Top guitarists

i had to bring this up after seeing the rolling stone magazine for top 100 guitarists...all im gona say in are u kidding me?!? jimi hendrix #1 o.k. i can think of other good # 1 but no big complaint, 2 duane allman....ok...maybe not # 2 or in top 10 but w/e, #3 bb king, hes no shredder but the passion is ther. #4 eric clapton...ok...i dont like him but w/e...(im thinking ther picking very bluesy guitarists...)#5 robert johnson...i have no clue who he is so no comment. #6 chuck berry...i love his duck walk but i dont see huge guitar skill although he did introduce rock n roll, in a way. #7 srv kk....#8 ry cooder, who is he? #9 jimmy page of led zep...# 10..keith richards...ok this is where i drew the line...keith richards may hve been one of the first to play modern rock type music but is not a top 10 guitarist...wer talking guitarists...not influence on guitar and music, gretst guitarists...comon...#11 kirk hammet...comon! u have to be kidding! waaaaaaaaay overrated...hes good but not that good at all. #12 curt cobain....idk or like much bout nirvana. #13 jerry garcia #14 jeff beck (u can see they did pick very bluesy guitarists...only a couple not)i couldnt go on any more. i was going to vomit after i saw santanaa as # 16....give me some feedback as what u think. john fustrain from rhcp is in the top 20 along with jack white....sadddddd...mark knofler behind edge for u2 and all the others knofer is fantastic! not the rock n roll type but comon! also who the hell has head of the quicksilve messenger servic band. wtf? hes #31. sonic youth guitarists at 33 and 34...sad! les paul at 46...if any 1 should be in the top 10 for alcomplishments its him. it seems like thts what the list is, my dog with his front paw chopped off is better then some of those guys. blackmore at 55...radiohead guitarists at 56 and 57 ahead of so many gr8 guitarists. eddie van halen is 70?!!?!? hes very good definatly top 20 not my fave but huge talent 83 is david gilmour, so let see when we reached the 80th best we still are missing...
randy rhoads, jake e lee, david gilmour, angus young, slash, allen collins, steve gains, gary rossington, iron maidens guitarists both, scorpians guitarist(slipped my mind for now), feel free to add anybody, o and tony iommi. finally randy at 85 and iommi at 86! are u kiddn? is it fking going backwards? angus young at 96, and thts it plz tell me thts a fake list...

my list...of top/best guitarists

1)randy rhoads
2)hendrix
3)allen collins
4)gary rossington
5)setve gaines
6)david gilmour
7)evh
8)mark knofer
9)me
10)me me lol

tell me what u think of ther list and feel free to add any other guitarists tht arnt ther tht should be. im not associated as much with heavy metal guitarists like some of u so add them.

if you are talking in terms of plain old hard cold skill, buckethead is number one. probably followed by paco de lucia. after that, no one comes to mind that is really that much better then anyone else. francisco terregra, perhaps, but we have no videos of him, only sheet music.

the only two people i saw on your list that are really, REALLY talented is randy rhoads and david gilmour, everyone else is just decent.

so,

1. buckethead
2. paco de lucia
3. super shredders
4. randy rhoads
5. talented stars

that is considering straight talent, not compositional ability or musical ability.

There's more to a guitarist than technical ability... so to say that list is bad is pretty shallow. However, it's obviously not going to work for everyone since music is subjective... every top 10 list for everything is going to be debated.

im talking talent with compostion and technique, but i guess doz is right. but still ther are some very unheard of and strange names on ther.

if you threw in musical skill as well as technical skill, buckethead would still be numero uno. even if you don't specifically LIKE what he makes, he is a better composer then coltrane or bach on any day. the sheer knowledge and sensitivity that man has is astounding.

paco would still be second, i think, because not only is he extraordinarily technically talented, he creates absolutely unique and amazing music by combining classical harmony with flamenco harmony.

I'll have to agree with doz here. It's impossible to make an objective list of greatest guitarists and keep everyone happy. So I can't really really pass any objective judgements about it. I definetively
don't agree with it and I would personally never even think of putting people like Cobain, J. Ramone or Lue Reed on it(despite the fact that I love their music).hell, if I needed an influential alternative rock guitarist on it,I'd replace Cobain with Bob Mould or J Mascis anytime. On the other hand I do appreciate the author's courage to put on unusual choices like John McLaughlin, Robert Quine, Bert Jansch, Tom Verlaine who are great guitarists, but aren't really appreciated among the hard rockers and metalheads who dominate the guitarist community.


since when does popularity have anything to do with quality or talent? If that was the case, Jonas Brothers would be the most talented musicians of today.:P
+
Take Phil Keaggy for instance.


He was one of the most original, technically accomplished and talented musicians of his time, yet you won't find many people who have heard about the guy.

Baudelaire: three words - music is subjective. You might think Buckethead is the all time best, but someone else won't.

Calvin: Agreed. Just because you might not of heard of someone doesn't mean they aren't on of the greatest. Plus, EMB, all of those artists are well known really...

o they are? i dont know them but w/e, odviously popularity shouldnt have anything to do with it, but im just saying i dont know some of the othr names.

Obviously, they didn't choose the best guitarists by skill alone, or else it would just be a bunch of shredders on there. Influence they had over other guitarists played a big role, as well as who the Editors of Rolling Stone liked (Jack White...).

I could see Robert Johnson being high up in terms of influence; he inspired tons of the classic rock guitarists of the 1960s. Also good to see Chuck Berry up there, since he was one of the creators of Rock n roll.

EDIT: Oh, and Ry Cooder is generally considered to be one of the greatest country guitarists EVER.

And I'm happy to see Duane Allman up there, but I wouldn't say he deserves #2. He's not THAT influential since he's often classified as Southern Rock and overshadowed by Skynyrd. But really the Allman Brothers are more of a jam band than southern rock. They just happen to be from Georgia. He's a great slider though, but I don't think that constitutes a #2 spot.

This topic came up ages ago, and we said all the same things back then. Here it is.

But EMB5490, if you don't know who some of the guitarists are, then go away and read about them rather than just say that they shouldn't be on there because you haven't heard of them. You could sort of use that list to find about loads of neat guitarists.

thts true i should reap up on them, but still it is an awkward list.

Yeah, I was sure I could remember this topic. Maybe this site needs a search function where you can choose to search topic titles. As far as I know the search just searches for terms used all over the site.

Do you mean Bach, Bach as in Johann Sebastian Bach? If so, you should probably review your thought process a little.

Robert Johnson originally did many of the songs that Eric Clapton covered such as Crossroads and If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day. He's stone cold delta blues, and forms the roots of rock, blues, and country today. He definitely deserves to be up on that list.

I don't particularly like Hendrix, but when you put innovation, popularity, musicianship, and passion in a melting pot, stir it up and pour it out, Hendrix will come out on top.

Apparently Robert Johnson also sold his soul to the devil to get awesome guitar skills!

yes, johann sebastian bach. yes, i will stand by my statement that buckethead is a superior composer. just because it's 'classical' doesn't mean it's untouchable.

a very very subjective list, its should plainly done of technique or playing ability not how they influenced thats a whole different list. glad to see chuck up there and eric clapton. i think mustaine and dave murray should have been on there but hey thats my two cents. also mark knofler and dave gilmore should have been higher but hey its nothing official so in a way its a bit pointless arguing over something unofficial.

And just because it's not untouchable doesn't mean Buckethead is better. Just on the basis that Bach's compositions are so diverse, he's better than Buckethead... Oh yes, they're better as well. Just because some guy is shredding a million notes a second in the Jewish Fifth Pentatonic Mixolydian doesn't mean he's a great composer. Of course, Buckethead has great technical skill and is a good composer, I just don't think he's on the same level as a true genius such as Bach.

i just wantd to show u guys to see if u agreed.

his work is more diverse, more theoretically brilliant. he doesn't just shred; he plays at whatever speed is necessary to embody the emotion he wants to. his slow playing is better then his fast playing. he is indeed a true genius. in terms of compositional complexity, bach is far overshadowed by buckethead. not that that makes it better, but buckethead is also far more experimental then bach was at the time... he's the only person i know of besides schoennberg that has applied schoennbergs work to any real avail.

I vote bucket head it s putz

come on the only way he was able to get any attention is wearing a bucket on his head. If he was really that great, could he have made a living with out the bucket? I have one of his' disc's i don't like it.

I think genius is not measured until your dead. Bach was nobody in the music world until late in the 1800's or something. some one discovered his work and he became genius.

Hendrix was a one hit wounder, but still considered genius.

1 - Noel Gallagher (Oasis)
2 - Graham Coxon (Blur)
3 - Yoshiaki Manabe (The Pillows)
4 - Slash - (Velvet Revolver)
5 - Angus Young (AC/DC)

yes, he could have made a living without it - simply because he is the most technically accomplished guitarist alive. but who knows why brian carroll created buckethead - it might be stage fright, humility, or just for the hell of it. and he doesn't really get a lot of attention; he's made a clear decision to make the music he wants to, despite the fact that like mozarts dissonant (/interesting) works, it would virtually seal him into the 'not popular' and even 'detested' category. which CD do you have?

The robots and what ever. I got it because Les Claypool played on it. I'm just not into that technical guitar playing. I would perfer if someone was artistic with limited ablilities than these super guitar guys. but that's just me,

check out some of his stuff from 'colma' on youtube, that's quite a different sounding album.

some of his stuff is... a acquired taste. it's just too strange to swallow.

my favs are Alexi Laiho, Mick Thomson, Jari Maenpaa, Dave Mustaine, Paul Gilbert, and Yngwie Malmsteen... maybe not the best, but my favorites

My favorites are (kind of in order): Jimmy Page, John Frusciante, Jonny Greenwood/Ed O'Brien/Thom Yorke, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters. From there on I like a lot of bands and musicians, but not necessarily the guitarist(s) in a particular way (not to say that they're not as good).

Edit: Also, in response to EMB's original post. I wholeheartedly believe that Frusciante belongs in the top 20 of that list. I don't necessarily like the list idea in general, but in the way it was done he was well placed. The person that didn't deserve their number was Cobain. He was an OK guitarist while being a really good songwriter.