The Late Criss Oliva (Savatage)

General Music Discussion
#1

One of my favorite players out there, any other fans? Criss had some of the coolest and most unique phrasing out there–very dark and brooding without being alienating. Oozing with style and poise and a firm grip on all manner of shredding technique without losing the MELODY. It’s a shame he didn’t get the recognition he and Savatage deserved and that he died so young. Luckily he left us behind a solid body of work to enjoy.

Finding good Code-Approved live clips of Criss hasn’t been easy but there are tons of bootleg concert clips out there and it’s a testament to how wild and cool the band was leading up to Edge Of Thorns. It looks like he might have been primarily a DWPS’er. Oh yeah, he had possibly the best lead guitar tone of any player from the era.

A collection of awesome Criss solos:

One of my favorite live performances:

And the YouTube pressing of one of their classic records:

Any fans of Sir Oliva in our midst?

2 Likes
#2

Yes, he was definitely a great player! Very underrated.

He really should have had a major guitar magazine cover, but they just consistently ignored him for some reason.

But I would encourage anyone to check him out, he was a smoking player. R.I.P

#3

Yeah dude, I love Savatage and Criss’s playing. I. used to play two Boss SD-1s in the hope that I could get some of his tone but, sadly, it didn’t work out.

I love his legato lines, they are very smooth and Satriani-esq.

#4

When I first discovered Savatage the leads just blew me away at first listen. So musical and tasteful.