best guitar player ... if we dare go here

Knopfler is just so……..yeah.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a 4,000 lick track like Money For Nothing or just sitting back chilling on So Far Away……
So Far Away is my sitting in my backyard with a case of beer and a cigar song. You could put that thing on an hour replay and I’d just be chillin….

 

Yeah, that's a great one.

"Water of Love" and "Down to the Waterline" never get old here. And both from the debut album!

 

Weird - I have no memory of this thread. Surprised I didn’t jump in back then just to shit on Clapton.

 

When someone brings up Stevie Ray Vaughan I think of what a stunning guitar player Johnny Winter was when he made his big splash in 1969.

That said, I like Ry Cooder for his versatility across the spectrum of American music.

 

Clapton is kinda like Jose Canseco when he was with the Rangers. You know the guy was once great, but you’re not sure why.

Prince and Roy Clark are my top two. Knopfler, of course. SRV was the first celebrity whose death made me cry.

Quite possibly the best technical guitarist I’ve seen live is Molly Tuttle.

Also, don’t sleep on Billy Strings and Samantha Fish.

Had he survived the plane crash, we would all today be ranking the best Steve Gaines guitar solos.

 

I’ve never really liked the “greatest” guitarist debates - they always seem to be people reciting the same list of usual suspects that we’ve been told are great for 50 years, so we just accept it.

I've made a few half-assed attempts to learn to play over the years but it never took. These are the guys who make me think “Damn, I wish I could do that”:

Johnny Marr
Mark Speer
Peter Buck
Bob Mould
Junior Marvin

The “legends” who I think legitimately live up to their billing:

Jimi Hendrix
Duane Allman
Carlos Santana

Side note: I saw Adrian Belew live back in December, and good lord that guy can play.

 

And for those who are unfamiliar with Mark Speer:

 

When I saw Richard Thompson live, I was blown away with how he made one guitar sound like two. Open tunings and amazing finger-picking.

 

Finally, somebody mentions Santana. I can sit back, smile and nod.

 

Man, I totally forgot about this thread.

Since I last posted on it I have seen Derek Trucks live four times, twice with the Allmans and twice with TTB. He's just a force of nature, best slide player I have ever seen live and among the best slide players who ever lived. Susan Tedeschi is now slouch on guitar either.

I have been fortunate to see most of my fave players (aside from Hendrix, Duane Allman and Prince) in person: BB King, Keef, Stevie Ray (five times), Johnny Winter, Clapton (underwhelming live), Robert Cray, Gary Clark, Jr., Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Jimmie Vaughan, Kirk Hammett, Warren Haynes, Vernon Reid. A couple of the more underrated ones I have seen: Mike Campbell (with Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac) and Pete Anderson, a badass multi-instrumentalists I saw with Dwight Yoakam a million years ago. I have never seen John Mayer but I really like a lot of the blues-based stuff I have heard him do.

One guy mentioned here that I just cannot get in to (and I have tried) is Joe Bonamassa. I have seen all his PBS shows, listened to his albums and seen him online buying every guitar ever made but he does little for me. Not a fan of his voice, don't find him to be an interesting songwriter and while he does pay tribute to guys like Clapton, Beck and Page I don't hear him bringing anything original to it. I know others' mileage may vary.

 

This thread is 17 years old and we've lost at least two of the members who posted initially. Damn. RIP gents.

 

As for the much lighter topic of great guitarists...

I saw Living Colour open for Extreme last summer and they've still got it and then some. I was about 10 feet from Vernon and holy fuck. Incredibly tight band and Corey Glover is still an incredible lead singer who has pipes as well as presence. But Nuno Bettencourt from Extreme was on another planet. I know they get pigeonholed b/c of More Than Words, but that guy is as close as anyone will ever come to being Eddie's heir apparent. He can do it all, shredding and more intricate stuff. The solo on Rise was mind-blowing.

And Jake E. Lee is super underrated. Suffered some b/c Sharon fucked his career hard both while he was with Ozzy and afterward (the rumor is that Atlantic didn't push his band Badlands on her orders) and b/c he's a space cadet who took off two decades and then went thru like five lead singers on the first tour following his first solo album 10 or so years ago. Disappeared again pre-pandemic. But what a player.