# Valley of the Kings guitar solo > John Sykes's guitar solo on Valley of the Kings by Blue Murder (1989) starts at about 2:48. Ranked #394 of all time across 80 lists. Canonical URL: Blue Murder, 1989. Solo by *John Sykes*. Sykes opened his post-Whitesnake band's debut with this Egyptian-themed epic and a solo full of wide vibrato. Valley of the Kings opened Blue Murder's debut, the band John Sykes formed after leaving Whitesnake, and it is a big, dramatic, Egyptian-themed rocker. Sykes plays with a heavy, saturated tone and a wide vibrato that makes held notes sound enormous, shaking them until they almost howl. His solo mixes Eastern-sounding scale flavours with fast, bluesy runs and pinch harmonics, matching the song's grand, cinematic mood. It shows Sykes at the height of his powers, both as a player and as the leader of his own project. Listen for how he holds single notes for long stretches, using vibrato alone to build tension before the next flurry. Valley of the Kings by Blue Murder is ranked #394 in our consensus of 80 guitar-solo lists. The solo is played by John Sykes and the song was released in 1989. It appears on 1 lists, placing as high as #37 (guitarguitar). ## In our lists - [The 25 Greatest Glam Guitar Solos](https://greatestsolos.com/list/glam/) — #18 - [Top 20 Guitar Solos of 1989](https://greatestsolos.com/list/best-guitar-solos-1989/) — #5 ## Sources - [guitarguitar: Top 50 Guitar Solos of All Time](https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/news/141664/) — #37 ### Who played the guitar solo on Valley of the Kings? John Sykes played the solo on Blue Murder's Valley of the Kings (1989). ### Where does Valley of the Kings rank among the greatest guitar solos? #394 in the GreatestSolos consensus of 80 published lists; it appears on 1 of them. --- GreatestSolos ranks the greatest guitar solos by consensus across published lists. Agent guide: [llms.txt](https://greatestsolos.com/llms.txt) · [Sitemap](https://greatestsolos.com/sitemap.xml) · [Dataset (CSV)](https://greatestsolos.com/data/greatest-guitar-solos.csv) · [How we rank](https://greatestsolos.com/method/)