100 Greatest Rock n' Roll Guitarists

Rolling Stone recently published a list of the top 100 guitarists of all-time (all-time meaning for the most part, with just a few exceptions, approximately between about 1964 and 1985). It's the 2nd time the Stone has published such a list, and both represented the same oeuvre: Music that sounds like classic rock from 1968 to 1974 or thereabout. And make no mistake, a body has a right to define "all-time" however they want, as long as it's not stupid and ridiculous. Okay, this is pretty stupid and ridiculous, and so a lot of people have taken issue with it.

Mostly that means the head-bangers who after all have their Web sites. So a flurry of alt lists of the top 100 guitarists were published in the wake of the Stone's list (mostly the 1st time, back in 2003 but some just recently), featuring some of the most obscure guitarists you could ever want on such a list--I mean, like 3 guys from Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, stuff like that. Judas Priest is right!

Still, the fact is that Rolling Stone ignored not just 1 or 2 but 4 or 5 generations worth of guitarists, right up to the present day (no John Mayer). So I surveyed 6 or 8 alt lists, trying not to over or under-represent the head bangers. I probably over-represented them when all was said and done.

So here's my list. It's not just the consensus, it's my list. But it's informed, shall we say, by the other lists out there. If a guy scored highly in the consensus, then the chances are good that I've brought him in. It's sort of a cross-section of the consensus, the Rolling Stone and my list.

Here goes.

1. Jimi Hendrix--Rolling Stone and the consensus and I all agree on this one.

2. Eric Clapton--only #5 in the consensus but that's ridiculous. I haven't yet looked at those lists of the top 100 guitar solos, but if "Layla" isn't on there, it's a crime.

3. Duane Allman--even Rolling Stone only had him #9, what's with that. #17 in the consensus. Seriously, do you guys remember what he sounded like?

4. Jimmy Page--#2 and #3 depending on your preference, and that is exactly right.

5. Jeff Beck--actually scored higher in the consensus (#3) than the Stone (#5).

6. Pat Metheny--wild card #1, which means he did not appear on any of the lists that I saw. I'm not a fan of his current trad jazz stuff. But his fusion stuff from the 1980s is just an incredible body of work. American Garage is perhaps the greatest instrumental guitar record of all-time.

7. Keith Richards--the world's greatest rhythm guitarist. What a riff-meister.

8. David Gilmour--#14 and #16, pretty much invented arena-rock guitar.

9. Frank Zappa--#22 and #27. One of the few who eschewed the Claptonesque blues and developed a different sound. I just happen to be listening to "Hot Plate Heaven" from Broadway the Hard Way right at this instant. It's about his 40th best solo and I have goose-bumps.

10. Mark Knopfler--just #44 in RS, #20 in consensus. So versatile. Yes, his electric guitar work is what gets him here, but there's a large body of acoustic work, too, much of it on some terrific movie soundtracks.

Okay, so far I'm pretty much aligned with Rolling Stone, not in terms of all of the individual choices but in terms of the oeuvre. All of my guys peaked from the mid-'60s to the mid- to late '80s (Knopfler).

11. Chuck Berry--pretty much invented the genre. More of the early guys were piano players than guitarists. Berry pretty much single-handedly made rock into guitar music.

12. Bill Frisell--wild card #2, not on any of the lists, a terrible oversight. Four words: Good Dog, Happy Man.

13. Stevie Ray Vaughan--only #12 and #21, surprising. Wrong.

14. Django Reinhart--wild card #3. Great jazz guitarist of the '30s, He made a couple of lists, obviously the others weren't familiar with him. The process had him at #54, which is a totally ridiculous outcome, so he goes here.

15. George Harrison--#17 and #13 in the Stone and the consensus.

16. Ry Cooder--#31 and #38, way too low. Another original with his own sound.

17. The Edge--only #38 and #26. An original with an unusually strong bent toward supporting the vocal.

18. Peter Green--#58 and #43. Founded the original Fleetwood Mac and made them rock's best blues band long before they became poppy hit-makers. Great great stuff.

19. John Fahey--wild card #4. I'm guessing some of the lists didn't consider acoustic guitarists. so the process had him down in the 60s.

20. Steve Vai--not in the Rolling Stone's top 100, which means they've got no business publishing a list at all. Such ignorance must be called out.  #26 in the consensus.

21. Carlos Santana--#20 and #11.

22. Les Paul--#18 and #42.

23. Chet Atkins--#21 and #52. Mr. Country-style Guitar.

24. James Burton--#19 and #46. Played with many of the early hit-makers like Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson. Great lines.

25. Scotty Moore--#29 and #39. Ditto--e.g. Elvis Presley.

Okay, this is now much more catholic than Rolling Stone or even the general consensus. I'm back to the early days (Les Paul, Chuck Berry, James Burton, Scotty Moore) and beyond (Django Reinhart) and I'm up to the 21st century (Bill Frisell, The Edge).

26. Robert Fripp--#62 and #25. 25 years of King Crimson. The early stuff was the heaviest stuff anybody had ever heard. If you're not familiar with it, check out "21st Century Schizoid Man."

27. Steve Cropper--#39 and #28. Played a 1,000 great solos on '60 soul music.

28. Peter Townshend--#10 and #14. Never a great technician, but had an original style and a flair that was unique. The Who, in case you're not sure.

29. Brian May--#26 and #6 in the consensus. Queen. Obviously an original, still, I'm shocked to discover the following that he has. #6 consensus!

30. Ritchie Blackmore--Deep Purple. Another whom I had forgotten but he is still #10 on the consensus list.

31. Prince--only #72 in the consensus, which is much underrated.

32. Jerry Garcia--Grateful Dead

33. Eddie Van Halen--#8 and #4. Not my cup of tea.

34. Alex Lifeson--Rush

And, see, I'm getting some of the headbangers in there as well. Well done!

35. Leo Kottke--wild card #4, not on any of the lists though 1 indicated he was "bubbling under"

36. Mike Bloomfield--Butterfield Blues Band
37. Dicky Betts

38. Cesar Rosas/David Hidalgo--Los Lobos, wild card #5.Sample: "Mas y Mas" on the Clapton Crossroads Guitar Fest video. Wow.

39. Tony Rice--wild card #6, best of the bluegrass players
40. Steve Howe--Yes

41. John Mayer--wild card #7, not on any of the lists, I cannot imagine why, unless it's the chick thing.

42. Rory Gallagher

43. Robert Johnson

44. Joe Satriani
45. Buddy Guy

46. Billy Gibbons--ZZ Top

47. Gary Moore--Thin Lizzy

48. Danny Gatton

49. John McLaughlin

50. John Frusciante--Red Hot Chili Peppers

51. Robby Krieger--The Doors

52. Jonny Greenwood

53. Charlie Christian--wild card #8, actually gets a vote or 2 but most of the listers probably have never heard of him nor considered his genre. Charlie was the pioneer of jazz guitar as a lead/melody instrument with Count Basie in the early 1940s.

54. Eric Johnson

55. B.B. King--#6 and #22 but that is just too high. The most over-rated guitarist of them all. He's been phoning it in for decades now.

56. Bo Diddley

57. Yngwe Malmsteen

58. Richard Thompson

59. Phil Keaggy--Hendrix said he was the best.

60. Kurt Cobain

61. Dick Dale

62. Link Wray

63. Derek Trucks

64. Roy Buchanan
65. Joe Walsh--wild card #9

66. Johnny Winter

67. Wes Montgomery--another guy who probably doesn't get a fair shake as some of the heavy metal-oriented lists aren't considering his genre at all. Still he comes in here. 

68. Joe Perry--Aerosmith

69. Eddie Hazel

70. Angus Young

71. Vince Gill--wild card #7

72. Mick Ronson

73. Mick Taylor

74. Clarence White

75. Bonnie Raitt

76. Robbie Robertson

77. Steven Stills

78. John Petrucci

79. Tom Morello--Rage Against the Machine

80. Zoot Horn Rollo--played with Captain Beefheart

81. Leslie West

82. T-Bone Walker
83. Freddie King

84. Albert King

85. Nels Cline

86. Lonnie Mack

87. Jorma Kaukenen

88. Trey Anastasio

89. Bert Jansch

90. Albert Lee--wild card #9

91. Steve Morse--Deep Purple

92. Joey Ramone

93. Dimebag Darrell

94. Adrian Belew--wild card #10
95. Adrian Legg--wild card #11
96. Clint Gallup--an early ('50s) guy

97. Alvin Lee

98. Vernon Reid

99. Jan Akkerman

100. Martin Barre

Hey, good list!

Best Music of 1968

I recently saw an exhibit at the Minnesota Historical Society called, simply, "1968." I give the exhibit a B. I mean, it's OK. I guess the problem is, how do you get the capture not just "what happened" but "HOW DID IT FEEL" to live through the events of that year?

Well, here's how. You play the music. First, it was a great year. But second, music is like canned or bottled emotions, more so than any art form. Especially with rock 'n roll, where half the time you can't fully understand the lyrics. The intellectual content is stripped away and there it is. Raw emotion.

So, 1968. Here's how it felt to be alive in 1968.

Best LPs

1. Electric Ladyland--Jimi Hendrix. An easy choice. From the shorter form "All Along the Watchtower" to the long meander of "1983 (A Merman I Should Be)/Moon Turn the Tides...Gently Gently Away," this record was unlike anything ever heard before. The sound of that guitar, I mean, how did he do that? OK, "Burning of the Midnight Lamp," hey, that sounded like a guitar. "Crosstown Traffic," yeah, that was rock 'n roll. But "1983"? "Moon Turn the Tides"? Mind-bending. To me, the Hendrix legend boils down side 3 of Electric Ladyland. Everything else is just an appetizer, a warm-up. This is it.

2. The Beatles. You know, the White Album. We had no idea at the time that Let It Be had already been recorded and this was a last-ditch effort, unsuccessful as it turned out, for the Beatles to function like a real band rather than as 3 soloists and some sidemen. All we knew was here were 30 great songs, or a great collection of 30 songs, or in reality about 15 great songs, about 7 1/2 pretty good songs and about 7 1/2 throwaways. But who the hell put 15 great songs on a record album, then or ever?

Me? I'm more of a Paul guy than a John guy, so the highlights start with songs like "I Will" and "Martha My Dear" and "Blackbird" and "Mother Nature's Son." But then there's George's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and John's "I'm So Tired" and, of course, "Revolution." So it didn't hang together, that wasn't what it was about. It was about 30 songs, 15 of them truly great songs, and that was enough.

3. We're Only In It for the Money--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. You had to be there. I mean, to really understand the power of Frank's lyrics--"All your children are poor unfortunate victims of systems beyond their control/a plague upon your ignorance to the great despair of your ugly life/all your children are poor unfortunate victims of lies you believe/a plague upon your ignorance that keeps the young from the truth they deserve"--you just had to be there. Or, "Take a look around before you say you don't care/shut your fucking mouth about the length of my hair/how could you survive if you were alive/shitty little person/let me take a minute and tell you my plan/let me take a minute and tell who I am/how could you survive if you were alive/shitty little person." And the thing is, he meant it. He really meant it. Dick and Ron, he continued to mean it.

4. Bookends--Simon and Garfunkel. The sound was soothing, but the lyrics...not so much. "Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping/I'm empty and aching and I don't know why..../I've gone to look for America." Then, of course, there was goofy stuff like "At the Zoo" and "Punky's Dilemma." Thank goodness. It didn't do to spend too much time pondering "America."

5. Beggar's Banquet--The Rolling Stones. I wasn't a big Stones guy but, seriously, "Sympathy for the Devil." "Street Fightin' Man." The Stones don't get any better than this, not even on Let It Bleed though, OK, that's splittin' hairs.

6. Music from Big Pink--The Band. The who? Well, you know, they played with Dylan. No, not on any of his records, but they played with Dylan. In a big pink house and a few live gigs. That makes them THE BAND. Well, they paid it off. "Tears of Rage," especially, is a classic. But to some extent, the reputation of this record in later years rests more on their second record, The Band. That one rubs off on this and makes it better. But some of what seemed so cool at the time, "The Weight" and "Chest Fever, " for example, didn't age so well.

7. The Songs of Leonard Cohen. His very first record, and some of what are seen as his signature songs, "Suzanne" and "So Long, Marianne" don't appeal to me a whole lot. But "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong," now, that's the kind of twisted, raunchy Leonard that I can get into. And "The Stranger Song," not from the twisted, raunchy category, but one of his enigmatic meanders that also appeals to me. And "Sisters of Mercy" works, too.

8. Shine On Brightly--Procol Harum. I guess they recorded "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and were totally caught unawares when it became a hit. So they quickly threw an LP together to capitalize. But, hey, their first LP has "Repent Walpurgis" on it, so all is forgiven. But this was their first real effort to product a coherent long-player. Well, guess what. It still comes down to tunes, and "Magdalena (My Regal Zonophone)" is a classic of existential angst and "In Held Twas in I" (what?), which filled all of side 2 with 4 musical parts, engaged the philosophical imagination. The closing to the 1st part, the lyrics spoken by Matthew Fisher, especially. "They say that Jesus healed the sick and helped the poor/And those unsure believed his eyes/A strange disguise/Still, write it down, it might be read/Nothing's better left unsaid/Only sometimes/Still, no doubt, it's hard to see/It all works out." Otherwise, it seems to be too much a collection of novelties, but the substance that there is buoys everything up.

9. Wheels of Fire--Cream. Ah, some mainstream bombast. At last. If rock is overstatement (and it is), then this really rocks. Though, let's be honest. It's really "White Room" and couple of worthy live cuts, the signature "Crossroads" and "Spoonful." Everything else is filler, but it's exactly the kind of filler that really FILLS, if you see what I mean. It reeks of significance and profundity, and it's only later that you realize it's just heavyweight lightweight-i-ness if, again, you see what I mean. It's just that, as insubstantial as most of it is, they pull it off with such a swagger. You gotta admire that.

10. Mixed Bag--Richie Havens. Note that this is pre-Woodstock, before Richie Havens became a parody of himself. "High Flyin' Bird" is just great classic folk music that Richie, with his weird guitar tuning and raspy vocal, has made so totally his own as to make it brand new. And everything else is so tasty as to be irresistible.

11. Did She Mention My Name--Gordon Lightfoot. More folk music, but while Havens was covering other people's songs in an intensely personal way, Lightfoot wrote his own material and then tried to sing it like he imagined that anybody would. What set it apart was that bee-you-ti-ful voice (I am not kidding) and, occasionally, the songs, like the title track. I mean, who hasn't wondered that, "Did she mention my name?" And, in a similar vein, "Last Time I Saw Her," and then in the social commentary bag, "Black Day in July."

12. Waiting for the Sun--The Doors. The decline had set in though "Hello I Love You" was a big hit. It didn't particularly appeal to me. "The Unknown Soldier" was more my speed. I had forgotten that "Waiting for the Sun" is not on Waiting for the Sun.

13. Any Day Now--Joan Baez. As has been said many times, this record came too late to be SIGNIFICANT. But it had some beautiful versions, especially "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," but also "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word."

14. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Surprisingly, this stands the test of time though, like many LPs of the day, it's a bunch of stuff wrapped around one popular hit, "Fire." But my point is, there's other really good stuff here.

15. Children of the Future--Steve Miller Band. Oh, if this band--with Boz Scaggs and Jim Peterman on keyboards--could have hung together. But you could plainly hear that Scaggs was leaning in a different direction on the blue-eyed soul of "Baby's Calling Me Home" versus Stevie with the psychedelia of "Children of the Future" and "In My First Mind." All great stuff, but make no mistake, it was the psychedelia that drew people to Stevie in those days.

16. Disraeli Gears--Cream. Actually released in late 1967, but people were listening to it in '68. "Sunshine of Your Love" anchored the disk, and a good thing, too. A lot of the rest of it was novelty.

17. Sweetheart of the Rodeo--The Byrds. Larger in legend than on the turntable, there are nevertheless some nice songs here, especially Gram Parsons' "One Hundred Years from Now" and "Hickory Wind." The Dylan covers were more prominent then but haven't aged real well.

18. In Search of the Lost Chord--The Moody Blues. Understood today to be lightweight, but in 1968 they were seen as just the opposite. Those mellotrons made the music of the cosmos.

19. Sailor--Steve Miller Band. Pretty much of a piece with their 1st record (above), this one featured "Quicksilver Girl" and "Gangster of Love." Solid stuff.

20. Odessa--The BeeGees. If the Stones could do Their Satanic Majesties Request, well, why can't the BeeGees go "psychedelic," too. Basically it's just great BeeGee-type songs, but these guys, or at least Barry, was good enough to wrap all the bric-a-brac of the day around it and call it a thingamabob. So we did, call it a thingamabob, and buy it. Whether we actually listened to it is another question. Actually, yes, enough to hear that "You'll Never See My Face Again" was a fine song.

21. Feliciano!--Jose Feliciano


22. Who Knows Where the Time Goes--Judy Collins

23. Lady Soul--Aretha Franklin. Some people might have her a little higher.

24. More--Pink Floyd

25. Blood Sweat and Tears

Best Songs


There's commentary on most of these songs above.

1. "All Along the Watchtower"--Jimi Hendrix

2. "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"--Joan Baez. One of the great Dylan covers ever. And, since I really enjoyed it, then the fact that it went on for 14 minutes was a good thing.

3. "1983 (A Merman I Shall Be)"--Jimi Hendrix
4. "Someday Soon"--Judy Collins
5. "Did She Mention My Name?"--Gordon Lightfoot
6. "Tears of Rage"--The Band
7. "I Will"--The Beatles
8. "Theme from 'Valley of the Dolls'"--Dionne Warwick. I kid you not.
9. High Flyin' Bird--Richie Havens
10. "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

11. "Street Fightin' Man," The Rolling Stones
12. "Burning of the Midnight Lamp"--Jimi Hendrix. "Loneliness is such a...drag."
13. "You'll Never See My Face Again"--The BeeGees
14. "America"--Simon and Garfunkel
15. "Classic Gas"--Mason Williams
16. "Hey Jude"--The Beatles
17. "Magdalena (My Regal Zonophone)"--Procol Harum
18. "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong"--Leonard Cohen
19. "Let's Make the Water Turn Black"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
20. "Tuesday Afternoon"--The Moody Blues

21. "Moon Turn the Tides...Gently Gently Away"--Jimi Hendrix
22. "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word"--Joan Baez
23. "The Stranger Song"--Leonard Cohen
24. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"--Marvin Gaye
25. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"--The Beatles
26. "Cry Like A Baby"--The Box Tops
27. "Martha My Dear"--The Beatles
28. "White Room"--Cream
29. "Revolution" (fast or slow, your choice)--The Beatles
30. "Mother People"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

31 "This Wheel's on Fire"--The Band
32. "I Shall Be Released"--The Band
33. "Sympathy for the Devil"--The Rolling Stones
34. "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
35. "The Sisters of Mercy"--Leonard Cohen
36. "Abraham Martin and John"--Dion
37. "The Boxer"--Simon and Garfunkel
38. "Fire"--The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
39. "Sunshine of Your Love"--Cream

40. "Wichita Lineman"--Glen Campbell

41. "Shine on Brightly"--Procol Harum

42. "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay"--Otis Redding
43. "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye"--Leonard Cohen
44. "In My First Mind"--Steve Miller Band
45. "Black Day in July"--Gordon Lightfoot
46. "Light My Fire"--Jose Feliciano
47. "Born to Be Wild"--Steppenwolf

48. "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing"--Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

49. "For Once in My Life"--Stevie Wonder

50. "Magnificent Outpouring"--Gordon Lightfoot

Artist of the Year

1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Frank Zappa
3. John Lennon/Paul McCartney
4. The Band
5. Mick Jagger/Keith Richards
6. Leonard Cohen
7. Gordon Lightfoot
8. Eric Clapton
9. Paul Simon
10. Richie Havens

11. Judy Collins
12. Aretha Franklin
13. George Harrison
14. The Doors
15. Joan Baez
16. Bob Dylan
17. The Moody Blues
18. Steve Miller
19. Marvin Gaye
20. Procol Harum

21. Otis Redding
22. The BeeGees
23. Arthur Brown/Vincent Crane
24. Dionne Warwick
25. Jose Feliciano