I thought it would make a good list and people could discuss musicians and order of the list. I would not pretend to be an afficianado or expert in music. I use to play a bit, my real exposure was in my father being a musician and really well know guitar teacher in central Washington (Before moving there, a studio musician in Seattle and before that California) where I grew up. He taught private lessons and at the community college at times and his students did real well in that they would get into GIT (Now MI), sort of like the 'Julliard' of Guitar Playing. He also managed bands as well as had them over the years.
Needless to say our house was constantly filled with musicians, whether they were locals or stop overs from tours. I actually love music and if my father hadn't been such a difficult personality whose world revolved around music and thought ours should to if we were going to play, I would probably be heavily into guitar playing. I opted for sports, a bit more popular and outside of the starving musicians circle. So, I listen to and love guitar driven music and was innodated with all sorts of music most my life. I will say that my dislike for Zappa is probably because we were forced to listen to blaring avant garde jazz all the time as a child, sorry Frank! LOL
So technically I am talking out my butt, I do know how true muscians think and feel about a lot of those on my list and of course I listen intensley and form my own opinions, but I won't begin to say technically my opinions are better than anyone else. I will say that SRV played the most effortlessly of any I have seen and if guitar playing was my life and I was told I would only be able to play one song, but I could play it just like anyone, I would choose Stevie Ray Vaughns version of Jimmy Hendrix's "Little Wing" and second might be his "Riviera Paradise".
My favorite on the list is Robert Cray, no one puts the emotions into their playing better than he, and his clean vocals cut to the heart strings. But favorite doesn't mean best, so I put him around 20.
Branko,
This list can easily grow to 100 I would imagine, I actually look forward to peoples opinions that differ from mine, perhaps I will find a new artist or really listen to their body of work that I may have glossed over, alwasy looking for great artist.
Peter Green, if you really like him I will take your word that he is that good, when it came to Fleetwood Mac I was actually blown away by some live stuff Lindsey did. Maybe it is because he was so much better and creative than I had thought he would be, I like being impressed! LOL
Roy Buchanan, Not really aware of his guitar prowess, think of him as a strong white blues artist so to speak. Kind of reminds me of white blues bands that tour around the micro breweries such as one of my favourites "
Too Slim and the Taildraggers" and maybe the reason some bands I like sound like Roy is that they are copying him and I just wasn't aware of how good he was.
Richie Blackmoore, Definitely, I just wasn't ever a huge Deep Purple fan, but he deserves his props. Funny story, a friend in college told me about the first time he saw ZZ Top perform. He was at this Deep Purple Concert and the opening band came out and they looked like some scraggily cowboys and the crowd got upset and booing until they really got into playing. He said the crowd was dumb founded and Deep Purple was a distant second to the show ZZ put on. Not my story, my friends, but since I am a ZZ fan, I thought I would tell it.
Albert King, Most definitely as well, my last too entries may not even squeeze into the last century (Johnny Lang and Kenney Wayne Sheppard), it is close, but they could be responsible for the younger generation respecting blues. Another young artist that is really giving blues a strong presense is John Mayer, try listening to his Trio, he probably should be on the list, he is very good student of the likes of Buddy Guy and Claption. Since we are on Alberts, how about the Iceman Albert Collins?
At times it was hard to separate the guitarist from the band, in that you may really like the band or the artist body of work, but do they deserve to be on the list based on their guitar playing? An example of that would be George Harrison of the Beatles, that is where I had problems.
Thanks for sharing buddy, I actually pulled yours up on Napster and played a track or two as I responded. I find myself Playing some older bands once in a while and recognizing how good they were, but never really listened to their body of work so I didn't know. Examples would be Robert Palmer, ELO, Heart (Actually I have always liked them, but their whole body of work is exceptional), Queen, like I said, Brain May is probably the most underated of all time and Freddy Mercury was one hell of a singer. So I like hearing about older artist, because I may have never really given them the time they deserve. A little secret that I don't let get around, I really like some of the Bee Gee's stuff, so really, what could I know about music! LOL