Best Guitarist of Each Decade?

Recently I’ve been listening to more music, especially rock-and-roll. Most of this music is from the 60s and 70s, but sometimes when I’m using Pandora (Music and Podcasts, Free and On-Demand | Pandora), more recent music will appear. I’ve also been looking at lists of best guitarists. These lists are pretty subjective, but they’re fun to judge and compare based on how you would’ve done it. The first list of this breed that I looked at was from Rolling Stone. Here’s the link: Music News. Not a terrible list, but definitely very commercially produced. Here’s a decent critique of the list on Listology that makes a lot of good points about it: Comin Soon | Truely. Overall, a better guitarist list is included on Digital Dream Door: http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_newguitar.html. These lists got me thinking: could I assign one guitarist to represent a decade in which he or she played? This doesn’t mean that the guitarist has to have played only in that decade (or throughout all of that decade, for that matter), but it should be when the guitarist’s work shines the most. Oh yeah, and the guitarist needs to be lead, not rhythm (I don’t want people to put Elvis down for the '60s).
1900s - ?
Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve heard any guitar music (or any recordings) from this decade. If there were any recordings from this period, I’m not sure how the audio quality would be. Was Segovia writing music at this time? Even if he was, I’d hesitate to say that it really represented the decade.
1910s - ?
Ditto for this.
1920s - ?
Obviously this was when blues recordings were beginning to take hold, so if anybody can recommend a contender, I’d be glad to hear it.
1930s - Robert Johnson
In this decade, we see the blues starting to take full swing, which is why I chose blues guitarist Robert Johnson. I’ll admit, I doubt that I’ve knowingly listened to any other guitarist from the '30s, but considering Johnson’s gigantic influence on listeners to the blues revival of the '60s, this seems like a solid choice. However, there were plenty of other blues guitarists who did recordings at this time (and for a longer period of time in this decade, considering that Johnson only started playing good, if you believe the legend, after selling his soul to the Devil (this was supposedly sometime in the mid-'30s) and died before the decade ended in '38). If you give me another name and a good enough reason, I might change my choice for best guitarist of the '30s, especially considering how little I really know about this era.
1940s - Muddy Waters
Although we’re moving closer to the modern day, I know less about Waters than I do about Johnson, so the same principle applies to this decade: give me another guitarist and a good argument, and I might change my choice.
1950s - Chuck Berry
This is the first choice I feel even mildly sure about (although I have a fair amount of reason to suppose my other two choices will hold). Chuck Berry’s only No. 1 hit may have been “My Ding-a-Ling”, but his licks still hold. There were some other great guitarists at this time: Bo Diddley, and Link Wray come to mind. I think Chuck Berry does a good job representing the music scene at this time: his work has a very '50s feel to it.
1960s - Jimi Hendrix
Ah, the '60s, much more my forte. To me Hendrix was the archetypal psychedelic, electric-feedback using guitarist, and I consider him the greatest guitarist ever (in this respect I agree with both Rolling Stone and Digital Dream Door). Some might put either lead guitarist of Derek and the Dominos (Duane Allman, also of the Allman Brothers Band, and Eric Clapton, also of Cream), but I think both peaked in the early '70s, and even if they peaked in the '60s, neither were as iconic as Hendrix. I vaguely considered using Jeff Beck or Pete Townshend (the Who were my favorite band of the '60s) for this decade, but again, neither were as iconic. When I think of Woodstock, I think of Hendrix before anyone else.
1970s - Jimmy Page
Many great guitarists in this decade, but not only did Jimmy Page peak here, he also ruled rock-and-roll with Led Zeppelin. I associate Page with the '70s the way I associate Hendrix with '60s. Page’s performance of “Dazed and Confused” with a violin bow is mind-blowing. I won’t argue if you say there were equally good guitarists at the time, but none as iconic as Page.
1980s - Eddie Van Halen
I considered using Kirk Hammett and Slash here, but I believe that in practice, Van Halen asserted more influence during the '80s over aspiring guitarists. This also reaffirms my choice of Page for the '70s: Van Halen has stated that his signature style was inspired by Page’s performance of “Heartbreaker”.
1990s - ?
I’m at a loss here: I don’t listen to much music from this decade, so I have no idea who would be considered iconic during this time. Zakk Wylde? Tom Morello? No idea…
2000s - ?
If I was at a loss for a guitarist during the '90s, I’m at a greater loss here. It seems that modern day music, while still electronic in nature, lacks lead guitars.
I’d like to hear what you think of my selections, and I’d be happy to hear suggestions. And if you want to put up your own selections, go ahead.

If you’re looking for the most influential people, then some of your selections are virtually undeniable, like Hendrix for the sixties or Jimmy Page for the seventies. But if you really mean “best”, you’re getting into really subjective territory here. I would not put a single rock guitarist in my list. As far as I am concerned, Jimi Hendrix was much worse than Wes Montgomery, John McLaughlin, and Joe Pass. But the question of which guitarists are “best” is so subjective that there’s really no way for me to give a knock-down argument in favor of my opinions.

Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.

Lonnie Johnson, Eddie Lang, Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Django Reinhart, Skip James, Big Bill Broonzy.

Booker White, Son House

No arguments, just some earlier examples for you. Obviously some of the above overlapped decades, the ordering is just a little arbitrary.

hijack - Son House really crashed and burned. Witness the Howlin’ Wolf totally bitch slap him to his face in the Howlin’ Wolf documentary. It was pretty nasty to watch the Wolf ‘that one there has the blues on him BAD.’ Great documentary.

Muddy was a great guitarist but much better known as a singer. My understanding is Muddy got big and influential in the 1950’s.

Good lord there is no way to answer this. Getting the criteria right would take ages to begin with. No rhythm guitar? Why the heck not? And unless you narrow the focus much further, Tamerlane’s nominations point out how guitarists from other styles would cloud the issue. Folks like Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, Roy Smeck (the Wizard of the Strings and one of the most popular uke and guitar players of the 20’s and 30’s - from a commercial standpoint, he was FAR more popular than Robert Johnson; same with Django), Les Paul, Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Steve Howe and Steve Morse - I mean, jeez…

And you pick guys like Chuck Berry and Jimmy Page - I love 'em both and my style is more like theirs than other guitarists on the list, but they are both sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Not a bad thing - I love me some slop if the songs and creativity are there - but “best guitarist”?

How about Andres Segovia or Paco DeLucia - where do they fit in?

I’m certainly no expert in these matters - I’m not that familiar with more obscure acts and I doubt I’d recognize true technical excellence if I heard it - but IMHO, the best guitarist of the 1990’s was John Frusciante. At least, he’s the only one I can recognize instantly upon hearing him play.

Oh, and my choice for the 1980’s would be Mark Knopfler, although I know I’m in the minority here.

Then we’re a minority of two. Although, I’m not sure the '80s is the right decade for Mr. Knopfler.

What about Emmet Ray? :slight_smile:

Sorry . Bad joke. I watched “Sweet and Lowdown” last night. Afterwards, I hooked the iPod up to the stereo and listened to some Django. I don’t play, but if I did - that’s how I would want to play.

More on topic - while watching that movie, I realized how much Chet Atkins sounded like Django Reinhardt. Does Mr. Atkins fit as one of the best in the '60s?

Chet qualifies as one of the best ever.

And Knopfler is a brilliant player - he and Chet recorded some great stuff together…

Well, best of the '00s is easy, anyway – my husband, Derek Trucks.

Derek Trucks is pretty awesome. Is the ‘husband’ part some kind of unfulfilled wish?

According to this site, the first guitar recordings were made by Augustín Barrios Mangore in 1910, and I have no reason to doubt that claim. So for the decade of 1900 - 1910, we have little to go on but reputation and reviews. Based on that, I’d suggest Francisco Tárrega, though his career pretty much ended with a stroke in 1906. Segovia only gave his first public performance in 1909, at the age of sixteen. A side nitpick - Segovia’s fame rests on his playing; his compositions, well, they probably wouldn’t be known at all if they weren’t by him, if you get my drift… So, if Segovia is to be on that list, I’d put him later, when his concert and recording career were more established.

Sorta in between Tárrega and Segovia fall Emilio Pujol and Miguel Llobet. Guitarist of the decade? I dunno, I think of them more as guitarists who came between Tárrega and Segovia, myself.

Then you start getting into all those thorny problems about how you’re comparing classical guitarists to jazz guitarists to blues guitarists to country guitarists to rock guitarists. I got no problem talking about good guitarists, could do that all day and sometimes have; Best? Defining a decade? I can’t begin to try nailing that down…

You’ve bought into that pathetic story put out by poor, deluded Susan Tedeschi, haven’t you? :frowning:

I aquired Already Free based on yours and Wordman’s recommendations. It didn’t wow me at first, except for a couple of tunes. However, now that I’ve listened to it a dozen or so times, it has really grown on me. Trucks is someone I think I want to hear more of.

He may not be the consensus choice, but I haven’t heard anybody I like better.

See him live - beyond amazing. The man has a direct channel - I’ve only seen someone “unhook their brain” and have a straight connection between their hands and the music like that rarely…Stevie Ray had that, too.

Where do you put someone like Richard Thompson, who has been routinely kicking ass since the early 70’s?

a list of the best guitar players is not complete without Les Paul. Not only one of the greatest players, but invented much of the technology the rest of the players are relying upon.

The album prior to Already Free, Songlines, is also excellent – but your best bet is to see them live, as WordMan suggests. Unfortunately, they just went on hiatus … nothing scheduled for the next six months, anyway. Marley will know if they’re planning to stay off the road for the full year or not.

There’s a lot for me to respond to here, so bear with me.
First off, I’d like to thank Czarcasm for moving the thread.
Now I’ll explain my use of the word “best”. Didn’t think it would be such a big deal, but it’s obvious from the way I was describing my choices that I meant “influential” or “representative of the decade”. And I think the second description is what I really meant: I was starting a thread where the idea was to choose one guitarist to represent a decade.
Also, thanks everybody for taking the time to respond with suggestions. If anybody wants to make their own list, be my guest. By the way, I may not always find the time to respond to your post (I’m basically posting a generalized response to all right now), but I will read it.