I'm partial to John Fahey....maybe not as whiz-bang awesome as some of the others mentioned above, but he plays his fast tunes with a lot of enthusiasm, and his slow ones with a lot of feeling. He experiments occasionally, and detours from conventional approaches to thumb/finger style picking, using alternative tunings and dissonant or "drone" note patterns that one doesn't normally hear in a folk or country vein. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Rick Fielding could tell you more, having seen him in concert, and from what I gather, was not too impressed with his performance. His opinion would serve as a counterbalance to mine, perhaps, and he would be far more qualified than me to comment on Fahey's technique, tunings, etc. As for myself, I just like his...ummm...brash?...unpolished?...devil-may-care?...approach to his guitar - the way he sounds like he's picking the strings close to the bridge to get a trebly sound.

The only recording I have of his is titled, "The Essential John Fahey," which I wouldn't recommend, only because I'm not fond of most of the tunes on there, but I bought it anyway to replace another "Best Of" I had by him, titled (more or less) "The Best Of John Fahey, 1957-1977," which I've not been able to find. The latter was by far better than the former (IMO) as far as "Best Of" things go, and included his version of well-known tunes like, "In Christ There Is No East Or West," and "The Last Steam Engine Train." The one and only tune I learned by him was "Sunflower River Blues." If I still had that "1957-1977" recording, more of his tunes would be in my repertoire.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Neil