Greatest Guitar Player of All Time?

Floyd Pepper.

Gotta be Jimmy Page!

For absolute best, in terms of skill and perfection, it’s a tossup between Segovia and Atkins.

So here is my list of favorites
Andres Segovia
Chet Atkins - his fingerpicked version of Arkansas Traveler is a real showpiece, and damn near impossible for mere mortals to play. Lord knows I tried.
Django Rheinhart
Mark Knopfler
Laurindo Almeida
Charlie Byrd
Randy Rhodes
Lindsey Buckingham - under rated. technically as perfect live, as he sounds in recordings.
Les Paul - older than dirt, and still better than most anyone around.

I’ve had the rare privilege of seeing Segovia and Byrd in concert.
I never got to see Les Paul, so I “settled” for his guitar - a Les Paul Custom :smiley:

From your location, I trust you had the great pleasure of seeing him perform live, hopefully many times. I only had the pleasure once, but it was something extraordinary. What really added to the show is that it was a very small venue (the Grafitti, in Pittsburgh). . .it was just incredible. I wish he could’ve got his head on right, and I wish he could’ve left us more than he did on vinyl.

Roy’s one-time vocalist, Billy Price, lives and performs in Pittsburgh. Last time I saw him, he still did, “Can I change my mind?”

Also saw Adrian Belew at the Grafitti, a couple years later. Not at all what I was expecting from the limited exposure I’d had, but a real treat.

I saw SRV at a much larger venue, but I am so glad I had a chance to see him before he passed.

Saw B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Neal Shon, Eric Johnson, Steve Miller, Steve Morse. . .damn! I’m feeling kinda lucky right about now. . .gotta stop rambling and get back on topic.

Loved Roy Buchanan. Carlos Santana blows my mind. No love for Gilmour? (Geez, forgot I saw Gilmour too!)

Clapton bores me to tears. . .I really don’t want to hear much of anything later than “Layla”. . . Damn, that brings to mind Dwayne Allman & George Harrison!

Won’t put him up as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, but a Lindsey Buckingham performance is not one to miss.

Shit. . .I’m not gonna quibble over who’s the best. If there are any names anyone has mentioned that you don’t recognize, look into their work. I’m going to do exactly that.

This is really a personal taste thing but it always surprises me how I’m always the first one to mention J.J. Cale.

I thought he played bass.

What now? No Phil Keaggy? :slight_smile:

For jazz, you can’t get much hipper than Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney, Wes Montgomery. These are great melodic players, not necessarily great technicians. Enormously influential to non-guitarists, which says something about the choices they each made.

The OP is (obviously?) impossible to answer, I like Euthanasiast’s take. Pick any player no matter how much of a virtuoso and they’ll be someone who can kick his (or her) bottom in a different genre. IIRC Mr Vai admits he’s not a good blues player.

My twist would be in order to get a short list of the best, ask “Is so-and-so the best in their field?”, even (or especially) if it’s a field of one. For example who would you compare Pete Townshend to? Hendrix? Keef? I’d settle for Pete Townshend is**** undoubtably the best at playing like Pete Townshend*.

FWIF a poll of famous (electric) guitarists for a Sunday magazine had Jeff Beck voted the guitar player’s guitar player.

*****Or was, in 1970, for 20 minutes.

Such a tough question. For me, even though I can’t say I listen to a lot of his music anymore, I would have to go with Jimi Hendrix. He was one of the most inventive, influential, and innovative rock guitarists ever and really pushed the limits of what the electric guitar was capable of and how it should be played. Not only that, but the guy bled soul. The music was in his bones. Some of it was pyrotechnic, but it was always nuanced and soulful. I really cannot think of a rock guitarist that comes close to Jimi in terms of invention, innovation, and influence.
The guy had chops, the guy had soul, and the guy was making sounds come out of that guitar you’ve never heard before. He was simply a mad genius.

Even though I really don’t like his style, I have to give props to Eddie Van Halen for similar reasons. Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine, also helped to invent a new language for guitar. I think these guys are all fantastic guitarists.

Of the ultra-pyrotechnic guitarists, Steve Via is the only one that strikes me as having any soul. Satriani has flashes of it in Surfing With the Alien, but a concert of his I went to simply bored me to tears. Malmsteen is just … well, all style no substance. His music is about as exciting as Yanni.

tough, tough, tough call.

Classical, Segovia with a nod of the head to John Williams (very under appreciated in my mind as a guitarist)

Blues, Muddy Waters, Hendrix, SRV (his version of little wing might be the best instrumental I’ve ever heard–filled with passion and extremely difficult to play smoothly)

Acoustic, Michael Hedges, Kotke

Jazz, Montgomery, Jordan, Tuck Andres

Metal, Joe Satriani.

Country?? I don’t know.

Overall best? Too hard too call. I’ll take SRV as my favorite, but I’d say Segovia may be the best

PS. The guitarists in the Gypsy Kings play flamenco very well.

for a great guitar solo,check out the last 5 minutes of Jerry Lewis (yeah,him) in RockAByeBaby

Not even close. For influence, Tony Iommi gets it in one, but he’s not top dog. Chuck Schuldiner is almost universally recognized as the greatest metal guitar player of all time, not only because his technical prowess was all but unmatched, but because it didn’t sound masturbatory when he did it.

A few years ago, I flipped through a book called The Greatest 100 Guitarists of All Time or somesuch. It had a page or two per guitarist, and mentioned a lot of the guys in this discussion. For Eddie Van Halen, however, it just had a big picture of the man himself, and the following line:

Eddie Van Halen is included in this book simply because neither you, nor I, nor anyone else, will ever look as cool onstage playing a guitar as Eddie did at the height of his career.

Anyway, Leo Kottke is the guitarist I enjoy the most. I’m sure I’ve never even heard the greatest guitarist ever.

Seconding David Gilmour. Also, while I have to confess to not knowing much about him, Elliot Randall’s guitar work in Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years” leaves me in awe.

I love discussing favorite guitar players with people, but as the years go on, the more I think phrasing the question as “greatest” is silly. Oh well.

After ten years of listening - and of course, I know people who’ve listened to him for almost four times that long - I’m still wowed by Duane Allman’s combination of passion and taste. His session work is nearly as good a testament to that as his work with the Allman Brothers. (Not to underrate Dickey Betts, who did some amazing stuff from '69 - '75 and is still occasionally capable of great playing.)

I’m equally impressed by Hendrix’s visionary qualities. His playing could be sloppy, but when it was, it was in a vibrant, exciting way as opposed to wanking.

These days, the player who amazes me the most by far is Derek Trucks. He is unique, startling, and continues to improve even after I’m sure he’s reached a high plateau.

To mention one other classic, though probably underrated player, I’ll throw Hubert Sumlin’s name out there.

All depends on the genre, really.

You’ve got Robert Johnson for acoustic blues, Vaughan for electric blues, Page and Hendrix for rock…

Good post, though.

That is an interesting statement. I’m a metal guy and I had to go look up Chuck to see what band he was in. I’m (obviously) not a big Death fan. He is a damned good guitarist but I don’t think the statement “almost universally recognized as the greatest metal guitar player of all time” is quite right. There are a ton of good metal players and quite a few great ones.

Slee

Let me start off by saying that I am no expert on guitar and I don’t play. I wouldn’t know good technical playing from simple chord playing, but I know what I like. All I am is a typical listener. That being said, there are a few guitar players that I think are standouts.

Mark Knopfler - He makes a guitar sing. Some of his stuff is just beautiful. He doesn’t play a lot of notes, just the ones that need to be played.

Lindsey Buckingham - I had heard all the Top 40 stuff that he had been involved with, but it was at a Fleetwood Mac concert a few years ago where he really surprised me. His playing was outstanding throughout the concert, but on some songs the others just stood back and he turned loose. Jeez, that guy ROCKED! His playing that night was what really made the concert so great.

Rick Miller - I love Southern Culture On The Skids for so many reasons, but I can listen to their stuff over and over again just for his guitar work. Nothing fancy, mostly simple chords and reverb, but he uses them so well. Quite a few of their songs are instumentals, and his playing makes those songs my favorites from the band.

I’m a big fan of Peter Buck. He’s probably my favorite guitarist.
Also, Joey Santiago from The Pixies is great too, maybe not in the technical sense but he can get some cool sounds from it.
I also like Lou Reed’s guitar playing.

And I almost forgot! Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd!

And I’ve always kind of liked Daniel Ash’s minimalist style.