Dr. Know

As co-founder of the Bad Brains, Dr. Know was one of punk rock's first and greatest guitar heroes, who took the chops and technical finesse of a skilled jazz player and fused them with the punch-in-the-gut abandon of punk and metal. Founded in Washington, D.C., Bad Brains played faster and harder than nearly any other band on earth when they released their self-titled debut cassette in 1982, but in addition to their faster-than-light punk tunes, they also embraced the space and deep grooves of reggae. On their 1986 album I Against I, the group incorporated hard rock and metal structures into their songs with force and élan. While the band tended to break up and re-form often in the '90s and 2000s, Bad Brains and Dr. Know's guitar work had a profound influence on generations of punk, metal, and reggae artists.