Ian Crichton or Andy Summers

here is two really tallented and different 70s/80s guitarist who is vastly overlooked but also are vastly innovative on theri instruments, in their time, and whos sound is distinct and ahead of their time Ian Crichton have a guitar sound close to the modern prog metal sound already back in 78, and Summers are close in style and aprach to the atmopherical guitarplayers in tech/extreme, incorporate elements which are used in Atheist, Death, Animals as Leaders, i can draw paralells from Every Breath You Take and the guitarsound on some Cynic clean guitar tracks, by listening to how Summers plays,,,

the hole bunch of Sagas musicians are a bunch of undeapresiated muscians among those who call themselvs musicians, Sadler is not far behding Freddie in vocals, and Jimmy Gilmore is a keybord wizzard,

but yeah before progmetal captured the unisons of keybord/guitar, theri was Saga,

Yeah, my friend was telling me, "man this guy sounds an awful lot like Petrucci" and I agree with him. I wouldn't be surprised if John was influenced by him, they share a lot for the same technique and approach to playing; Petrucci obliviously more technical, but I prefer Ian's playing almost as much. They're from Oakville, Ontario, Canada, which is pretty much right in my backyard and they get played on local Classic Rock stations quite frequently. 

Crichton by far; a fantastic guitarist. Summers is no slouch either, but I prefer Crichton.

Ian Crichton (Saga)

Ian Crichton is so underrated and gets my vote.

Better? I don't know. More underrated? I've never rated either that highly, but I suppose Ian Crichton because I have never valued him at all.  I can't claim to like Saga, and didn't even know his name.  I looked up some stuff on youtube of his and I found it to be the kind of guitar rock that is not my cup of tea -- Arena rock that I never learnt to appreciate.

I do like Andy Summers for his work with Fripp, and I do like the Police.

From the I Advance Masked Demo/ Out-takes.  Quality stuff that I actually like more than music that made it onto the album.



Ridiculous video, but I do dig it:



And I've always liked Synchronicity I and II.



Fun as a video, though not really interesting musically:



I am voting neither, though, as I don't think either are the best guitarists nor the most underrated. If either were really, really underrated, I don't know that they'd be getting any votes. ;)

And best guitarist -- there is no one and if there is I've probably never heard of the person.  My favourite guitarist is maybe Julian Bream, but he's a classical guitarist and not underrated at all (may be overrated).  In terms of the Prog umbrella, John McLaughlin is obviously very good, but not  underrated...

Difficult to figure out the best and most underrated since the best will not generally be underrated (well by some, sure), but if you mean the best of underrated guitarists, well that could be the best of ones that are underrated in that they get few ratings because they are under-known, or the best of the ones that are underrated because most don't recognise their brilliance when they hear them, or the majority have a low opinion of them despite the guitarists mastery of the instrument, perhaps because they are too inventive for most tastes, or just not as widely recognised for their amazing musicianship which is what I expect you mean.

Enough of my silliness.  I much prefer what I know of Summers, but as to the poll question, I haven't a clue even between these two.  More people would know Summers so I expect he would get more recognition and therefore is less underrated in a sense, but I don't how most people feel about his playing.  Maybe the other guy is more technical, but I think creativity very important too, and don't know enough about his body of work.  I am a bad guitarist, and have much more difficulty judging the skills, feeling, and creativity of someone on guitar than with, say, the piano.

I guess my favourite musician who plays the guitar (and not in the Segovia-type) camp is Alessandro Alessandroni, but more for his compositions, not as a guitar player really, and he's a heck of a whistler (he's well known for working with Ennio Morricone) and to me he is prog-related.


Edited by Logan - April 08 2012 at 23:04

Crichton for me. Have never been a fan of Andy Summers and don't care for his playing at all. 

Crichton was heavily influenced by Al DiMeola.  I saw Saga several times back in the late 70s when they were still doing the bar circuit and they even opened up for UK in Toronto at the end of their first tour.  Have to go with Summers because he was a far more original and influential guitarist.  Back in the 80s everyone from Rush to The Fixx was imitating his heavily chorused clean sound and muted argeggios.

Ian Crichton is CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED ; amazing skill and originality.