Johnny Marr - Richard Carman

The Smiths were the best British band since The Beatles. Their shimmering, muscular, guitar-driven pop remains the barometer for everyone who looks back at the 1980s with affection. In a decade that arguably produced more poor pop music than any other since the 1950s, The Smiths shone like a beacon and inspired a generation of indie guitar bands, and their influence continues undiminished to this day.

Musically, The Smiths were a league ahead and guitarist Johnny Marr was the driving force behind their revolutionary sound. Manchester-born Marr proved to be a craftsman and explorer without equal, a guitarist who rode the longest highways to find the most perfect sounds and who built the gilt-edged
frames in which the word-pictures of co-writer Morrissey sat so perfectly.

After The Smiths, Marr continued to inject beautiful, sophisticated guitar into some of the best music of the period: The Pretenders, Kirsty McColl, Billy Bragg, The The and Talking Heads all benefited from his incendiary input. More recently with his band Johnny Marr & The Healers, and the critically acclaimed album Boomslang, Johnny remains as influential and important as ever. A true guitar hero.