Mr Bridge, in all the years I've been following this forum, I do believe this is the first time I have ever found myself disagreeing with you!

"...I think what RiM and CP are really trying to say is that they don't want the guitar musically to contribute"
Mmmm. Guess what I play?

"...Who is to say that a counter rhythm is ugly?" I didn't say all counter-rhythms are ugly. The suggestion was that there are too many guitarists who don't understand when fancy syncopation does not lift the tune but shunts it around like a drunk dragging a sack of spuds down the street. Irish tunes are particularly vulnerable to this because so much of the rhythmic beauty of the music is in the tune itself.

I can well imagine the blues-based riff suiting a shanty, and I bet it was played by a guitarist with a sensitive ear for harmony and who thought carefully about whether it would work before joining in.

Now would you mind reverting to opinions I agree with, please?

(BTW, if the banjo player you refer to is not Tony Sullivan, well that means there must be at least two very fine banjo players in existence. Two!)