Favourite Guitar Players: NOT a "who's the best" thread.

Robert Fripp - My personal favorite musician of all time

David Tronzo - Really, really interesting slide guitar player

Toby Driver - Currently the most interesting musician leading two of the greatest music acts in the world (Kayo Dot, Tartar Lamb)

Jerry Douglas - #1 Dobro player in the world

Pierre Bensusan - Jazzy celtic folk in all its glory

Don Ross - Only two-time winner of the US National Fingerstyle Championship

Peter Finger - Master acoustic guitarist from Germany

Ralph Towner - 12-string acoustic jazz guitarist extraordinaire

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is one of my favorites. The fills and solos on My Old School ignite something in my head, and that's just one of many, many awesome tunes.

Richard Thompson, particularly for his solo on the live version* of "Can't Win" from the Watching the Dark set. It just seems like such a pure example of someone having extemporaenous fun with an axe.

There are many more, but these'll do for now.

McGuinn

Marr

Quine

Gavurin

The Edge!

Keiji Haino
Ron Ashton
Chet Atkins
Mississippi Fred McDowell
Blind Mamie Forehand (or is that A.C.?)
Blixa Bargeld
Rowland Howard
Wata
Verlaine and Lloyd
Munehiro Nirito
Gregg Ginn
Sioux City Pete

A million others, of course.

Blind Willie Johnson!

^^^^ This. Also Nels Cline, Leo Kottke and Lindsey Buckingham.

pretty crazy that eddie van halen hasn't received one mention on this thread. he's pretty awesome, dudes!

Yes, but
Steve Carlton

right now:

Matt Pike, because he gets a BIG fucking sound out of that thing.

D. BOON. He plays with such energy and inventiveness and uses that insanely treble-y, wiry tone. It's impossible for me not to love him.

Jandek, love him or hate him (I actually lean more towards the latter, really) is always unmistakable.

Jack Rose, because he does Fahey better than Fahey could sometimes.

Takashi Yamaguchi of Sambomaster, for reasons similar to the ones that I love D. Boon for, but mainly I am just itching for an excuse to rep how awesome Sambomaster are on this board.

Ricky Wilson, still.

Judah Bauer doing "Make It Rain" w/ Tom Waits on Letterman is pretty awesome

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rF3YQ5WajJk

That Tom Waits video is BADASS.

Sambomaster tearing shit up in '04:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lJAjrSmLkb4

This band needs to come to the US already.

All those rhythm players in reggae.

Nile Rodgers isn't getting enough love, certainly the most fun if not the best.

Karl Precoda had a great sound. And David Kilgour!

No James Burton yet? J. Honeyman-Scott?

Second Derek Trucks from way upthread--that young man is a whale of a player with really wide-ranging interests. Songlines is a tremendous record. Someone asked him why with his southern rock bloodlines he played Roland Kirk and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs and he said "Well, it's all the blues."

Redd Volkaert is amazing.

You made him up

http://www.reddvolkaert.net/

No, not so much.

elisa ambrogio and robert fripp.

Great name! (xp)

Indeed. Plus he looks like some redneck greasemonkey who just wandered onstage at the honkytonk, only he's one of the baddest pickers I've ever heard.

http://www.reddvolkaert.net/photos/midsize/bill_kirchen.jpg

L-R, Redd, Bill Kirchen.

Nile Rodgers - my favourite by a long way.

Dr. No from the bad brains

Guys I like listening to who never pop up on those stupid lists: Mick Ralphs, Mark Farner, Uli Roth, Jerry Garcia, Deniz Tek, Catfish Collins, Robertson/Gorham, Tommy Bolin, Buck Dharma

(x-post) Bill Kirchen is no slouch, either.

My personal fave is Carl Finch, from Brave Combo. He's got an awesome way of hitting those polka/ska backbeats. He doesn't play solos, as such; he's really all about rhythm guitar, in the same sense that Ricky Wilson from the B-52's was.

Guys I like listening to who never pop up on those stupid lists: Mick Ralphs, Mark Farner, Uli Roth, Jerry Garcia, Deniz Tek, Catfish Collins, Robertson/Gorham, Tommy Bolin, Buck Dharma

Wow, I forgot to mention Mick Ralphs!

Kind of astonished that Hendrix only has three mentions (not counting Geir's "he's not that good lol racist" mention) in this thread. Ditto Steve Cropper. I'm not massively into Hendrix, and Em used to hate the idea of him (+ Page and Gilmour and Clapton and all the typical boy-idol rock royalty guitarists), but when I actually played his stuff to her properly she had to admit that he's actually awesome and his music is cool. Hendrix is about the only "look at me, ma!" guitarist I've ever bothered to listen to.

I'm not really into guitarists, I guess. I don't play and can't remember the names of guitarists in most of the bands I like. I guess I adored John Squire and Nick McCabe when I was a teenager. Only impressed by McCabe now, really. Kevin Shields I like as a sound-maker but I've never really thought of him as a guitarist. Mark Hollis did some guitar parts I love. Totally untrendy and not a virtuoso by any means, but what Richard McNamara does has always been a big part of what I like about Embrace. He's kind of like a cross between Steve Cropper and Kevin Shields. That sounds so fanciful.

Dude from Lift To Experience. Dude from Kitchens of Distinction. Dude from Long Fin Killie. George Harrison in The Beatles - everything he played was a hook. That Clapton solo in While My Guitar Gently Wanks is fucking awful though. Josh Homme. Geoff Barrow. PJ FUCKING HARVEY. The Os Mutantes dude. Did Ian Crauss play guitar in Disco Inferno? Califone dudes. Michael Karoli. Graham Coxon before he went off and did crappy solo albums.

Not mentioned but all much more than mere self-accompanists :-

Elliott Smith. Kristin Hersh. Dylan. Joni.

That's the truth about Joni Mitchell.

Dylan f'real.

Been mentioned a few times already but Phil Manzanera - he just plays such memorable lines

Not too familiar with his work with Mellencamp but I saw David Grissom as part of Joe Ely's band and man, was he brill.

Tony Rice
Bryan Sutton
David Grier
Duane Allman
Jimi Hendrix
Mississippi John Hurt
Keef
Mabon “Teeny” Hodges
Curtis Mayfield
Eric Clapton (Bluesbreakers/Cream/Layla era)

Some folks whom I've recently been digging (even) more than usual:

Tony (T.S.) Mcphee
Bill Nelson
Leo Kottke
Joseph Spence
Steve Tibbetts
Ernie Isley
and Davie motherfucking Allen!

Billy Dolan

Two not mentioned that are absolutely great: Pete Cosey (with Miles, mostly) and Franco.

I forgot to mention two other of my favorites: Jim McCarty (Detroit Wheels, Cactus) and Leslie West.

Cosey's great. Electric Mud mutherfucker

I don't really know shit about guitar on any technical level, but I like finger picking types lately, like Seu Jorge and James Blackshaw. I also like standard rock types like Eddie Van Halen, Billy Gibbons, Leslie West, Frank Zappa, and Kirk Hammet. Oh and <3 Robert Fripp too.

People who I'm sure are quite good but don't understand why or how: Marr, Coxon.

try playing a few of Marr's songs, his fingers are seriously ALL OVER the place, i don't know how he gets the fingerings on some of those chords. plus he uses his pinky finger very, very well.

John Lennon was a bad-ass rhythm player. The way he locked in with Paul and Ringo made songs like "I Feel Fine" really "howl and move."

I've always loved the funky twang of Clarence White. Any excuse to post old Byrds clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m37-2eB-wj8

Really? Last time I spoke to Mr Rowe, he seemed to be under the exact opposite impression, i.e. he influenced Townshend, viz. came to AMM gigs, then ripped them off adopted some of their strategies for the Who.

So...Pete Townshend ripped off AMM before they existed? He was working with drones and feedback in 1963-1964; AMM didn't start until 1965.

Always, mighty Brit bloozman Robin Trower. George Harrison. Ted Nugent. Buck Dharma. Billy Gibbons. Johnny Winter. Michael Schenker, UFO catalog. Mike Campbell.

And Kim Simmonds, at least once a week for the last fifteen years.

Piggy from Voivod.

Although I finally saw Candlemass last night after all these years and would definitely rate their Swedish lefty lead player Lars Johanssonn very high on my list.

I can't fault a lot of the standard greats just to answer back on a few faves (before my ride comes):

Peter Green - unless you'll never forgive him for birthing Carlos Santana

Pete Cosey - there's some ridiculous stuff on those Miles boot videos

Hubert Sumlin - completely unmistakable

John Fahey - an encyclopedia of vintage moves who played with exquisite soul

Tommy Bolin - a mutant

Karl Precoda - ha! I loved him at the time (1982?). he had matching Silvertones w/one pickup removed running through some shitty graphic EQ w/all the sliders all the way up as a distortion box.

Judah Bauer - was remarkably talented w/JS and that Honeymoon Killers tour.
glad to know he's still at it.

A few others:

Paul from Toiling Midgets, Gary Lee Conner from Screaming Trees, McLaughlin (more so on the Miles than Mahavishnu tho' I was a BIG Mahavishnu fan and saw them a few times and though he was the BEST at the time), Adrian Bellew (another mutant). OK gotta run

Geir's "he's not that good lol racist" mention

didn't come across that way to me...

Mine are incredibly predicatable and all old and from spent (like me, I guess) labels like SST. I need some new guitar heroes

Greg Sage
Bob Mould (of old)
Greg Ginn (so brutally messy)
Robin Guthrie
Westerberg
That guy from MBV
Dr Know - but he was jazz trained right?
Ted Falconi - absolutely unique
Nick Drake
Townsend
Curt Kirkwood
D Boon
Jay Adams (from El Paso's Rhythm Pigs - loved his distortion/chorus approach. It was kind of unique to 'Hardcore' in those days)
Brian Egeness from Die Kreuzen
Ira Kaplan, when he lets rip

I'm sure I've missed some of my favourite more modern pop pickers. Although more likely, I'm old and have been treading water for the last 15 years

Not the 'best' but my recent favourite has really been Mark Kozelek.

lindsey buckingham and david sylvian (check some of the solos on tin drum)