Your Personal Top 10 of Guitarist Who Inspires You The Most!

As said make a list of the 10 guitarists who personally inspires you the most, not necessarily in any particular order.

Mine are, in no particular order:

- Syd Barrett
- Nick Drake
- Alan Sparhawk
- Bill Frisell
- Fred Frith
- Thurston Moore
- Lee Ranaldo
- Sonny Sharrock
- Frank Zappa
- Adrian Belew
- Adam Jones
- J. Mascis

My all time number one absolute most favorite might be Bill Frisell.

Yes, you counted right, there are 12 on my list, I cheated, what are you going to do about it?


Edit!!!: I just needed to add Alan Sparhawk as well, from what might be my number one favorite band, Low.

He might not be the most technical proficient, but he works absolute true magic with what he got and the open G tuning that he uses.

 

Not sure I can find ten, and I don't actually emulate the styles of any of these, but here goes:

- John Williams
- Paco de Lucia
- Chet Atkins
- Mark Knopfler
- JJ Cale
- Jeff Beck
- Lindsay Buckingham
- Stephanie Jones
- Emppu Vuorinen

That will do for now.

 

That someone inspires you doesn't mean that you necessarily seek to copy them, I for one don't attempt to sound like anyone else than my self, however I can still find the playing of great musicians inspiring.

If I actually tried to emulate the style of everyone on my list the result would get rather schizophrenic.

If anything they actually inspire me to keep developing my own style and keep getting better at creating my own music, following my own musical ideals.

Anyway, thanks for your contribution to this thread.

 

- Nile Rodgers
- Angus Young
- Tony Iommi
- T Bone Walker
- Paul Reynolds
- Keith Levine
- Frank Zappa
- Steve Howe
- Dave Mustaine
- (still pending..)

Here's my 9, the tenth one is kinda hard for me, but Angus is my fave of that group

 

John Lennon (The Beatles...did I really have to write that?)
Will Sergeant (Echo And The Bunnymen)
Scotty Moore (Elvis)
John McGeoch (Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Armoury Show)
Keith Levene (Public Image)

Joe Strummer (The Clash)
Bernard Sumner (Joy Division, New Order)
Billy Duffy (The Cult)
Prince
the two guitarists in The Chameleons (no band meshed two guitar players better than this. Incredible the way they weave together two very different guitar lines)

 

1- Tony Iommi - The one and the only King, The Guitar Messiah.
2- David Gilmour - Master of the playing emotional. Majestic King David the Second.
3- Ritchie Blackmore - The 1st shredder, A real fretboard master.
4- Warren Haynes - From the past to the present, the Great Blues Prophet.
5- Leslie West - A white man with an African heart.
6- Jimmi Hendrix - The Almighty Magician, genius beast. Sad to lost very early.
7- Adrian Smith - The Secret Heart of Iron Maiden. Without him, Maiden is less. I like his works too. Very underrated hero I think.

And there is many blues heroes I can't give a number because of my respect. They are played purely from the heart, told really sad and true stories by their notes and voices. I can't rate these kinds of musicians by numbers.

 

A couple of names appear more than once but the lists are pleasingly diverse

 

In descending order of personal influence:

1. Peter Green
2. Angus Young
3. Stevie Ray Vaughan
4. Chuck Berry
5. Buddy Guy
6. Brian Setzer
7. Michael Lemmo
8. Ian Moss
9. T-Bone Walker
10. John Lee Hooker

Honourable Mentions (In no particular order):
B.B. King
Malcolm Young
Dan Auerbach
John Fogerty
Danny Kirwan
Freddy King
Henrik Freischlader
J.J. Cale
Jimi Hendrix
Junior Kimbrough
Keith Richards
Ted Nugent
Tony Joe White
Billy Gibbons

 

I clean forgot Peter Green. I'll take him too please.

 

Impossible! He's unforgettable! Hands down the greatest guitarist to ever come out of the UK (in my opinion of course)

 

Very well said

 

My big influences were normally the rhythm players with a few exceptions:

Jeff Beck
Kub Koda
Michael Schenker
Keith Richards
Johnny Ramone
Brad Whitford
Malcolm Young
John Lee Hooker
Paul/ Ace
Page
Chuck Berry
Pete Townshend

 

Yes, the diversity is very nice to see.

One pet peeve I do notice about people listing their fave guitarists is the older generation seems to ignore (or know little about) the new generation of brilliant guitarists.

I am more of a new music kind of guy. I don't like Clapton or Kiss or Nugent or Mountain, but I respect those guitar player's abilities and influence. Look at the lists of some here who favor new players as their faves. They have a Thurston Moore on the list alongside a Frank Zappa, a Keith Levene along with a Steve Howe. Yet the lists from people that favor the old school never seem to include any new players.

Not just on this thread, but I find that most fans of the old faces of rock don't seem to acknowledge (or are unaware of) the new Gods of guitar. Guys like Johnny Marr, John McGeoch, Keith Levene.. Those guys are insanely talented and innovative players but the folks who love, say Nugent, don't recognize them at all...while fans of the newer guys do recognize and respect a Nugent or a Scotty Moore or a Chuck Berry.

Not a knock, just an observation.

 

For me it's just a matter of the music I listen to. I mainly listen to 50's style Rock 'n' Roll and theres not a lot of (or any) younger bands/artists that are playing that style

 

'50s style rock and roll, '60s jangle, '70s hard rock, punk, goth, heavy metal, rockabilly...it's all rock and roll.

I feel that the solo Danny Cedrone laid down on "Rock Around The Clock" in 1955 laid the foundation for what rock lead guitar is all about - get in, get wild, get out. Cedrone's "Rock Around The Clock" solo is the basis for all rock soloing and every single lead guitarist since that solo has been desperately trying to copy it or beat it (no one ever has). My point is what Cedrone did in the '50s is the foundation for what some goth rock guitarist does in the '80s, for what some death metal guy does in the '90s, for what a grunge guitarist did in Seattle. It is all connected to '50s rock and roll. If you dig Cedrone and "Rock Around The Clock," you should dig what Will Sergeant did with Echo And The Bunnymen. It's all '50s style rock and roll...just that some guys use pointy headstock guitars or dual rectifier amps. No matter, it's all rock and roll.

Here it is. At 0:45 is what the rock and roll guitar solo is all about. Cedrone created the form...others have been trying to nail it the way Cedrone did ever since.

 

Michael Schenker
Uli Jon Roth
Glenn Tipton
Tony Iommi
Randy Rhoads
Tony Bourge

 

I get that, but it is really a matter of exposure. If you tend not to like a new genre of music, you aren't going to be exposed to the best musicians in it. People like Johnny Marr, for instance, he is as you say an insanely talented guitarist - his rhythm parts just sing. but I could never listen to The Smiths; I just hated their music and Morrisey's ridiculous posing. So Johnny didn't make it on to the list. Another guitarist not there is my childhood friend Paul Kossoff. His playing came from some place I could never go, so he was never any kind of an inspiration.

 

Paul Kossoff? Childhood friend? I'm sure I can speak for everyone when I say we'd like to hear more

 

We were at the same school - King Alfred's. We played music a fair bit, but he was more interested in forming Free. He had huge mental health problems though and eventually he was taken out of the school by his parents. King Alfred's was a very free-wheeling school and you could only really do well there if you had self-discipline. Paul had none, so his parents put him in a much stricter school. I pretty much lost touch with him after that. I remember him as very kind - he would give anybody anything he had. But that is probably not quite fair. He was just a bit disconnected, and things didn't really mean anything to him. That was part of his mental problem, and unfortunately people took advantage. I think even then I knew he was not going to live to be old.

 

Three things:

1. Yes, I see your point if you don't like a style of music, exposure will be limited. But if a guitarist is so great it is being talked about in all guitar circles, wouldn't it be worth while to check it out? I never was a fan of auto racing, but I started to hear about this young kid named Jeff Gordon winning 13 races in a 33 race season...man, I just had to check him out.

2. OK, I get your Morrissey problems. Then just listen to a few Smith songs for the music. "This Charming Man" is lightning fast jangle heaven.

3. Your idea of a player being so good they could never be an inspiration. Yes, I agree. I never look to Hendrix for inspiration. It would be too humiliating for me to try to do what he does.