Who's the best guitar player of all time to you and why?

xlb3x said:
For me, hands down the gentle genius Shawn Lane. His improvisations with Jonas Hellborg could transport me to far away places. This guy could take any style and play it as good as the master of the style. His recordings with the Indian group were really amazing. Check out some of his stuff on youtube.

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I had the great opportunity to befriend Shawn Lane and jam with him a few times back in the mid 90s, right after he and Jonas Hellborg hooked up. That's was a great experience. What a brilliant man. Too bad he couldn't get away form his own demons. I never heard any of that Pakistani stuff recorded or on youtube. He just played it for me and a class I was teaching in Vienna. He had a recording of a backing band of guys back in Tennessee and used some Pod with his Strat. Hey it still sounded phenomenal.
 
Thanks for that reply. I've read people say that he was a hell of a nice guy. I would have loved to meet him.

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He was a hell of a nice guy. Maybe too nice. If he were less nice he may have been able to tell some people to go **** themselves and might have been here a while longer.
 
Steve Lukather
Steve Vai
Tommy Emmanuel
early Michael Schenker
early Alex Lifeson
Scott Henderson
Allan Holdsworth

it's too hard to just pick one
 
Ritchie Blackmore has been my favorite for the longest time. Lots of great music over the years and his music always seems to have it's own identity for me. I even like his new stuff.
 
Of course there's no "best" on a subjective judgment about art, but I get the idea. From a technical standpoint and for pure jaw dropping ability I'd say Shawn Lane, and he gets bonus points for drawing on so many influences like Indian music, and coming up with such wild abstract stuff and having the judgment to be able to go from cool smooth (and even "relaxing") lines that are all about tone to hyperspeed insanely articulated fret bullets. Have to like Steve Stevens for some of the same reasons and his amazing creativity with tone and style and judgement about where to put the right parts. Also, have to agree with what many have said about EVH; so very influential, but especially after obsessing over the new album, I keep thinking how amazing it is that he has such magnificent control over all the harmonics combined with dive bombs and pulls and just plain fast and well articulated chording as well as single note furor. Such an amazing rhythm player as well as lead. And 180 from somebody like Shawn Lane, how about players like Leslie West or Paul Kossoff? May be equally great, but in another way. That's what's so great about guitar, there's a wide range of styles and aspects.
 
In no particular order. Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, Uli Jon Roth, Yngwie Malmsteen for making it possible to play harmonic minor solos in rock, Al Di Meola, Clapton, BB King, and numerous others known and unknown who carry the torch for music, myself for keeping on playing, and last by no means least Jimi Hendrix, who was lost too soon but who left such a legacy that touched and inspired so many.
 
Answer is simple for me: Jimi Hendrix. And on top of that he was a great artist .... like quite a few other great guitarists.

One that is often forgotten is Donald Roeser (Blue Oyster Cult). I think is created a lot of very good melodies, and I like is playing style and phrasing.

And for the French touch, Nono Krief from TRUST is a pretty cool guitarist.
 
Obviously 'best' is meaningless. Favorites? These are not in order except Frank Zappa - he is my all-time favorite, I think.
Frank Zappa: blazed new trails, technically excellent, SOUNDS LIKE NO ONE ELSE (this last part is important to me, more important BY FAR than mere technical proficiency - which by itself is really over-rated, once you grow up enough to get past the 'wow' factor). His guitar solo on Inca Roads on the One Size Fits All album is still the greatest rock guitar solo I've ever heard: expressive, thoughtful, creative, traverses an emotional landscape, does not start in 5th gear like so many annoying 'stunt' guitarists, but does reach a lovely crescendo.
Django Reinhardt: Incredible technically (all the more so when you know his whole story), his playing always cheers me up.
Ike Turner - perhaps the most under-rated blues guitarist in history. he may have been a prick, but he sure could pick (and hit that whammy bar) - check out Ike & Tinia's version of I Smell Trouble, recorded live in Africa, off the Atlantic Blues Collection, guitar volume
Johhny Marr - Sounds like no one else...
Julian Bream - so, so, so much better than Segovia, who we nicknamed 'the perfect robot'.
Kim Thayil - another seriously underrated guitarist. His solo on 'Just Like Suicide' is magic.
John Lee Hooker - you'd be hard-pressed to find a less 'technical' guitarist, but he felt every damn note!
Clarence Gatemouth Brown - his best, most relaxed work artfully fuses jazz, Blues and Western Swing.
Jimi Hendrix (SO MUCH BETTER once he got the Band Of Gypsy's rhythm section together, but almost always incredible).
Curtis Mayfield (the man Jimi got all of his Little Wing type chord voicings from).
Robin Trower
Pete Townshend - just for the exuberance of it all!
Albert King (the man SRV copped 95% of his licks from)
Jonny Greenwood - his symphonic approach to guitar and arranging is without peer.
The Edge - love him or hate him (I loved him until U2 became a terrible caricature of itself - starting somewhere in the 90's) - he's unique


How about a least Favorite, most over-rated list?

Mine starts with: Vai, Satch, Malmsteen, Buckethead etc. - all 'stunt guitarists': technically utterly incredible and without peer, musically pathetic: their music is totally in service to their technique, rather than the other way around.

Technique is not music! Playing fast is not the mark of a great musician! Creating unique, emtionally complex (and sometimes, at least, emotionally nuanced) music and sounding uniquely like yourself and not other is the mark of a great musician.
 
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stratamania said:
In no particular order. Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, Uli Jon Roth, Yngwie Malmsteen for making it possible to play harmonic minor solos in rock, Al Di Meola, Clapton, BB King, and numerous others known and unknown who carry the torch for music, myself for keeping on playing, and last by no means least Jimi Hendrix, who was lost too soon but who left such a legacy that touched and inspired so many.
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Wow, your best list is just exactly my worst list - except for B.B.! Guess that's what makes the world go 'round...
 
PALYGAP said:
Answer is simple for me: Jimi Hendrix. And on top of that he was a great artist .... like quite a few other great guitarists.

One that is often forgotten is Donald Roeser (Blue Oyster Cult). I think is created a lot of very good melodies, and I like is playing style and phrasing.

And for the French touch, Nono Krief from TRUST is a pretty cool guitarist.
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Buck Dharma of BOC is indeed a very underrated guitarist! Check out 'Buck's Boogie' on the 'Guitars that destroyed the world' anthology.
 
henryrobinett said:
I had the great opportunity to befriend Shawn Lane and jam with him a few times back in the mid 90s, right after he and Jonas Hellborg hooked up. That's was a great experience. What a brilliant man. Too bad he couldn't get away form his own demons. I never heard any of that Pakistani stuff recorded or on youtube. He just played it for me and a class I was teaching in Vienna. He had a recording of a backing band of guys back in Tennessee and used some Pod with his Strat. Hey it still sounded phenomenal.
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I was not familar with his work, so I just looked him up. Love his slower stuff, but I'll tell ya, after 10 seconds, those rapid-fire apreggiations that seem to blow everyone's mind just bore me. It's not him in particular, it's that whole style. His more (to me) 'soulful' playing is amazing, but I just wonder: would he be on so many people's lists if he hadn't been so supernaturally fast? And if not, then does 'best guitarist' translate to 'fastest (or most dextrous) one? Dexterity's great. Wish I had more. But whether it's a classical pianist or a rock guitarist, the appreciation of technique over feeling and composition just leaves me bemued. I saw some clips of Lane doing some supernatural figured arpeggios up and down the fretboard. Wow on those facile fingers, his amazing reach, the speed of his picking, but to me, all those notes hammering away have no meaning unless used in small, thoughtful doses.
 
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funny_polymath said:
I saw some clips of Lane doing some supernatural figured arpeggios up and down the keyboard. Wow on those facile fingers, his amazing reach, the speed of his picking, but to me, all those notes hammering away have no meaning unless used in small, thoughtful doses.
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To me rhythm is more important than speed. And Lane had a pretty good sense of rhythm. His fast picking sequences do make sense musically speaking
 
funny_polymath said:
How about a least Favorite, most over-rated list?

Mine starts with: Vai, Satch, Malmsteen, Buckethead etc. - all 'stunt guitarists': technically utterly incredible and without peer, musically pathetic: their music is totally in service to their technique, rather than the other way around.

Technique is not music! Playing fast is not the mark of a great musician! Creating unique, emtionally complex (and sometimes, at least, emotionally nuanced) music and sounding uniquely like yourself and not other is the mark of a great musician.
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Funny I feel exactly the same way about these guys (Vai, Satch, Malmsteen, Buckethead). Don't want to stop others enjoying them, but I never can hook on the music they play. Can't remember a single melody they played. True they are impressive to watch and it sound like good guitar playing ... but it is not for me.

For Buck Dharma, I quite like the live version of "then came the last days of may". If it had been a love song I think it would have been a lot more popular ... but it is only about dealers.

P.S. I also love Zappa's music. Yoo Mama has a one of a kind solo in it.
 
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gpz said:
To me rhythm is more important than speed. And Lane had a pretty good sense of rhythm. His fast picking sequences do make sense musically speaking
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It's not that they don't make sense to me per se, but rather that I merely tire of them quickly. I prefer them used as 1 spice in the sauce - sometimes they're the whole sauce. I am trying to think of a guitarist who exemplifies a more MODERN eclectic (i.e. he may employ these rapid arpeggiations and tapping as well) whom I really like... I'm afraid I'm gonna have to keep looking, 'cause usually I just feel that there's way too much of this stuff, rather than uses as a nice piquant accent once in a while...

Oh, and I agree totally on rhythm.... his sense of it, and its importance.
 
PALYGAP said:
Can't remember a single melody they played. True they are impressive to watch and it sound like good guitar playing ... but it is not for me.

For Buck Dharma, I quite like the live version of "then came the last days of may". If it had been a love song I think it would have been a lot more popular ... but it is only about dealers.
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You said it better than I could - not one remembered, beloved melody in the lot. And I forgot that BOC song! Yes! Another great solo!

As for Frank, sometimes he could over-indulge and go on a bit too long, but when he was in his groove, bloody magic! Will have to dig up yo momma again and check it out. I also quite love the 'whipping floss' solo and the Enchidna's arf/Don't ya ever watch that thing solo from the Helsinki album (where part of that Inca Roads solo came from). The band was sick, tired and had just lost most of their equipment in the 'smoke on the water' fire - yet they were friggin' fantastic that night, with their patented combination of looseness/tightness (tightest band this side of James Brown), and his solos during that entire concert were aces.
 
Funny thing about Clapton... I want to love the guy, but never have been able to. I mean, God, he knows his craft! He knows more about the blues in one finger than I know in my whole body... so why does he not get to me? I dunno. Something about feel, and about predictability. On feel, I never get that shiver that I can get with one note from Ike Turner, Lightning Slim, Robert Johnson or countless others. On predictability, sure, blues is simple, but those guys, and Otis Rush, T-Bone walker, lots of others, surprise me. With Clapton, I swear, I hear every single note coming before it lands. I am just never, ever surprised by his note choices. Rarely ever with SRV either (except for 'Lenny).
 
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