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 & inspired a generation of indie guitar bands & their influence continues undiminished to this day. Musically The Smiths were a league ahead & guitarist Johnny Marr was the driving force behind their revolutionary sound. Manchester-born Marr proved to be a craftsman & explorer without equal a guitarist who rode the longest highways to find the most perfect sounds & 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 Mc Coll Billy Bragg & Talking Heads all benefited from his incendiary input. More recently with his band Johnny Marr & The Healers & the critically acclaimed album Boomslang" Johnny remains as influential & important as ever
- a true guitar hero."