Mikael Åkerfeldt: Jan Akkerman, the Overlooked Guitar Legend of Progressive Rock]

Despite his superlative musical output with Opeth and beyond, Mikael Åkerfeldt doesn’t like receiving praise. But he’s happy to dish it out – and there’s one player that he believes doesn’t get their flowers.

When ‘prog guitar greats’ becomes a topic of conversation, there are obvious contenders. There’s David Gilmour and his slow, thoughtful guitar solos for one, Robert Fripp for his angular ingenuity, another. Honorable mentions, meanwhile, go to Messrs Martin Barre, Adrian Belew, and, in modern realms, Plini and Tosin Abasi, too. So, who does he feel doesn’t get the praise they deserve?

“Jan Akkerman is very underrated,” he tells Guitar World. “If you asked David Gilmour if he knew who Jan was, he’d probably say, ‘Yeah, he’s my idol!’”

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“A lot of these well-known players were glancing at what Jan was doing back in the ’70s,” Åkerfeldt attests. “I know for a fact that [Camel guitarist] Andy Latimer looked up to him, not only as a guitarist but also as a member of Focus.

“Jan is quite widdly on his Black Beauty Les Paul. But he’s also a great acoustic player with this right-hand technique that resembles a flamenco player,” he continues. “He also knows when to sit back and play melodic lines nice and slow.

“He didn’t fight the other players in the band and shared the spotlight with Thijs Van Leer, who is another genius. Focus deserves more credit in general, I would say.”