there is NO ONE greatest guitarist. especially when you consider all the different styles of guitar we have...country...blues....rock...metal....jazz...etc.

there ARE,on the other hand, players who changed the way we look at the instrument. players who pushed the envelope farther than others.

guys like chet atkins,jimi hendrix,eddie van halen, dimebag, brent mason, phil keaggy,allen holdsworth, yngwie malmsteen,buddy holly,chuck berry, django reinhardt, charlie christian,stanley jordan,etc. so i can't say any 1 is the greatest ever..
i can't say that hendrix had any more or less influence that say, eddie van halen. cetainly he has had more time to do more things simply because he has remained alive long enough to make all his contributions. and they are many. a lot of things you probably never even knew.
the variac
the one knob one pickup setup
the popularization of the floyd rose
not to mention the overall proliferation of that style of guitar..you gotta remember when he hit the scene(1977,78),there were NO other player even remotely playing that style whatsoever. the hottest player out at the time was ted nugent.

he took an old upright piano,wired it up with pickups and ran it thru a marshall halfstack to record "the cradle will rock"
he took the backplate of his guitar and played the springs on the opening to pretty women...called it "intruder"
he's done so many pecular and odd things that have made it stand out way above the rest. his influenced will continue forever.

but i wouldn't call him the greatest ever. there are simply way too many other players. a short list ,perhaps....

I would agree with Bach - different players do different things better then others. Comparing an acoustic player like Adrian Legg or Edgar Cruz to an electric player like a Steve Vai would be nearly impossible - yet all are elite players!

I agree. I have a list of about 10 guitar players that I consider to be in the upper echelon of players. Then it comes down to which style you like and your personal preferences.

Jimi is one of my fav's and will always be at the top. As the others have said.. there are so many great guitar players and there is something unique about each of them. I have no problem with multiple favorite guitarists. EVH is certainly one as well.

Will someone tell me what Dimebag did to push the envelope? I am not a Dimebag fan so this is someone's opportunity to educate me.

dime was a very fast and very clean player. one of the last true players to come from the van halen school of idealogy. fantastic whammy bar technique. but his use of the digitech whammy pedal was one of his biggest tools. one of the few players that maxed out it's potential. some pretty creative uses. and you would be hard pressed to find a more brutal style of music than pantera. they were about as heavy as it gets. pantera kind of kept heavy metal alive thru the grunge era. certainly not everyone's cup of tea but a damn fine player non the less.

listening recommendation: "cowboys from hell" and "vulgar display of power" albums...

I dont think any one player is the best. I just love Guitar and i love to listen to people play and i love to play.

I understand that there are elite players but what i was trying to get at is which guitarist came up with some of the most influential techniques for you as a player. not necessarily who is the greatest. what i wanted to hear from you is who in your opinion is the greatest influence on your playing and who's style inspired many people from all over the world. digitaldreamdoor.com has some lists of different styles and i was just wondering if i asked that question if I'd get answers from all types of styles and players

for me personally it was more an alagamation of van halen,ace frehley,ted nugent,and most of the eighties players with a little joe walsh thrown in for good measure. and sabbath as well. but it's always a changing perspective. you get into certain players for a time and them move on to the next. absorbing whatever you can at the time. but being a bit older has given me time to absorb a lot more than say someone in the teens or 20's.

and your topic didn't request anything in the form of influences, it simply asks who the greatest is/was. perhaps a seperate thread discussing influences would have yielded you the responses you are looking for.

With respect to what others have said here, I would like to say that in terms of rock guitar no other guitarist has had such an affect on guitar as Hendrix with the possible exception of EVH. for me these 2 are pioneers and innovators in the development of the instrument, Look at it like this before Hendrix and after Hendrix. I think that all other rock guitarists are hybrids of these two fantastic revolutionaries.

you asked who is a guitarist that inspired me an other people around the would, jimmy page is one of the best. i mean almost everyone knows how to play stairway to heaven.

well, this is a hard category. The truth is there are just too many variables. what's more important, creativity, energy, or technical skill. but some of my favorites include, hendrix, andy summers, mick ronson, reeves gabriels, brian setzer.

i agree that it isnt reasonable to try and name 1 player to be the " best " because there are so many variables.

a list of my personal favs would look something like this. ( in no particular order )

billy gibbons
angus young
gary rossington
allen collins
evh
srv
john fogerty
duane allman

there are many more that i like including

joe walsh
kieth richards
ted nugent
warren haynes
peter frampton
george thurogood (?spelling?)
brad paisley
kenny wayne shepard (?spelling?)
the list goes on and on...damn i love music!