Greatest Guitar Players readers’ poll: The Results
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- November
- 12
The results are in….
Last Saturday we posted our first Listening Room readers’ poll, and we asked you to submit your lists of the greatest guitar players of all time. And boy, did you ever respond.
In all, we received votes for more than 140 guitar players, and tallied those up based on the number of votes each received.
Topping the list was Jimi Hendrix, who won easily.
Hendrix was in very good company, of course. Here’s the top 15 guitarists as voted by you:
1 – Jimi Hendrix
2 – Jeff Beck
3 – Stevie Ray Vaughan
4 – Eric Clapton
5 – Carlos Santana
6 – Eddie Van Halen
7 – Duane Allman
8 – Django Reinhardt
9 – Tom Morello
10 – Mark Knopfler
11 – BB King
12 – John Frusciante
13 – Buddy Guy
14 – Derek Trucks
15 – Pete Townsend
Then we had a batch of guitarists who just missed the top tier:
• Stevie Vai
• Les Paul
• John McLaughlin
• Jorma Kaukonen
• Slash
• Gary Moore
• Jack White
• Jerry Garcia
• Trey Anastasio
• Wes Montgomery
• Kirk Hammett
• Prince
• Warren Haynes
• The Edge
• Tony Iommi
Then there’s the category we’ll call Honorable Mention: Guitar players who received multiple votes but fell just under the top two levels of vote getters:
• Jonny Greenwood
• Angus Young
• Richard Thompson
• Lee Ritenour
• Steve Morse
• Joe Satriani
• Alan Holdsworth
• Jimmy Page
• Chuck Berry
• Jimmy Herring
• Chet Atkins
• James Burton
Now, here are some observations: Considering how many names of guitar players were submitted, we were surprised that no one put any of these musicians on their lists (in alphabetical order):
Rick Derringer
Robben Ford
Peter Frampton
Robert Fripp
John Lee Hooker
Alvin Lee
John Mayer
Ronnie Montrose
Ted Nugent
Carl Perkins
Joe Perry
Randy Rhoads
Tom Verlaine
You can definitely add Elvin Bishop and Ry Cooder to that list as well. And we were equally surprised that these following guitarists didn’t get more votes (again, in alphabetical order):
Larry Carlton
Jonny Greenwood
Kirk Hammett
Eric Johnson
Jimmy Page
Les Paul
Joe Satriani
Richard Thompson
Stevie Vai
Jack White
Either way, thanks to all who participated. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We’ll also be doing more readers’ polls in the coming weeks. We’ll pick a category in a week or two and put it out there.
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This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 8:00 am by jfitzgibbon.
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What about Leo Kotke? Or Elvis Costello? I knew I should have boted
Or “voted” as the case may be.
Great poll, Jorge. Some real surprises on those last two lists. Those who appreciate good guitar playing should go down those lists one by one and make sure their iPods/CD collections have ample representation from those lists.
Satriani’s Surfing with the Alien, Eric Johnson’s Ah Via Musicom and Vai’s Flex-able or Passion and Warfare would be great ones to start with.
I like the list but I still have to protest that Andres Segovia was not included.
When I was younger I used to take guitar lessons from a heavy metal “shredder” type guitarist. I would bring him songs and he would listen and transcribe them and teach me to play them. One day I bought in a Segovia tape. He just threw his hands up and said “I can’t even touch this.”
Eric;
Thanks for the feedback. Andres Segovia was on the list, but only got one vote. The names listed above weren’t the complete list of guitar players submitted, just the ones that got the most votes. Segovia, unfortunately, was only on one reader’s list. In that vein, I was also surprised no one mentioned Paco DeLucia or Larry Coryell, both of whom helped form the ‘passion, grace and fire’ trio that later included Al DiMeola – another name not mentioned on any lists.
As for Randi’s comments, Kotke also got one vote.
And Brian, thanks for your comment here. You give sound advice.
In general, these types of polls are always a tad frustrating and open to debate. But it’s a fun exercise and it’s a healthy debate to have if you love music, which we all, undoubtedly do.
So, thanks again to all.