@@annhopkins9172Eric Clapton said himself that Hendrix was one of the greatest guitarists he ever saw and that his jaw “hit the floor” when he saw him play. Clapton also tried to look like Hendrix at one point. That being said Clapton was amazing but even he recognized Hendrix’s greatness. Hendrix played a right hand guitar upside down and could make an untuned guitar sound good.
Okay, I'm not going to argue against any of your choices, because I agree with them; I will argue the order of them. Hendrix, Beck, Page, Van Halen, & Berry would be more correct, in my opinion.
Opinions vary greatly on this subject. There are so many innovative game changing guitarist. Randy Rhoads, Yngwie, Frank Marino,Prince and Phil Keggy changed guitar in complex ways like Beck and Page did. Pete Townsend was the first guy to use feed back as part of songs, Hendrix nicked that from him. This covers Rock as well, so incredible artists like Andrés Segovia, Chet Adkins, Les Paul, SRV, Ricky Scaggs aren’t in contention for the list. So it should be best rock guitarist.
While I agree these five are great, I hate comparisons like this because they leave out too many others. There wouldn't be a Van Halen if there hadn't been a Clapton. There wouldnt be a Beck if there hadn't been Les Paul. There wouldn't be Page if there hadn't been skiffle music. There wouldnt have been Hendrix with Berry. ❤
1. Gary Moore 2. Eddie van Halen 3. Prince 4. Jimi Hendrix 5. Joe Satriani 6. Kenny Wayne Shepherd 7. David Gilmour 8. B.B. King 9. Stevie Ray Vaughan 10. Slash 11. Kirk Hammett 12. Jimmy Page 13. Brian May 14. Steve Vai 15. Richie Blackmore
@viroxzyn1267 That's not what I remember..... I do know I ran right out and bought the self-titled Dire Straits album and Communique album the day after I read the interview.
@maryjomayfield537 Actually, in 1980, Prince did release the album Prince. Total sales 3,000,000. I just looked that up and was surprised. Makes me feel old. Also, Clapton may have said Prince in a later interview. So ya, there's that, too. Okay? viroxzyn.....
These "best of lists" are so dumb. There is no way Chuck Berry is number 2 on any guitar list. I love Jimmy Page and he is my favorite guitar player of all time but I have a hard time believing he or anyone on this list is better than many of the current guitar players. I mean John Petrucci and the two girls from Lovebites would embarrass the people on this list. And thats just the tip of the iceberg. And some else said, how is SRV not on this and Chuck Berry is?
If you are going to put Berry on the list then he has to be number 1 because he was the first rock guitar legend , but If he's not on the list then Beck is number 1 because he is a better guitar player than everyone else and he did it for 55 years and it means something that he can play everyone else's stuff but they can't play his.
The foundations on which the classification is based are wrong. Every musician has a distinctive feature. But playing evolved and its techniques evolved as a result of accumulation. There are better musicians today than these.