Your Top 5 Guitarists

we got into some listing on the trux v pavement thread and I thought hey I like to think about this kinda thing. if I'm being honest my 5 right now are Michael Schenker, Jeff Loomis, Jason Becker, Robin Trower, and Zappa, which is a top 5 that tells you p much exactly what I want out of guitarists rn even though it kills me to leave Denner & Shermann & Ty Taobr out. you?

I'd want two lists. One for acoustic and one electric. Neil Young would be in both

And Johnny Marr and Richard Thompson and Jimmy Page. weirdly or at least seemingly rare to have a guitarist good at both.

Well this is impossible THANKS JCLC

Although one thing I'd love is a hyperlink to a really good example of each guitarist in their prime of work

Richard Lloyd
Lou
Neil
Greg Sage?
Prince?

The first 5 coming to my mind:
Johnny Marr
Thurston Moore
Neil Young
Terry Bickers
Mark Robinson

Robert Smith
Alex Lifeson
Prince
Jack White
David Gilmour
J Mascis

Not thinking too long, otherwise there goes the rest of the day.

Too many to mention but two I've been listening to in the last week: Vini Reilly and Robbie Bash.

... Basho

Franco Luambo
Nic Jones
Ernest Ranglin
Brian McBride
Adam Wiltzie

off the top of my head

J Mascis
Larry Carlton
Prince
Dickie Betts
Robert Fripp

Jerry Garcia
Blixa Bargeld
Richard Thompson
Fred Frith
Guy Kyser/Roger kunkel
Omar Korshid
Rowkland S Howard
Will Sergeant
Ted falconi

David Gilmour
Robert Fripp
Richard Thompson
Neil Young
Jimmy Page

Andres Segovia - The Master!
Ali Farka Touré - Spirit, baby.
Peter Green - Clapton shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence.
Nick Drake - Invisible fretting fingers; never heard Nick slide on a string, not once.
Fredrik Thordendal - The Beast!

Shout outs also to Eddie Hazel, Kenny Burrell, Doc Watson, Manitas de Plata, Eliades Ochoa, Frank Zappa, Elmore James, Django Reinhart, Luis Bonfá, Bill Frissell...

(in no particular order)

Bo Diddley
Pete Townshend
Jimmy Nolen
Sonny Sharrock
Jimi Hendrix

Hendrix
Bruce Anderson
Page
Fripp
Buck Dharma

Billy Corgan
Elliott Smith
Bob Mould
Jimi Hendrix
Joni Mitchell

Wes Montgomery
Django Reinhardt
Kenny Burrell
Sonny Sharrock
Paco de Lucía

Prince
Joni
Neil
Alasdair MacLean
Sonny Sharrock

shoutouts to Link Wray, MacDemarco, Bryce Dessner, Keith

Baden Powell
Glenn Branca
Robbie Basho
Terry Callier
Omar Khorshid

no jj cale no credibility

PJ Harvey
Phil manzanera
George Harrison
Gilmour
Page

In no particular order etc

Neil Young
Bert Jansch
Keiji Haino
Jerry Garcia
Paul Brady

Neil Hagerty
Mayo Thompson
Lou Reed
Bo Diddley
Mark Robinson or Sam Jayne or S. Malkmus or some other indie r0xer of my choice

my top 5 criminally unknown/underrated:

Matt Papich
Jason DiEmilio
Dustin Wong
Sam Garrett
Asa Osborne

only video i will post itt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQQtThuTVE4

(Hon. mentions: Johnny Thunders, James Williamson, Page, Dylan...)

keith richards
ron wood
johnny thunders
mick ralphs
chuck berry

Alex Lifeson
Pat Metheny
Frank Zappa
Bill Frisell
Alex Chilton

peter buck
steve howe
prince
jimmy page
david gilmour

though i just saw sharon isbin & she rules.

Oh shit I forgot David Byrne... lol

Victor Wooten
Tosin Abasi
John McLaughlin
James Jamerson
Robert Johnson

Hendrix
Fripp
Richard Bishop
Pete Cosey
Tom Carter

There’s more than one way to be a great guitarist.

Great guitarists that had the good fortune to play on great records:
Jimmy Page
Lyndsey Buckingham
Jimi Hendrix
Robert Fripp
David Gilmour

Great guitarists that redefined the possibilities of the instrument:
Allan Holdsworth
Lenny Breau
John McLaughlin
Julian Lage
Jeff Beck

what on earth is hendrix doing in that first list and not the second

D Boon
Robert Fripp
Sonny Sharrock
Nels Cline
Frank Zappa

Xpost flappybird, of course some people could be on both lists. But you’d rather be on this first wouldn’t you?

might agree with you if not for Band of Gypsys, specifically "Machine Gun."

Daniel Fichelscher
Keith Rowe
Jimi Hendrix
Buck Dharma
Michio Kurihara

Machine Gun redefined the guitar, no question. Mainly trying to get at the idea that there are guitarists that make great records and there are guitarists that are only(?) are great at playing the guitar and ranking them in the same list is jarring to me.

Sterling Morrison
Nels Cline
Dave Rawlings
Matt & Bubba Kadane
Prince

xpost
I thought the idea here was more listing “favorites” than ranking “best/greatest/etc.” (may be wrong tho)

Dave Rawlings
Slash
David Gilmour
Jimi Hendrix
And since “Ball and Biscuit” popped up on shuffle today, Jack White

But do people really think their favorites aren’t the greatest? Why else would they be your favourites?

proustian association with favored memories

Which is a perfectly good definition of great in my book.

Tuca
John McGeoch
Robin Guthrie
Jimi Hendrix
Martyn Bates
Geordie Walker

your memories are yours, my memories are mine. "greatest" seems like the wrong word. xp

I've gotten as far as Hendrix and Kevin Shields but then I'd need to depart the canon and think about it a bit for the other three

off the top of the dome

pete cosey
steve bartek
prince
marc ribot
steve howe

Larry Coryell
Grant Green
Pete Cosey
Sonny Sharrock
Michael Karoli

boy do i not listen to any new music... oh well

ah kurt - respeck

xxxxp
I don't think there can be a good iteration of that ghastly thing you just described, Scott!

probably just pick up a few more olds anyway.

I am surprised that Neil Hagerty has only been mentioned twice (plus Shakey's mention on the Trux/Pavement thread, which kicked this off)

acquired taste, maybe idk. For me the appeal of Hagerty (and he is fantastic to watch play live) is that combination of having bags of riffs and v melodic turns of phrase, combined with a really deeply ingrained unpredictability. He's that rare thing in indie rock in that he actually has chops/is capable of playing a wide variety of really complex stuff, but his parts often don't go where you would expect them to, he is full of surprises.

I mean I don't really have top 5 guitarists more than I have a top 5 of anything. I probably have 25 or so guitarists that mean A LOT to me.

And some really benefitted from the groups they were in.

fav p funk guitar players

eddie hazel
blackbyrd mcknight (on tour with them now!)
michael hampton
ricky rouse
tawl ross

Ray Russell
Mick Ronosn
Dick Taylor
Skip James
Glen Ross Campbell
Tony Hill
Curtis Mayfield
Steve marriott
Paul Rudolph
Gary Quackenbush
Lawrence Hammond
Bruce Licher

i was really impressed with steve gunn when he played around the corner a couple of months ago! and he was solo too. and me being impressed by a guy playing solo acoustic guitar indie rock songs that i've never heard is as rare as rare can be. so, that's someone kinda new. he is doing his duo thing at the bar this summer. along with body/head. will go see the duo.

fav p funk guitar players

lol yeah this is its own list for me as well

shit i can't believe I didn't grab Michael Hampton or Curtis!

Kaki King, Ani DiFranco, and Michael Hedges (R.I.P.) are all great examples of that percussive style of playing where the guitar is as much of a drum as a guitar.

Hedges also did a lot of "mood" stuff too.

daniel ash goes in my electric/acoustic hall of fame too. along with jimmy page and syd.

i like larry coryell when he shreds electric but he bores the hell out of me on acoustic. same with his pals like philip catherine. its like trying to listen to a pierre bensusan album. zzzzz...

Younger me used to love Adrian Legg's ability to fuck around with his tuning pegs while playing, but now I just hear it as an annoying gimmick (though one that requires talent).

i always try to keep an ear out for more modern bands with guitars as cool as all the post-punk guitar bands i love (siouxsie, killing joke, wire, bauhaus, section 25, etc) and i have only found the a frames so far. but i'll keep looking! (meanwhile, the a frames broke up like 15 years ago...)

(most of the stuff that tries to ape old post-punk sounds sound pretty anemic to me...they would have a long way to go to approach the coolness of even haircut 100 guitar sounds..which were really cool sounds!)

top 5 post punk gtr

pat place
d boon
john waddington
ricky wilson
glenn branca

xposts
agreed that coryell is best electric. I'd rather listen to him than McLaughlin just about any day (unless JM is with Miles)

speaking of post punk/no wave era, david first is someone who really excites me whenever i listen to him. so amazing to me. and i really wish more people knew how great the later 21st century notekillers stuff is. its all on a very high level. this is a later thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HDKxHizdbc

aww yeah Notekillers rule! i didn't even know they had new stuff!!!!!

this is the last thing and its soooooo good. they put out stuff themselves so if you didn't know that you would probably never know that. you know?

https://www.discogs.com/Notekillers-Songs-and-Jams-vol-1/release/8910941

ILM full of canonist dullards? I mean who knew

Cool take, please enlighten us, oh shaman of the future sound

for 21st century post-punk guitar sound, the Sex Church album Growing Over from back in 2011 rates as well as the A-Frames, imo. Birthday Party'ish, but better than all the BP'ish stuff that came out on Sacred Bones at the time.

i loved this album. and especially the nu-goth guitar tone and production. (also, like, ancient though and they broke up a million years ago)

https://www.discogs.com/Clockcleaner-Babylon-Rules/master/56694

will seek out sex church.

Completely off-topic, this board has been fairly quiet today... can I assume it's because of the Beatles thread that's been sitting at #1 with 680(!) new answers?

Kill ILM.

It's forcing me to, like, actually focus on my work and stuff... >:|

mick turner
taku sugimoto
loren connors
david grubbs
nels cline

Jerry Garcia
John Fahey
Joe Walsh
Sonny Sharrock
Chuck Schuldiner

Big & Rich
Big Kenny
John Rich
Big
Rich

Ctrl+F Clapton LOL. Tough being a fallen god.

if only he'd had the decency to die in 1970 this thread could have looked very different

Jimi Hendrix
Pete Townshend
Phil Manzanera
Marc Bolan
Keith Richards

Clapton was always pretty unremarkable, though. He was only good when he was in the company of good musicians.

i want to add Syd Barrett to my list. truly one of a kind as a songwriter and as a lead/rhythm guitarist. "Interstellar Overdrive" is a voyage and i have always deeply loved the spy surf lead in "Lucifer Sam" as well.

his solo albums really highlight his unique guitar. "Long Gone" has a really nice descending waltz thing going on (with a Floydian "I stood very still by the window sill" line not far from DSOTM).

recently discovering the early PF track "Walk With Me Sydney" was a lot of fun. it's this silly rock n roll pop song about a character who is like a teenage idol but there is something wrong w him. the rhythm guitar alternate between a Merseybeat/60s pop swing and Syd's unique bizarrely twangy solos that seem to twist into existence like a stretched spring. despite being mad or otherwise mentally impaired he has incredible mastery over his instrument, bending notes with precision, slinking up and down the fretboard like a snake or possibly a strange fod.

fog

love walk with me sydney!

syd was an incredibly original guitarist whether acoustic or electric. if only there were more recordings of him taking off live.

Boring and off the top of my head:

D Boon
Robbie Basho
Sonny Sharrock
Daniel Fichelscher
Neil Young

post-punk division since someone else did it and it's interesting:

d boon
curt kirkwood
craig scanlon
andy from the ex and dog faced hermans
richard bishop

Craig Scanlon! <3

James Honeyman-Scott. One of the saddest rock casualties, died at 25 after making two (incredible) records with the Pretenders. that first LP is just fucking perfect, and his guitar work is a big part of it.

syd was an incredibly original guitarist whether acoustic or electric.

Wolfpack ftw

Still waiting on imago to come back with some guy who plays a microtonal 33 string electric lute.

Mick Taylor was damn good on his Stones run, especially on “knockin” obviously and “time waits”

and with Mayall. Blues from Laurel Canyon is all-time.

Wata
Carrie Brownstein
PJ Harvey
Cat Power*
Michael and/or John Gibbons**

* I guess more for a songwriting standpoint -- her songs aren't complex but man they sound so good.
** I don't know which one does what on Bardo records.

Not a top 5 but I'd add:

Mike Bloomfield
Terje Rypdal
Ralph Towner
Julian Bream
John Abercrombie