So, i was thinking the other day about my influences and whilst they're mainly guys like Eddie Van Halen, Warren Demartini etc i started thinking of some of the other guitarists that influenced me when i was younger and went on a voyage of rediscovery!

There were some great pop bands in the 80's ( and some terrible ones! ) and a lot of these bands had phenomenal guitarists that only really had a chance to shine in the radio friendly 10 seconds of edited solo that was allowed to be played.... here's some of my favorite 80's guitarists that you may not have heard of or forgotten how great they were :-)

Dean Howard from T'Pau.... yes thats right T'Pau...China in your hand blah blah blah....but Dean is a great rock player that really shone on the live stuff!

Alan Murphy...now Alan was on many great songs of the 80's and played with countless artists.....for me he had the most amazing tone and tremolo bar work ever....tasteful, fiery......what a player!

Check out the tones from 2:50 onwards on Level 42's Heaven in my Hands..

Neil Geraldo.... probably one of my favourite guitarists of all time! Recorded he was fantastic but live in the early 80's....wow! We should all wish that we could play like that and move around the stage like a Tazmanian Devil!

Neil also played the solo on Rick Springfields massive hit Jessies Girl......this guy can play!

I'll revisit this soon as theres so many amazing underrated players! Hope this has let you hear something yulve never heard before ( or you have but you'd just forgotten ;-)   )