Ted Nugent Rails Against Greatest Guitarist List Featuring Joan Jett
Ted Nugent has never been one to hold back on…well…anything and that includes a Rolling Stone list about the greatest guitarists of all time.
The list in question appears to be a 2003 list from RS Senior Editor David Fricke, and the particular issue The Nuge has with the list is the inclusion of Joan Jett, who was ranked #87 out of 100 on the list. Fricke wrote of Jett, “Lead guitarists gave rock its icons; rhythm players gave it soul. The line runs from Eddie Cochran to Pete Townshend to Johnny Ramone, a lineage in which Joan Jett should not be taken lightly. In the early Runaways and the later Black-hearts, she played it straight ahead: No frills, all heart, no f—ing around.”
During a YouTube livestream on December 30, Nugent begins his rant by praising a number of guitarists from Angus Young to Neal Schol to Tommy Shaw to Eddie Van Halen. Then he says (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), “So I just mentioned some killer, monster guitar players, huh? Some of the best that ever lived. But when you see the ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine list of greatest guitar players, they list Joan Jett but not Tommy Shaw.”
Nugent continues, “How do you list the top 100 guitar players and not list Derek St. Holmes? How do you do that? You do that by lying. The same way you get Grandmaster Flash in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. You do that by lying. You have to be a liar. You have to have s— for brains and you have to be a soulless, soulless prick to put Joan Jett… [I] love Joan. Some of my greatest memories include lesbians. I love the lesbians; it’s a cocktail of wonderment.”
He adds, “[I] love Joan Jett — ‘put another diamond in the jukebox, baby’; great rock and roller — but as a top 100 guitar player, but you don’t list Rickey Medlocke or Dave Amato [REO Speedwagon]. Really?…By the way, if Grandmaster Flash is in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and Joan Jett is on the list of top 100 guitar players, then I’m Caitlyn Jenner’s boy toy.”
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