William, I didn't mean to denegrate your hero. However i was commeting on guitar skill. Elvis was a world class singer and preformer. However, Elvis mostly used his guitar and some cowboy chords as a prop and a dance partner on stage. I don't think I have even seen any film of Elvis preforming where his guitar was even miked!!! I think that shows that even Elvis knew his guitar was, mostly, a prop.

My intention was to make a light humorous comment about guitar players who really wern't. I did not mean to dis him as a preformer, of which he was world class. Wiithout him, none of us would be wroking so hard to learn the instrument he made popular. Elvis led the way to every guitar hero I have ever admired. He just was not much of one live... that is why he had such a hot back up gourp.

I kind of think of him as being a lot like my Iconclastic musical hero... Mick Jagger, who also plays some guitar in live preformances. Preformances that would probably be less cluttered, and more powerful if he stuck to singing and dancing. Mick is no Paul (as in Les, not McCartney), or Page, or Beck, or Allman, or Bonomasa, or Dimeola, or Django. He is a preformer who dabbles with the guitar, but whos music sounds less cluttered when he leaves the chops to the guitar monsters in his band. Much like Elvis. I would be devisated if his vast musical foot print were to suddenly vanish from the earth! But if I never heard him play guitar again that would be fine by me.

Elvis = A towering Cultural Iconclast who led the way for us all, for sure.... But towering guitar slinger?!... not so much. William I suspect that you know enough about great guitarists that you know this as well.