# Vital Transformation guitar solo > John McLaughlin's guitar solo on Vital Transformation by Mahavishnu Orchestra (1971) starts at about 1:52. From the album The Inner Mounting Flame. Canonical URL: Mahavishnu Orchestra, 1971, from *The Inner Mounting Flame*. Solo by *John McLaughlin*. Cobham's pounding 9/8 groove drives McLaughlin to some of his most aggressive, jagged soloing. The track feels like hard rock and jazz colliding head-on. Vital Transformation by Mahavishnu Orchestra is #5 in our ranking of the best Mahavishnu Orchestra guitar solos. The solo is played by John McLaughlin and the song was released in 1971. ## In our lists - [The Best Mahavishnu Orchestra Guitar Solos](https://greatestsolos.com/list/mahavishnu-orchestra-guitar-solos/) — #5 - [The Best John McLaughlin Guitar Solos](https://greatestsolos.com/list/john-mclaughlin-guitar-solos/) — #4 ## Sources ### Who played the guitar solo on Vital Transformation? John McLaughlin played the solo on Mahavishnu Orchestra's Vital Transformation (1971). ### What guitar was used on the Vital Transformation solo? A gibson ems-1275 through a Marshall amp, according to widely reported accounts. --- 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/)