Top 100 Guitarists of All Time

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 03:05 PM

Has anyone heard Sam McGee?
or TOm Paley?
or Andy Cohen?

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 12:48 PM

Tim Renwick
Al Stewart
Jeremy Spencer
Danny Kirwan

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 12:51 PM

... considering so many of us have enjoyed the performances of literally thousands of accomplished guitarists
in our life time's obsession for discovering new music,
there's hardly any point moaning that so and so's been left off a list
compiled by a few hack mainstream music journalists with such an obviously narrow perspective on global music culture..


errrmm.. and they did'nt mention Vic Flick or Chris Spedding.....

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,GUEST MArkyB
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 12:15 PM

Not a mention of django,John Martyn,Richard Thompson,JJ Cale,Rory Gallagher,Syd Barret.
I agree with the poster who mentioned rollingstones 'top 100 guitarists' ^
chaaa.
=====================================================================Barr chords hurt my girly fingers :(

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 08:45 AM

I don't see Tommy Emmanuel, but as long as Joan Jett made it I suppose that will do......

Going to see #23 this weekend in New Brunswick (Warren Haynes, the Great).

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Tootler
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 07:04 AM

I really don't know what you are all whingeing about!

After all the list is a comprehensive one including guitarists from both types of music: rock and roll.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 09:57 PM

Danny Gatton

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 02:41 PM

I went to see Michael Chapman play on Friday night. Now, there is a guitar player and a half. Only 40 people turned up to listen though.

R

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Dennis the Elder
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 11:57 AM

Not sure about Junior Brown, unfortunately never heard him play, but I cannot believe no one appears to have mentioned the following gentleman

Joe Brown

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 10:52 AM

What about Junior Brown?

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 02:24 AM

There has not as yet been 'all time' - whatever the fundamentalists would have you believe. And anyway I couldn't even begin to limit the number of guitarists who have impressed me to a mere hundred. I feel sorry for anyone who would want to.

And anyway Bruce Murdoch, Jack Hudson, Lightnin' Hopkins - what they do, may not be technically as hard as Joe Pass or Yyngwie Malmsteen - but its a hundred per cent 'right' - a perfect accompaniment for what they do.

That's a sort of 'top' - isn't it?

As Martin Carthy said about the late Peter Bellamy - people often lament that Peter never had accompanists who understood his vision fully. Then Martin said, Those peope are wrong. Peter did have one wonderful and perfect guitar accompanist - himself.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,Curtis
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 06:33 PM

I would have thought Bruce Cockburn's name would have come up more in this discussion.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 05:58 PM

...also that 100 could actually be in binary - that would provoke a whole lot more argument...

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 05:49 PM

What about John Goodsall of Brand X? That guy is fabulous!

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 05:34 PM

"The Rolling Stone article should have said "Top 100 Rock Guitarists of All Time" and then it would have had more credibility."

It should really say Top 100 Rock Guitarists of All Time so far...

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Smokey.
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 05:29 PM

Reverend Gary Davis deserves a mention.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 05:17 PM

Yep. Upthread, Chet Atkins is mentioned a couple dozen times.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: olddude
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 04:15 PM

Someone may have already said Chet Akins ... but I like that guy from the 80's stray cats .. Brian Selzer or something like that ... he can rockabilly for sure ...

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 04:13 PM

Another guitarist that's never talked about is Philip Catherine.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Smokey.
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 03:25 PM

Them's wise words, Don. Accompaniment is an art in itself. I've never sung, so I had to learn it as a separate thing, which may have made the distinction clearer. I've always seen it as providing the right setting for a precious stone, but I like the picture frame better, I think.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 02:47 PM

When I first started out learning folk songs and how to accompany them on the guitar (1952 or so), I took a few months' lessons from Walt Robertson, whose folk song accompaniments were fairly "eclectic." But whole basis of folk song accompaniment, he said, was what he called "Burl Ives Basic."

"Um-plunk," as Strings puts it. Or, of course "um-plunk-plunk." That's all you really need and you're in business.

Walt taught me a whole bunch of other stuff, and when I wanted more, he'd sort of run out of things to teach me, so he recommended that I take some classic guitar lessons, which I did. But with Walt's warning: "Remember the acronym KISS. 'Keep It Simple, Stupid!'"

With a classic guitar teacher with the oddly rural sounding name, Joe Farmer, I really learned how to use my fingers. He had me working on technical exercises, and very quickly into simple pieces, including the graded studies by Fernando Sor.

While I was doing all this, I got a summer job working for a picture framer. All the local big name artists came to this guy because his frames were always just right for whatever painting they contained. I learned probably the most valuable lesson I ever learned about song accompaniment from him. "When you're deciding how to frame a painting, don't just slap it into any frame. Study the painting. Look at the colors, look at the shapes within the painting. Chose a molding that reflects a shape in the painting. Then examine the colors and paint the frame a neutral blend of those colors. But—NEVER distract from the painting itself. If people look at a painting and say, 'Isn't that a beautiful frame?' then the frame is a failure. The frame should set the painting off in space, but must never distract from the painting or draw attention to itself."

Same with song accompaniment. It's not the main thing. It is supposed to accompany the song. If it becomes the main thing, then you blew it! You can do all kinds of stuff such as working countermelodies into an accompaniment, restatements of or variations on the melody line between verses, fancy arpeggio patterns, all kinds of virtuoso stuff. BUT—if people notice the accompaniment more than the song, it's a flop!

Lots of folk singers don't get that.

I sometimes slip a classic or flamenco solo into a set. It's kinda ego gratifying to hear someone mutter, "Hey, he can really play that thing!" But my main focus is on the songs and the stories they tell.

With "Burl Ives Basic," you can't go wrong.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 02:01 PM

No mention of Joao Gilberto?? What kind of stupid list is that? Kurt Cobain? Come on, the guy was a non-guitarist if anything. Jimi Hendrix the greatest of all time? Well, I love Jimi and there's no doubt he was extremely influential but he was doing what Buddy Guy was doing a decade before and Jimi even admitted it and played onstage with Buddy because he wanted people to know how important Buddy is.

And you can't excuse the omission of Django for any reason whatsoever and certainly not so you can include guys from Moby Grape, Soundgarden and Radiohead who are not exactly setting the guitar world on fire. Joan Jett?? Come off it. I mean, where's Johnny Guitar Watson? Where's Jimmy Reed or, for that matter, Jerry Reed? Both were certainly better guitarists than Lou Reed.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Stringsinger
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 01:46 PM

musicmic, I grew up on Burl Ives before Millard Lampell, John Stauber and all the other guitarists you mention came on the scene. Burl did his own guitar playing in concert and on early recordings and in my opinion, some of his best work. Simple um-plunk that fit his voice like a glove, never getting in the way of the lyrics, unlike some of the guitar players today whose message is "to hell with vocalist, look at me".

Nobody, so far, has mentioned the father of the electric guitar, Charlie Christian.
He was the first to bring it to the forefront of jazz and dance music via Goodman.

You have to separate the guitar skills (chops) from the musicianship, bringing into the equation Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Fred Hellerman, Sam Jones (with Miriam MacKeba)
and others whose guitar accompaniments supported the song.

The Rolling Stone article should have said "Top 100 Rock Guitarists of All Time" and then it would have had more credibility.

Guitar playing must combine technique with musicianship (which can be a very subjective opinionated subject) but nonetheless, there are those guitarists who have the potential of moving an audience in one way or another, and they don't all have "chops".

Early folk music performers such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie (before he succumbed to Huntington's), Sarah and Maybelle Carter, obscure blues artists such as Laughing Charley, Son House, all these and more who made up the powerful music we call American folk (I left out Sam Hinton, shouldn't have or Pete Seeger for that matter) may not have dazzled audiences with gymnastic finger action but gave the guitar a meaning in the music we now enjoy, including Burl's "um plunk".

The guitar can't be separated from musical values on its own and to claim a monopoly on being the "best" is unsupportable, subject to opinion, and to ignore some musical aspects in favor of others.

I would say that the guitar is one of the greatest musical instruments of all time, its flexibility, versatility, emotionally moving expression and worldwide acceptance being "greater" than any one person who plays it.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: tonyteach1
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 12:13 PM

Most flamenco players play at various tempos depending on the number the the dancer or singer Also most create their own melodic ideas so not just technicians

The best technical electric player I have seen is Scotty Anderson who leaves everyone standing as a fingerstyle electric player on a Tele

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Midchuck
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 10:41 AM

Here's the iconic picture of two of the very best (by some peoples' reckoning) as one was just hitting his stride and one was some years away from it...

Peter

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 09:57 AM

.. and for what it's worth, here's the last personal highly changeable & flexible 'Top 10'
I compiled some time in the last year or so
to help me work out in which direction I was going with my own 'guitar & amp tones'..

This time no 50's Rock 'n ' Roll or Blues icons were included
as their influences inform and are encapsulated by the chosen 60's & 70's influences..


So in no particular order....


MICK RONSON

MARC BOLAN

BRIAN MAY

WILKO JOHNSON

PETE TOWNSHEND

BILL NELSON

STEVE HILLAGE

JIMMY PAGE

ALBERT LEE

JERRY DONAHUE

TED NUGENT

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 09:33 AM

Here's a positive shout for Marc Bolan...

Purveyor of perfect pop culture boogie riffs and compelling classic tone.

It's interesting to consider how so many technically excellent guitarists are obscure to all
beyond an elite coterie of devoted acolytes;

yet a barely competent player such as Marc Bolan

[who was way too vain and arrogantly unaware of his limited rudimentary soloing abilities]

somehow harboured a spark of innate genius
that inspired a generation of many thousands of youngsters to learn to play guitar.

I definitely rate him high up in my personal "Top 5" list of significant influential guitarists from the 1950's to the 1980's..

Headed in 'No 1' spot by Mick Ronson...

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 09:10 AM

Being able to play flamenco guitar at breakneck speed doen't mean that you are better than anybody, only maybe another flamenco guitarist who can't match the speed! Personally I find it boring after a couple of numbers and would rather listen to the average strummer at my folk club! I'm also not sure what technically better means - the same thing I suppose that a jazz guitarist is technichally better than another jazz guitarist that is not as good at playing the same jazz stuff, but that doesn't mean he is better at playing 3 chord folk stuff does it. I've heard proffesional metal guitarists flounder when trying to strum a folky song. Load of bollox really - I'm the best guitarist inside my own head ...

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: tonyteach1
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 08:22 AM

For technical ability as guitarists I would put most gypsy flamenco and jazz players ahead of most commercial guitarists

The best technical fingerstyle guitarist I have met on a regular basis in the UK is a guy called Steve Homes who is a professional flamenco player

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 05:56 AM

Gordon Giltrap and young 'un Clive Carroll

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 04:56 AM

T-Bone Walker
B.B. King
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Robert Johnson
Albert King
Eric Clapton
Buddy Guy
Mike Bloomfield
Peter Green
Johnny Winter
Otis Rush
Muddy Waters
Ronnie Earl
Hubert Sumlin
Duane Allman
John Lee Hooker
Son House

If I only had the choice of one, it would have to be,Blind Lemon Jefferson

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,Azoic
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 01:38 AM

Ralph Towner,Allan Holdsworth,Martin Simpson,Alex Machacek.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 10:17 PM

Jose Feliciano?

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: mattkeen
Date: 11 Jan 10 - 09:24 AM

Agree that these sort of lists are a wate of time, but it did get me thinking about my favourites

Martin Carthy
Bert Jansch
Steve Cropper
Lowell George
Ry Cooder
Davey Graham
Jimmi Vaughan
Neil Young

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,bob
Date: 10 Jan 10 - 07:38 PM

Shawn Lane?? Monte Montgomery? Kottke???? Wes Montgomery?? John Williams????????

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: irishenglish
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:08 PM

Alan Prosser, Malcolm Jones, Dan Ar Braz-three worth mentioning if they haven't already been! Although Nigel Tufnel is pretty good too I hear....

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 08 - 04:36 PM

Joao Gilberto anyone?

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,Stringsinger
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:52 PM

All folk and rock makes Jack a dull boy.

Jazz guitarists: Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Ted Greene, Martin Taylor, Tommy Emmanuel, Jimmy Bruno, Herb Ellis, Bola Sete, Lenny Breau, Chet Atkins, Alan Holdsworth,
Jimmy Raney, Phil Upchurch, George Benson, Tuck Anders ......oh man! This list goes on forever. I just scratched the surface.

You want more...visit You Tube.

Then there's the classical guitarists and lutenists.

Rolling Stone doesn't know s-----t!

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 27 May 08 - 07:50 PM

I started redaing this with a long list of omissions, but as far as I can see the only one no one's mentioned is Leon McAuliffe of Bob Wills' Texas Playboys. (Someone even mentioned Kazuhito Yamashita)

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,stevie baby
Date: 26 May 08 - 08:47 PM

Rik Emmett, Triumph

'nuf said.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: gnu
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:59 PM

Perhaps, as Spaw so eloquently alluded to or maybe not, we could simply impart some of the guitar work we consider masterful?

This guy is one of my favs.

But, all time fun masterful guitar for me, are these guys.

Hey, it ain't folk, but... or is it? Hehehehehe.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: gnu
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:47 PM

Randy Bachman... ya know. Not only is he amazing on guitar, look at the history, the collaborations, the tunes.... SO many tunes... it's like he wakes up spitting them out.

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: number 6
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 06:52 PM

Or that tank top ... LOL

yup ... he certainly is one hell of an axeman.

biLL

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 06:39 PM

Yeah. (grin) Isn't his haircut just perfect? Not to mention the way he talks?

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: number 6
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 06:38 PM

taht's Kewl L.H.



Geeeesh.




Actually this is one of my favourite scenes from the movie ... he has Jeff Beck down to the 'T'.

biLL

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 06:29 PM

Here's Nigel, showing off his guitars and other equipment. The man is simply the ultimate axeman of all time, and this clip makes that crystal clear.

"You can't touch this one..."

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: number 6
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 05:58 PM

Looks like everyone I can think of has been mentioned here with the exception of Randy Bachman.

biLL

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 05:16 PM

Oh...while I'm about it...on topic...after the interuption from the nusery school crowd

Alun Davies the guitar player for Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam)

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 05:11 PM

a revolving piano stool...now there's a stereo-type...those went out with the old music hall jokes...which you as an old timer must surely have witnessed, and which, it appears, you are attempting to emulate, albeit very unsuccessfully..

Charlotte (Goodbye Dolly Grey)

Subject: RE: Top 100 Guitarists of All Time
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 04:53 PM

Look, everybody knows that Nigel Tufnel is the greatest guitar hero of all time. End of story.

Don't make me say it again.