Randy Rhoads: He would have toppled Van Halen

I once heard someone ask: “If Jimi Hendrix had not died at 27, would he ever have hosted the TV Show: ‘Solid Gold’?”

What this means is that many artists eventually make bad choices and undermine their credibility because they simply cannot maintain their living legend status forever.  Sometimes when an artists dies very young, the body of work they leave behind is flawless; they never had a chance to make many bad career decisions or sell-out. Randy Rhoads would fall into this category. Not only did he never host a cheesy TV show, but he only had a chance to play on two albums before his tragic death in 1982. Both of those albums are perfect. Regardless of whether or not you are an Ozzy fan or even like hard rock, you simply cannot deny that Randy was poised to knock Edward Van Halen off his throne. His technique was astounding, he had an excellent grasp of theory, he could play classical guitar and he was extremely modest.

It is a little-known fact that just before his death, Randy Rhoads had planed to quit Ozzy’s band and persue a Bachelor’s degree in Classical Guitar from UCLA. Who the hell walks away from a once-in-a-lifetime career to get their college degree in classical guitar? A real musican. That’s who.

Now, the title of this article is sure to anger or annoy many. Look, I was a huge fan of Van Halen in the late 70’s / early 80’s. He was a monster; totally on top of his game and exploding with qualities that also made him very unique such as being incredibly humble and not particularly interested in the architypical rock star life. But he got lazy. I know, I know, I’m gonna get a lot of negative comments on this one. I have to stick to my guns though; after 1984, it was all down hill. Granted, 5150 had some strong hits and dam smokin’ guitar and “OU812″ also had some pretty good playing. But by this time, he had become a parody of himself; same old dive-bombs, same old finger tapping, etc…

In fairness, had Randy Rhodes lived to this day, he might have in-fact hosted Solid Gold, or done something otherwise stupid. But I can only go on his actions and his actions portrayed a guy completely focused on musicianship and not much more.

What made Randy such a standout was his infusion of classical theory into his love of Rock guitar. Listen to just about any solo on either album and you hear it; this guy knew his stuff and he practiced. It really is such a shame that he died so young. His death did pave the road of opportunity for guitarists such as Brad Gillis, Jake E Lee and the Caveman toastmaster general Zakk Wylde (what is with that guy anyway? hmmm… I’ll save that rant for another un-popular post). These are all fine guitarists. But I would rather Randy had not taken that fateful joyride that morning; he would have really gone on to do great things.

In all honesty, while I did really like his playing a lot at the time, I was much more of a Van Halen fan when Randy was alive. I preferredblues based rock and realy liked what Ed was doing with the guitar in just about every way. Trust me, I was a big EVH fan. I kinda drew the line at Black Sabbath / Ozzy though and did not consider my self much of a serious hard rock enthusiast. But in retrospect, this guy had not only some very very serious chops, but he had a perspective on music and guitar that is really what it is all about. Van Halen was an insanely good guitarists in the day, but he seems to have morphed into a real wierdo and I just lost interest after Dave left. Had Randy Rhodes lived, he would have surely knocked Van Halen off his throne and I think the ’80’s might have been a bit different. We’ll never know, but that is my opinion.

DISCLAIMER: Seriously, I’m sure Edward Van Halen and Zakk Wylde are very nice people. No dis-respect intended here at all to either guy. I’m just praising Randy Rhodes, who deserves to be remembered as one of the greats.