It is a silly list. For example, we have Slash and Pete Townsend rated below Brian May of Queen? Or Nuno Bettencourt from Extreme? Please.
Great additions, all.
I heartily second the inclusion/list-ascension of Knopfler and The Edge. Far from wanting to rip my ears off, I was hooked the first time I heard the intro to Sunday Bloody Sunday. the Edge can do the chiming electric-thing, and the wakka-wakka thing is fantastic, too.
Bob Mould may be the best guitarist I’ve seen live, and it was less a display of technical skill and more of an absurd amount of energy and intensity that hooked me. As far as a pretty solo goes, try “Sunspots” on Workbook…excellent.
No mention of Richard Lloyd of Television…puhlease.
Buddy Guy?
Dimebag at 74? WTF? I think most rock/metal guys would agree that Dimebag was as close to the Randy Rhodes of the 90’s as we ever got. That dude should be in the top 10 for sure.
This list just reveals the old age of the people who make these lists. Contemporary artists are always overlooked or shoved to the bottom in favor of “proven favorites” like Hendrix, Page, Iommi etc…
I ignore these things most of the time for just that reason.
I included him in my own favorite guitarists list in this forum a few weeks ago, but this list is specifically for rock guitarists, so leaving out the blues greats is forgiveable. (Claiming that there are over 100 rock guys ahead of Richard Thompson, however, is not.)
At the risk of being tiresome…
Mike Keneally’s not on it at all? Feh.
And sorry, CaveMike, but imho Adrian Belew could play that Toto stuff with his elbows.
As noted, it’s all a function of tastes. I’m gonna go find Biffy’s list.
Having seen so many live shows, I can recall one that gave me shivers. Twice. **Eric Clapton ** first playing an (oxmoron coming up) electric accustic guitar and doing a solo version of You Look Wonderful Tonight. Much later walking out on a dark stage by himself for an encore and creating an intro for Crossroads.
Yeah I’m sure he did that encore a bazillion times in a bazillion cities before, but it’s the first time I’d heard it. Wow, just wow.
While I admire Hedrix, I can’t help but feel he gets some of the adulation from dying young before he created a bigger body of work that may have diluted our memory of him.
My 2 cents - Hendrix was an innovator and technically skilled, but he wasn’t capable of creating new worlds of sound within his music like Page can.
As far as U2 goes… I hope the Edge sleeps with his delay pedal* under his pillow, because if somebody steals it, he’s got nothing but 3 chords and a smoldering look in his eye.
- That’s what produces the effect that everybody’s been calling the “chicka chicka” sound.
I don’t bother reading lists like this. Either it’s just some guy’s opinion–and even if he’s a music critic, it’s still just his opinion–or it’s generated by some voting scheme that takes everyone’s opinion and generates a list no one agrees with. Why bother?
I object strenuously to the exclusion of Bonnie Raitt and Jeff Buckley on the list.
It’s also fairly clear that whoever put this list together didn’t listen to a particularly wide variety of music.
Yep, I agree. I was just being sarcastic. I can’t imagine the guy from Toto beating out any of those guys based on any criteria (technical, influential, or creative).
I’ll grant you the adjustments to Townsend and Nuno, but I think Brian May deserves to be ahead of Slash.
Yeah, boy. Take not the name of May in vain!
You know, I’m constantly amazed at how many people get that.
David Gilmour is better than Eddie Van Halen?!?! Puh-leaze!!!
I also note that Jack White did not make the top 200, or even the list of also-rans. This is idiotic. White’s career may be too young to call him one of the greats at this point, but he certainly belongs somewhere on the list. I believe Rolling Stone’s equally silly list had White very high, up in the top 20 or something.
Whatever, he’s a great guitarist.
I haven’t looked at the RS list in a while. I just remember that they had a Brian May fetish back in the day. Don’t get me wrong, I like his stuff, but I stopped checking out their opinion when they ranked him at #1 many years back.
They’ve obviously backed off – he’s at #39 on a more recent Rolling Stone list.
Re the list in the OP, I see Danny Kirwan is at the kids’ table, while Peter Green and Lindsay Buckingham are in the big list. RS puts Peter Green at #39, while omitting Kirwan (and Buckingham) altogether. Thoughts?
I think J.J. Cale is considered a blues man.
There are women who should be one such a list, Joni Mitchell, for one. If Joni is to folk, Nancy Wilson can’t be anything but rock. She has it all over some on the list.
Its strange to see Duane Allman in the top 50 (as he should be), but Dickie Betts is no where to be found. They were unreal together. They would improvise, playing the same riffs, as though there was only one mind between them.
Ok, I looked again, Betts is there #69. Sorry, for skimming the list… I’m so ashamed :rolleyes:
Jimi wasn’t a technique guy. I do think if anybody ever created new worlds of sound within his playing, he’s the one who did it. I think he’s a lot less one-dimensional, too.
I’m not going to say which guitarists I think are entirely overrated for fear of being run out of the SDMB on a rail. I will however say that my husband is the best rock guitarist ever, but he is not famous and I am highly biased 
And Prince being above Hammett is a sin. Hammett leads are incredible, or were, anyways. Although good to see that Steve Stevens is up there 
I’m with you, Marley. He’s so unbelievably fluid, it can be hard – especially for the post-Hendrix generation – to hear everything he’s doing. It’s like the guitar was part of his body and mind. The man deserves every accolade he’s ever gotten.
I’ll chime in for JJ Cale, too. Watching that guy play is a real treat. I think he doesn’t get much attention because, first off, he avoids the attention, and second, he doesn’t go in for the screaming solos. Great hands, though. And classic tunes.
The imho overrated Clapton called his “Lay Down, Sally” the closest a Brit could get to JJ Cale.
Well, getting his autograph at a Flipside was pretty much the highlight of my freshman year.
That’s pretty much my favorite Clapton guitar work. Guess I should check Cale out.