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I am sure there are a whole boatload of acoustic guitar soloists out there with albums full of six minute long spiels, but I am curious as to what the longest electric guitar solo is in the traditional sense of rock music: [verse] [solo] [verse] (or whatever).

The longest I have found is Deep Purple's Child in Time, sporting a 2-minute 33-second long guitar solo (all of it Totally Wicked Extreme to the Max™), not counting the opening organ riffs. Does anyone know of anything that can top it?

Well, the studio Stairway to Heaven has a 1:30-ish guitar solo. The longest version, which was played at their final show in Berlin, had an 8:30-ish guitar solo.

The How the West Was Won version of Heartbreaker has a 3-4ish minute electric guitar improvisation including Bach played on electric guitar.

Another song, called White Summer, sometimes ran for twenty minutes and is an electric guitar instrumental, although an acoustic version that included Black Mountain Side was also available.

However, some live versions of Dazed and Confused included 34 minute solos where the guitarist would play with a violin bow.

In fact, the whole band had some truly massive solos, where versions of Thank You and No Quarter would include forty minute keyboard solos, and live versions of the drum solo Moby Dick would run over twenty minutes. The singer led the group in multiple blues covers during their Whole Lotta Love and How Many More Times medlies that would run over half an hour at times.

Yes, I am an abashed Led Zeppelin fanbaby.

When Van Halen played in Tassie a few years back some friends who went to the concert reported a 6 or so minute guitar solo and a 4+ minute drum solo.

Qwerty 42 wrote:Yes, I am an abashed Led Zeppelin fanbaby.

For such a "fanbaby" you sure don't use the band members' actual names...

Well, most people don't know who Page, Jones, Bonham, and Plant are.

Actually, a lot of people do, considering they were the most popular rock band in the world during the 1970s. But I'll drop it at that. I was just giving you a hard time.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Actually, a lot of people do, considering they were the most popular rock band in the world during the 1970s. But I'll drop it at that. I was just giving you a hard time.

I know you were just kidding, I saw the smiley.

Of course, if I had a quarter for everyone who refers to Led Zeppelin as a person, I'd own Iowa. Just though I'd hedge my bets.

Either way, they have a 34 minute electric guitar/violin bow solo that certainly qualifies for the OP.

There was a close to 10 minute solo in the G3 (Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen) version of "Rocking in the Free World" when they played in Toronto a couple years back. They also put a couple big solos in Hendrix's "Voodoo Child", probably in the 5-10 minute range somewhere. I was rocking to the concert and not keeping time so those are just guesses.

Jimi Hendrix has done a few nice ones, "Red House" from the Isle of Wight album opens with a 3 minute solo, and depending on how you count it there's either a ~3 minute guitar solo, a quick break, and then a ~1.5 minute solo or just a 5 minute solo with a pause that's not really a pause. I count it as a 3 minute opening solo and then a 5 minute solo later on. "Machine Gun" from the same album also has a few sweet solos and I think it was 4-5 minute drum solo as well, it gets pretty intense.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird solo usually lasts about ten to fifteen minutes, or does it not count as a solo?

aerius wrote:There was a close to 10 minute solo in the G3 (Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen)

Those three aren't musicians. They're six-string mastubators.

Oni Koneko Damien wrote:Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird solo usually lasts about ten to fifteen minutes, or does it not count as a solo?

Lynyrd Skynyrd has up to three lead guitarists. It's not so much one absurdly, ridiculously, long solo as it is several long solos mixed together as the guitarists trade off between the lead and rhythm roles. It's much in the vein of other long Southern rock anthems of that day produced by groups very much like Lynyrd Skynyrd, like Green Grass and High Tides by the Outlaws.

how about the doors or iron butterfly?

I figure Inna gadda devita; and The end have ungodly long solo's and Inna's 28 minutes, while the End is 19 minutes.

weemadando wrote:

aerius wrote:There was a close to 10 minute solo in the G3 (Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen)

Those three aren't musicians. They're six-string mastubators.

Only Satriani & Malmsteen, it's a well known fact that Steve Vai uses a 7-string guitar. <nitpick>

Well, the guitar duel at the end of "Crossroads" with Steve Vai and Ry Cooder was around five minutes of near constant solos, but no single "solo" jam was longer than a minute. But goddamn that was great

Santana's cover of 'She's Not There' has, I think, a five minute solo at the end of it.