Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Top 100 Guitarists Redux, Again

What is Decemeber's Rolling Stone Cover piece, Alex.

There are over 50 voters including Trey, Ritchie, Jerry Cantrell, Steve Cropper, Rick Derringer, Don Felder, Brian May, Tom Morello, Alex Lifeson, Vernon, Carlos, and Eddie.

#'s 1-5:
Jimi, Eric, Jimmy, Keith (really?) and Jeff.

Rounding out the top 10 are B.B., Chuck, Eddie, Duane and Pete.

Isn't it amazing that I can use only first names and no one is confused? If you are, then you have missed out on quite a lot.

I know it's pretty subjective (all stuff that's fun to argue about is), but Derek Trucks made in @ #16.

In the "really?" category:
Johnny Ramone (style isn't everything), Billy Gibbons (tasty, but not significant), Jerry G. (I guess how long you can play standing up counts), Joe Walsh, John Lennon, Slash (2-trick pony), Leslie West (one less trick than Slash), Jack White (He hates "note-pushing Stratocaster white-blues bullshit." Nuf said), John Frusciante (not Red Hot), Kurt Cobain (see Johnny Ramone), Joni Mitchell (WTF), Willie Neslon, Buddy Holly, Lou Reed, Dimebag Darrell (Pantera), Peter Buck, Paul Simon, Steve Jones (maybe?), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), and, @ #100, Lindsey Buckingham.

Some of the people who should not have been allowed to vote: Dan Auerbach (Black Keys), Billy Corgan, Tom Delonge (Blink 182), Melissa Etheridge, Lenny Kravitz, Mick Taylor and Susan Tedeschi.

No Todd, no Steve Howe. The guy from Widespread Panic could strangle half of those on the list with a wifi "cord." No Dean DeLeo from STP, Nuno Bettencourt from Extreme, Martin Barre from Tull...

Where did Charo come in on the list?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfVf7N8CJEA

Dude. Randy? Where's Randy?

Also, I can't figure Jimmy, Jeff, or Duane.

Morello way down at 40 is utter BOLLOCK'S!

Right, him too.

Everyone knows that Charo is more accomplished than Tom Morello. She studied with Segovia for Krise sakes! Then again, I think Melissa Etheridge is a better player than Tom Morello. **Cam's brain pan collapses. Gray matter oozing from nose. "V is for Vendetta" mask filling up quickly.** I'm kidding, Cam.

The Canadian Randy, or the British Randy, Ken?

And you ARE jerkin' me around about Jimmy, Jeff and Duane, right?

I just can't place them off the top of my head...

The American Randy.

Oh. That Jimmy.

Where did Mark Knopfler come in?

Just after the bridge.

Yeah, that would be another big missing one out of the top 10.

There are just too many that are extremely talented. I wonder what criteria was used for the list, influential, innovation, etc?

It's the Rolling Bloody Stone rag. What did everyone expect? They lost credibility years ago. The Axiom forum could come up with a better list

Where do they have the guitar virtuosos in the list - Vai, Satriani, Malmsteen etc etc.

I doubt he made the list but Kevin Cadogan is way more deserving than some of those "90's" guitar players mentioned. IMO one of the best guitar players to come out of the early 90's pop culture.

Steve Howe isn't even on the list?!?!

No Chet Atkins or Django Reinhardt???? They may not play rock and roll, but they are terrific quitarists.

Mark Knopfler and Steve Howe are both on there.

The fact that Prince isn't on the list is criminal.

No Chet Atkins? I never knew who he was until I started listening to Randy Bachman on CBC. The guy worships Chet, and for good reason.

I'm surprised Steven Stills made the list. I love his acousic solos, but I didn't think he was that well known/popular.

I'm re-checking.

Ken, Jimmy PAGE, Jeff BECK, Duane ALLMAN.

11. George
12. Gilmour
17. Neil Young
21. Chet Atkins
33. Prince
36: Randy RHODES (the British "Randy")
44. Mark Knopfler

Steve Howe is NOT there.
No Vai, Satriani, Malmsteen, Randy Bachman.

Hmm. I just looked at the real list. I didn't feel like scrolling through the whole darn thing I looked for a simple text list. Wrong one. Poor Steve. Do you think he smashed all of his guitars and cancelled his subscription?

Randy Rhoads wasn't British. Born in good old Cali-for-nai-yay.

Haven't heard much Jeff Beck, have definitely heard Page and Allman.

No Satriani!

That'd take him a couple of days. He has over 100!

I think that the voters were looking for the same things as art historians---influence.

An artist's importance is measured by the significance of his/her contribution to following generations. How many practitioners (of note!) owe a debt (and how big) to some one who came before constitutes "a master."

There is an old adage that, in the 20th century, no artist could stand completely clear of Picasso's shadow. It's easy to understand the players who qualify for that moniker. Then there's the unsung, or undersung players a lot of voters included (like Steve Cropper). Then there are the mavericks who are so "out there," that the extent of their identifiable influence is too small to acknowledge.

There really haven't been any guitarists who adopted Steve Howe's playing/ideas, and we all know it. The kid in Dirty Projectors is the only one I can think of that begs the comparison.

It's not Rolling Stone. All lists have these ups and downs. That's why they're fun! It's open season on disagreement!

Oops, I was on the wrong list. Its cool to see Les Paul on the list. Anyone who thinks it's a good idea to make a guitar out of a fence post is OK by me.

You're missing out. He is one of the most versitile guitarists I know.

Robert Johnson at #71?

I was thinking about this in the car today, and - like Jack - identified Django as a inexcusable omission.

While I know that at least half the fun of these things is picking them apart, RS didn't title the list "100 most influential rock guitarists". They called it "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

So, they demonstrably and objectively suck.

1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Eric Clapton
3. Jimmy Page
4. Keith Richards
5. Jeff Beck
6. B.B. King
7. Chuck Berry
8. Eddie Van Halen
9. Duane Allman
10. Pete Townshend
11. George Harrison
12. Stevie Ray Vaughn
13. Albert King
14. David Gilmour
15. Freddy King
16. Derek Trucks
17. Neil Young
18. Les Paul
19. James Burton
20. Carlos Santana
21. Chet Atkins
22. Frank Zappa
23. Buddy Guy
24. Angus Young
25. Tony Iommi
26. Brian May
27. Bo Diddley
28. Johnny Ramone
29. Scotty Moore
30. Elmore James
31. Ry Cooder
32. Billy Gibbons
33. Prince
34. Curtis Mayfield
35. John Lee Hooker
36. Randy Rhodes
37. Mick Taylor
38. The Edge
39. Steve Cropper
40. Tom Morello
41. Mick Ronson
42. Mike Bloomfield
43. Hubert Sumlin
44. Mark Knopfler
45. Link Wray
46. Jerry Garcia
47. Stephen Stills
48. Johnny Greenwood
49. Muddy Waters
50. Ritchie Blackmore
51. Johnny Marr
52. Clarence White
53. Otis Rush
54. Joe Walsh
55. John Lennon
56. Albert Collins
57. Rory Gallagher
58. Peter Green
59. Robbie Robertson
60. Ron Asheton
61. Dickey Betts
62. Robert Fripp
63. Johnny Winter
64. Duane Eddy
65. Slash
66. Leslie West
67. T-Bone Walker
68. John McLaughlin
69. Richard Thompson
70. Jack White
71. Robert Johnson
72. John Frusciante
73. Kurt Cobain
74. Dick Dale
75. Joni Mitchell
76. Robbie Krieger
77. Willie Nelson
78. John Fahey
79. Mike Campbell
80. Buddy Holly
81. Lou reed
82. Nels Cline
83. Eddie Hazel
84. Joe Perry
85. Andy Summers
86. J Mascis
87. James Hetfield
88. Carl Perkins
89. Bonnie Raitt
90. Tom Verlaine
91. Dave Davies
92. Dimebag Darrell
93. Paul Simon
94. Peter Buck
95. Roger McGuinn
96. Bruce Springsteen
97. Steve Jones
98. Alex Lifeson
99. Thurson Moore
100. Lindsay Buckingham

Coming from Rolling Stone, I guess, for the most part, much of this list is pretty predictable. Right off the top, their first BIG mistake is that any list that puts Clapton 2nd and Stevie Ray Vaughan 12th, is a joke. Clapton couldn't hold SRVs pick. As an old player myself and the one's I listened to over the years from whom I actually learned something are present and older players in the Jazz genre who compared to most on this list, when it comes to outright ability and talent, are in another league altogether. I wouldn't even know who to place first.

Out of the top 100 list that rolling stone provided I would say Eddie Van Halen as a combination of having the outright ability/talent/chops to play just about anything and being influential and revolutionizing how to play guitar. But how do you not have guys like Vai and Satriani or Malmsteen. Not even one of these guys? Richards at 4 doesn't make sense to me but the rest of the top 10 O.K. But yeah SRV should be higher.

But the list is somewhat pathetic. But if you actually go on the website and see who Rolling stone had picking the list you see musicians from bands like Blink 182 and Weezer.

When I look at this list is see lots of songwriting ability as opposed to playing guitar for many of the individuals.

A couple of more names I can think of right off the top of my head that I believe should have made the list is Roy Buchanan and Brian Carroll (Buckethead).

Whenever I first read the list in my printed edition RS my first thought was "WTF?!?"

My introduction to Jeff Beck was on Roger Waters' solo album "Amused to Death". He does all the lead guitar on that album.

I know we could go on and on about this list and talk about the obvious omissions, but one player whose absence is a travesty is Steve Lukather. Although more widely known as the leader of the 80s/90's band Toto, this guy was probably the most prolific session player in the history of Pop/Rock(mostly during the 80s and 90s) probably having played on more hits then the rest of those on this list combined!

Casey, I couldn't agree more about Clapton being rated far too high on the list.

Yeah, when Clapton is rated higher than Mark Knopfler (and so many other people are rated above him), I gotta be pretty skeptical. And c'mon. Kurt Cobain was many things, but a great guitar player was not one of them.

Right on! Everyone in Toto was a killer player. They were the most in-demand players of their day (Jeff Porcaro), but they used to complain to each other that there were no royalties and how were they gonna send their kids to college. So they formed Toto. Problem solved. They can still sell out any Euro venue.

I think a lot depends on when you grew up and what type of music you like. I was never that impressed by Van Halen. To me, they were always an Arena Rock band.

Clapton may not play fast and loud, but his talent is undeniable. I think he is also a musician's musician. He has played on a lot of tracks with a lot of different bands of his day without credit, including the famous Beatles Rooftop Session. His time with Cream pegs him as a founding member of the 'second stage' of rock, the first,or founding stage,being defined by the likes of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry and Bo Diddly.

While I was reading the wrong version of the list, I came upon an introduction by the guy who started the list. When He revisited it he felt that limiting it to 100 was not fair. It should have been more like 500 and in his mind Jimi Hendrix was # 1 and everyone else, #2.

Heck, the way Neil Young plays, you gotta wonder why he made the list. He is, however, the grandfather of grunge rock and, if you have heard some of his early obscure stuff, he is also much more technically competent than his style of playing belies.

Context is another thing to consider. Look at Hendrix. When compared to guitarists that came after him, what he did does not seem all that radical, but when you look at how the electric guitar was being used when he hit the scene, he really is in a league all by himself. I would, to some extent,argue the same for Clapton when he showed up with Cream.

I was shaking my head at the listing of Cobain as well. When the title is on "greatest guitar players" I try to break it down to just that rather than the sum of it's parts. If you take Cobain's music as its sum, its much, much, much greater than anything he did with his ability, influence and technique on guitar.

I also think that is why you don't see guys like Vai and Satriani on the list because they were not great songwriters or rather the sum of their music was not as great as their single ability of playing guitar.

Which is a shame. And to no surprise one of my favorite guitar albums of the early 90's, the guitarist was taught by Satriani. That's influence!

None of us is aware of the conditions of voting. Did they each get to vote for any # of players and make their own numbered list? Were they limited to 5, or 10? How did they do the tally? Some of the voters actually wrote a blurb on their fave. How'd that work?

It's just a list, compiled by individuals (experienced ones---good, bad, or ugly).
The results are always as wonky as the people playing the game. It IS a game.

We could each make our own list (that'd be fun). If it were tallied simply by how many times an individual was named, making him #1, we'd get one result. If it were tallied by how many times he was NAMED #1, we'd get something completely different.

Does anyone know a PhD statistician (some odd peeps)? There exists dissertaion after dissertation on polling/voting/lists, etc. Some of it, if you are a muddler, can be very eye opening.

I could/would never arrange my favorite artists, musicians, writers, etc. in ANY order. It's a preposterous idea for "truth," but it's super interesting. See how important it was here to, say, fans of Tom Morello?

Everyone of us has his/her own list. This was simply smooshing 50 people's lists together.

Rather than all the pages and all the blurbs and pix, I think it would have been more interesitng to publish each of the voters top 10. That way you wouldn't hate the poll, but rather the participants, individually. It's always more productive to engage focused anger.

And I woudn't take Dave Edmunds off my list for nuthin!

BJ1: Thanks for taking the time to post the entire list!

There are a few girls on the list but what about poor Miss Wilson?

If Jay were not foreign born and she read that sentence (girls!?!), she would hit you with, like, an $800 handbag. And she wouldn't have to reach far to grab one!

I don't discriminate talent based on gender. The wicked purveyors of this list do.

Yeah, I agree with Bob about actually making priority lists.

Baloney! No one is truly bi-sexual!

Come to think of it, I bet the guy in the Lawrence Welk Orchestra belongs on this list too.

Let's not forget all the classical guitarists that think they are better than everybody else.

Well, Chris, I can see you've brought around at least one person to thinking differently of Charo.

Ha! Just figured out who I've been thinking of since this got mentioned. I've had the beginning of a song going around and around in my head. Turns out it's Rodrigo Y Gabriela, who qualify as great guitarists by any measure.

Ha ha . I just thought of someone who is probably sulking mightily over his omission from the list:

John Mayer

How can Rolling Stone magazine also exclude one of their darlings such as Billie Joe Armstrong?

You have two entities sulking in this case.