was listening to him a lot at that time. She paused, looked me straight in the eye and told me he was… overrated. Overrated. Never has an evening gone so bad so quickly for me. I think she could feel the icicles coming from my eyes every time I looked at her!
Oh, please…! Save us from ironic, pretentious hipsters.
Was she wearing this shirt??
She wasn’t! But I swear she was just making up the names as she went along - “The Broccoli Stranglers” and then adding a little description to each band - “they’re like eclectic ambient lounge indie jazz hop, but with a retro vibe” and I just sat there nodding and trying to be polite.
Being from Motown, I would have been hard pressed not to put some Visine in her eggplant.
You are much more patient than I could have been in that situation… I’m sure I would have reacted poorly! Dissing Stevie Wonder is pretty much unforgivable!
It was a very long time ago but I still remember as a near-child being asked whether I liked Gene Pitney and with great bravado I said, O yeah, she’s great…
I think the humiliation remains still quite poignant… hah… i still cringe, back to therapy… 
Gene Pitney? That’s a brave soul who can make that statement in public! But there are so many others that we used to love - Cliff Richard, Shakin Stevens - that list is not exclusive to the Pitney!
Not really, Emma was asked as a child about Gene Pitney, that doesn’t really mean anything. She’s actually 37.
haha… well actually,
the cringe was that I said ’she’s great’ (in bright and enthusiastic tones as I recall) and it was abundantly clear then that I had no idea what I was talking about because, um Gene was male…
And yeah, I am also quite ancient… 
I think I can outdo that - just. This one I think only the Brits of my age will get - (forgive me if you’re not British!). When I was in sixth form I came into school one morning, (a little too early for me apparently) and our head gathered all of us sixth formers to announce that Freddie Mercury had died. It being early and me being an idiot shouted out - “at least our hamsters are safe!” The number and severity of dirty looks I got in that moment still haunts me. A little while later my buddy came up to me, punched me in the arm and said Mercury, not Starr you idiot!