The Greatest Guitar Riff Ever: 1958
What is the first Great guitar riff? Find out.
The Best Riff of 1958
First of all, why 1958? Well, the answer is pretty easy to me, the person making this list and deciding it should be 1958. Guitars certainly existed before 1958 and “rock music” - or at least a pretty primitive early form of it - is popularly defined as having started a full decade earlier with Sister Rosetta Tharpe. However, none of the music prior to ‘58 really riffed. Or, at least, if it did it was more of an isolated one-off and not really a thing popularized/born at-large until 1958. It helps that the electric guitar and, more importantly, distortion really came into the forefront at this time. Within the first quarter of the year, you had Link Wray releasing the riff that would go on to influence some of the most prominent riffers of the following decade, Bo Diddley dropping his self-titled record, and several releases from the likes of Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and Duane Eddy, to name a few, putting the guitar front and center. Let’s get into the contenders:
Link Wray - Rumble
Link Wray’s self-titled 1971 album is incredible but you’d never tell from listening to it that the guy basically invented the distorted riff with “Rumble” over a decade earlier. It’s kinda surf rock, it’s kinda garage rock, it’s kinda ““““““punk.””””” Bob Dylan described it as “the best instrumental ever” and Jimmy Page - a riffer in his own right - basically started foaming at the mouth talking about how it inspired him to play the guitar in It Might Get Loud. It’s about as simple as it gets in terms of what’s actually being played but that kinda rocks on its own? There’s something about a riff that is only made better by knowing it can be the first thing a kid picking up the guitar can learn how to play at any given point in time. A strong contender for certain.
Bo Diddley - Who Do You Love?
This is going to begin what will probably be a more heated point of issue for me in the future, which is the distinction between a solo and a riff. In most cases, this will probably be pretty easy. Solos can be a bit unruly, often don’t repeat throughout the song, and are for guitar perverts to show off their wanking skills. Riffs often repeat throughout the song, are short and are based. “Who Do You Love?” kind of is more of a solo than a riff. It does repeat throughout but often more as a refrain when Bo isn’t singing than, like, as the main instrumental melody throughout the song. But - if I’m being truthful - when I think of this song I think of Bo saying the title and then the guitar part coming in. That’s the memorable melody of the song. A little three-second snippet of a riff. This is the Bo Diddley special: toeing the line between unseemly soloing and sick-as-hell riffing. Probably a song that I like way more than “Rumble” but I’m unsure if the riff itself is better.
Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode
I’m going to keep this to one submission by an artist each year and I was going to try to come in here with some bullshit and say “Sweet Little Sixteen” is the Chuck Berry pick. It fucking isn’t because Marty McFly sure as shit wasn’t trotting out that crap in Back to the Future. There could only ever be one pick. Again, maybe more of a solo than a riff definitionally speaking but any list of “best riffs ever” is going to have “Johnny B. Goode” on it so here we are.
Duane Eddy - Ramrod
More “Rumble” than “Johnny B. Goode,” “Ramrod” is basically all riff. However, it brings the energy of “Johnny B. Goode” and “Who Do You Love?” to the sensibilities of “Rumble,” taking the surf rock tone but extending it to a longer and more intricate run of notes. Man. This shit rips. I know Duane was tearing up that fretboard. A thing about a lot of these early songs is that they’re all kinda different variations of the same thing. 12-Bar-Blues was still the king and your differences came in a) the key of the song and b) how much the guitar player could shred. Duane certainly holds his own here and it helps that the guitar is basically all you are keyed in on hearing here.
What is the best riff of 1958?
I want to give it to all of these and could make a case for each: a) “Rumble” seems to have the most influence on the best riffers ever, b) “Who Do You Love?” comes from who is ultimately considered to basically be the father of The Riff, c) “Johnny B. Goode” has the popular vote and d) “Ramrod” puts the riff front and center and expands on what “Rumble” laid out in a more impressive way.
I really want to pick “Ramrod” here. It’s my favorite song of the bunch and it’s all riff. However, while I am almost certain I’ll break from the pack and what the groupthink would have you believe is the best riff in the not-so-distant future, I think there’s only one pick here. It’s “Johnny B. Goode.” It’s the people’s champ for a reason and, more than 60 years later, has about as good of an argument as any other song for the biggest riff ever. It’s not my favorite riff ever (we’ll get to that in due time) but for the very first year, it’s the winner. Go, Johnny, Go.