Our 2014 Poll on the Best Australian and International Singer/Guitarist has been run and won. The Australian winner is legendary Cold Chisel guitarist and ARIA award winning solo artist IAN MOSS. Taking out the international top spot is god himself, ERIC CLAPTON.
Others who polled well in the Australian category were; John Butler, Paul Kelly, Diesel, Chris Cheney and Kevin Borich. Internationally, there was much love for Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler, John Mayer, BB King, Dave Grohl and Neil Young.
Winner of the Yamaha FG650MSLTD Solid Top Acoustic Guitar is: Stephanie Lettieri, Tullamarine Vic.
BEST AUSTRALIAN SINGER/GUITARIST: IAN MOSS
From the moment our poll began, Ian Moss hit the front running and never lost the lead as Australia’s Best Singer/Guitarist, winning with 39% of the vote. Raised in Alice Springs, Moss made his mark early with iconic Australian rockers Cold Chisel. Right from the band’s debut album in 1973 he not only displayed his dexterous, tasteful guitar licks but also showed his considerable vocal talent on tracks such as One Long Day and Rosaline. If that wasn’t proof enough that he was the real deal vocally, instrumentally and also a songwriter of significance, his debut solo album Matchbook blew everyone away. It featured two hit singles, Tuckers Daughter and Telephone Booth, and made it to the top of the charts. It also earned him five ARIA awards including Album and Single of the Year.
To many however, Mossy’s greatest achievements will be the intros and solos on classic Cold Chisel songs like ‘Forever Now’, ‘Tomorrow’, and ‘Standing in the Outside’ to mention only a handful.
In 2007, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Ian Moss and The Living End’s Chris Cheney (read interview here) and this was Ian’s view of the perfect guitar solo.
“The ideal thing is that you get so lost in it that you are unaware of what you’re doing, just immersing yourself in it,” he said. “You get to the end of it and you don’t even know what you played. You listen back to it and think, shit I didn’t even know I had done that. That kind of happened once or twice.”
Yet, for every guitar fan salivating over the solos, there will be other Moss fans who would rate his vocal performances on Bow River, My Baby and Georgia just as highly … and that’s why he was voted Australia’s Best Singer/Guitarist.
BEST INTERNATIONAL SINGER/GUITARIST: ERIC CLAPTON
He’s one of the most enduring rock stars of all time. Eric Clapton was there in the pioneering days of modern rock as guitar god with the Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek And The Dominos.
As a solo performer, he’s one of the most successful singer/guitarists of all time. And in 2014, he’s still as relevant as ever has been voted the World’s Best Singer/Guitarist in our poll, receiving 39.5% of the vote.
As testament to his reverence, in a recent list of the ten most expensive guitars ever sold, three of Eric Clapton’s guitars were on the list. They included: a CF Martin acoustic, which was auctioned for his Crossroads charity, a 1964 Gibson ES0335 TDC from his Slowhand days, and of course the ‘Blackie’ Custom Fender Stratocaster. When Clapton made the move to Fender guitars, he acquired six of these guitars. He gifted one each to Peter Townshend, George Harrison, Steve Winwood, then dissected the other three to create the famous hybrid ‘Blackie’ Strat. It sold for under a million dollars US, a bargain!
Just released on DVD is a film of Clapton’s 2014 World Tour called “Planes, Trains And Eric” , which follows Eric Clapton and his band on the Far and Middle Eastern leg of his 2014 Tour. The film features 13 full length performances from the tour intercut with interviews with Eric Clapton and the band members, rehearsal and soundcheck footage, travel by trains and planes, presentations and “fly on the wall” filming of all the many aspects of being on the road with Eric Clapton.
Australian Musician salutes Ian Moss and Eric Clapton, our finest Singer/Guitarists