greatest guitarist in past 15 years

Nordic guys like Charlie Mariano? :-)

My fav Weber is the first one I ever heard, Yellow Fields.

Except that Paco is a flamenco guitarist and Fisk is classical. Paco can't hold Fisk's jock when it comes to handling the tone and texture of Bach, and Fisk would probably fall all over himself trying to bust flamenco licks. Fact is, they're both gods in their own right.

If you ask well-known guitarists who they admire, they often name Segovia (Van Halen), or Fisk or Paco and Pepe, or Robert Johnson. Rock guys will say Hendrix, Townsend, Young, Beck and Clapton. New rockers will often point to Buckthead (has played with Praxis, Claypool, and Guns 'N Roses), Charlie Hunter and Bill Frissel, a guy who many believe is the greatest living electric guitarist; check out his discography, and you'll see what I mean.

However, if you don't like what these greats play or how they play, who really cares how well-esteemed they are? Maybe we could measure influence or how many recordings a guy has made...

Once, again, it comes down to personal taste.

P.S. For you rockers out there, make a point to see players like Buckethead, de Lucia, Frissel, Scofield or the Assad Brothers live. I guarantee that you will revise your list.

Very True. It's a stupid thread anyway, you can't really compare top guys from different styles.

How do you define "Greatest" anyway? It should be "Most Popular guitarist" and the winner of that is probably Santana, who in my opinion is pure shite but that's what the lazy masses that make up pop culture like to be spoon fed.

Mariano and the Karnataka College, maybe! :-) Well, you know ECM, lots of emptiness in the music, but Yellow Fields is definitely a killer. Weber has this amazing sound on his modified stand up bass.

Bill Frisell is pretty amazing, but is not well known. Dave Fiuczynski is getting a lot of notice lately. Buckethead has some chops but really should lose the Kentucky Fried Chicken mask and let people know who he is. But geez, he agreed to play with Guns and Roses, what a let down from playing with people like Bernie Worrell and Bill Laswell. And then there is James McGaw, now also with Magma, never had heard of him but he can play the crap out of his guitar. The live 30th Anniversary DVD of Magma has some great stuff with him.

Who plays guitar with Yonder Mountain String Band?

Tom Morello---of Audioslave (formerly from Rage Against the Machine)...very talented.

Let?s realize one thing before I begin: This thread should be about(and sort of is) ?best ROCK guitarist ever.? Best guitarist ever is so broad. I bet there are plenty of classical guitar guys that no one(even the supposed experts on here) has even mentioned. Who cares about them? So we begin:

Flag Will wrote: ?John Lee Hooker - I'm partial to him since I shared the stage with him once.? OK Flagpole, I will bite. I know you are DIEING to?.so TELL US THE STORY (heeeeere we go?)

Pete wrote: ?You know, I was wondering that as typed the word "younger." ? God, this guy really HATES to be wrong. (couldn?t just say: whoops, screwed up on that one. Nope, it had to be: ?you know, I actually, sort of knew that?.? ). By the way, Knopler is not that good, sorry.

Malmo, nice article, BUT NO ONE CARES ABOUT THAT GUY ( I already forgot his name). And it is Kurt, not Curt, Cobain. Now that was a suicide that PEOPLE CARED ABOUT(as opposed to your joker). ?Nirvana was little more than Britney spears with a drug problem. On second thought - make that Donny Osmond with a drug problem...? WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Cobain put more emotion into one note that he played or sang than just about anyone else put into entire ALBUMS. He didn?t care about being technically perfect, OR?selling records. BUT?.he did, tons of them. WHY??? Because of that FUCKING EMOTION AND FEELING I JUST MENTIONED. Not to mention the he single-handedly sent all your Classic Rock heroes AND Hair Bands to the bargain bins and ushered in a NEW (finally) era of rock. Yeah, newsflash, but that is what music is about: emotion, feeling, and getting rid of old, tired sounds on the radio.

The rest of you jokers:

To those who mentioned Malmsteem, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai: Puh-leazzze. Playing lots of notes and being technically perfect is Boooooooring. Its like saying that some of the R&B singers of today(Mariah Carey, Destiny?s Child or whoever) are the best singers, because of all the vocal tricks they do and how great their range is. THEY STILL LACK EMOTION & BRILLIANT CREATIVITY.

Then to all the people who mentioned all those early Blues guys: hey, great influences, BUT NOT THE BEST ROCK GUITARISTS EVER.

Prince & Steve Winwood?.best ROCK guitarists of ALL-TIME???? I am not even gonna answer that one.

No one cares about Jazz guitarists. If it makes you feel elitist to like them, go for it.

Page & Hendrix were and are the best. SRV was outstanding, but a Hendrix imitator (2 of his best songs are Hendrix covers: Little Wing & VooDoo Chile). Quite a feat to match Hendrix on his own songs, but his CREATIVE genius did not match the Jimmy/i's ??? Clapton?? He turned into Sting. And before that? He was great, but again: Jack Bruce wrote much of the Cream stuff, Duane Allman shone one Derek and the Dominoes, and many of HIS best songs were covers too: I shot the Sheriff, Cocaine, after Midnight, etc, etc.

I pick Page. NEVER, NEVER, underestimate the power of Zeppelin. You may be tired of them, but THEY were/are rock and roll:

Page took the Blues and took it to OUTERSPACE. Jeff Beck said he was planning on releasing a harder type Blues album at the same time Page released Led Zep I. He said he basically cried when he heard it because it blew away anything else out there, including what he had planned, and was heavier than anything he had ever heard. He knew it was OVER. Zep was taking over the world. And they did.

Page had artistic genius, passion, could play many styles, and broke new grounds. He & Zep also influence every rock band out there, and every single guy you mentioned.

Everyone wants to be cool, and have an original pick(PJ Harvey BEST EVER? HA!) , or pick someone fashionable, and that?s all well and good, but?.PAGE IS YOUR WINNER. (Carlos Santana & Hendrix are 2nd & 3rd )

Duane Allman and Mark Knopfler for me.

Did someone say Joe Perry?

????

Duane Allman was unreal...Danny Gatton was a guitar players guitar player..very big locally down here in the D.C. Annapolis area...very big with artist like Bonnie Raitt..tragic losing him too early...Stevie Ray was just unreal...If you want to hear a little Danny Gatton you canalso tune into Damians show on WRNR 103.1 in Annapolis at 9pm his guitar work opens his show...Chet Atkins was a greta picker and Roy Clark ..yes that Roy Clark from Hee Haw

is great...and finally Dicky Betts has to be mentioned as well

Greatest of all time: Davey Johnstone

great thread -- Richard Thompson and Steve Morse tremendous additions. Saw both live, Morse with the Dixie Dregs. Phenomenal shit. Saw the Dregs at ... Ohio Wesleyan University, alma mater of ... Flagpole Willy...

how 'bout best keyboard player? Patrick Moraz ....

LA, based on your post I'm guessing that you don't actually play guitar yourself, or know much about music. I was playing heartbreaker, stairway, going to california, over the hills and far away, any zep song in middle school. I played cliffs of dover(eric johnson), freebird, and summer song(joe satriani) at my 8th grade talent show. After that I decided to move on to jazz. If you don't know much about music then you have NO IDEA how complicated jazz is. Everything from the harmony, melody, rythem, tempo, tone, you name it is a thousand times more difficult than any rock song you will ever hear led zeppelin play. After analyzing one Joe Pass chord solo I was completely blown away. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, just listen to any song off of Virtuoso by Joe Pass. Many consider it the epitome of jazz guitar. Again, unless you have a great knowledge of music you will never understand how impressive jazz really is. Oh and im not an elitist, just somebody who knows something about music.

ok if ure gonna bring up bass im sorry eric wilson guy is insane smoked cigars and would down beers all while playing bad ass b lines but anyways i started this thread mainly about rock in the last 15 years sorry i didnt clarify it but thats whats its about some said something earlier that i thought was cool about how someone was great but lacked the vision i think thats like what playin guitar is man its a vision and verry few people have it but yeah thanks for all the responses peace

Charlie Parker wrote:After analyzing one Joe Pass chord solo I was completely blown away.

Slash Rules.

Best EVER is John Kay from Steppenwolf because he's cool (like me) is into Harleys (like me) draws the biker crowd (like me)and got plenty of strange back in the day (just like me). We used to hang together. End of thread.

johnny greenwood of radiohead, jack white from the white stripes, eric clapton, and deff. not me.

hey, do you listen to jazz? chord solo is when you play the melody on the top of the chord(highest note in the chord) so that you play chords with the melody in them. example, if you happen to have the sheet music for All The Things You Are bust them out and listen to Joe Pass's arrangement of it. If you follow it you will know exactly what im talking about.

I thought this thread was about the past 15 years, not all-time....I like a lot of the earlier guys, but for the most part their work in the last 15 years is pretty forgettable. Eric Clapton is supremely talented but, to me, is too reluctant to really get raw and nasty with the guitar--he's too modest. Like the guy a few threads ago, I think Jimmy Page was the most awe-inspiring from the Classic Rock era. Also love Pete Towhsend and Keith Richards, not so much for solos, but great rhythm playing.

However, in the past 15 years, I'd have to go with Thurston Moore and J. Mascis. I think it's sad that Sonic Youth never had a big commercial breakthrough, but I guess they were a little too complicated for pop. Great live. Never saw J. Mascis live, but he plays some outrageously vicious guitar. Honorable mention would go to King Buzzo of the Melvins, who doesn't come across that great on record, but his live playing is just brutal. I've never heard anything so HEAVY, not from any death metal or speed metal or what have you band. Also Kurt Cobain, not as a technician of the guitar, but great melodies and great riffs, and Buckethead, for being mindbogglingly fast.

He never picked up a guitar, but if he did, he would be the best!

Zamfir, the Pan Flute Master is amazing!