Who are your top 5 guitarists?

darthed1981

1. James Dean Bradfield

2. Bernard Butler

3. Noel Gallagher

4. Graham Coxon

5. Jonny Greenwood

Also Johnny Marr - but he's like these guys' Dad.

Jota

Mike Campbell

Duke Levine

Neal Casal

Colin Cripps

Sadler Vaden

joneve

Listen to Blue by Third Eye Blind (of "Semi-Charmed Life" fame). Before he was kicked out of the band (because the lead singer is an egotistical dickhead), Kevin Cadogan's guitar work on their debut, and also their second album, Blue, is amazing. No widdly lead guitar stuff really, but the tuning, unique chord progressions and general rhythm playing is some of my favourite of all time. 

Tannin

I have a new man crush on ... wait for it ... Kenny Vaughan. Not really listening to anyone else much lately. That will wear off eventually.  But for now, let's say 

1: Kenny Vaughan
2: Marty Stuart (because you can't hear much of Kenny without hearing a lot of Marty, and I love. love love the way the two of them work together - and indeed with their bass player) - all having laughs, heaps of fun, but each one of them busting his arse to make the other guys sound good)
3. Tommy E. (Of course.)
4: Joscho Stephan
5: Richard Smith

All five are current players - I've deliberately not mentioned old favourites, only ones who are playing today. Bar Kenny and Marty - who are old school Tele players, no FX just the pure Telecaster goodness -  the others are acoustic players. 

MagicPigDetective

Current faves:

D Boon - Minutemen, hardcore/funk/etc
Geoff Farina - from Karate, post punk/jazz
Blues: Ronnie Earl / Shuggie Otis / Sue Foley
Charles Moothart - from Fuzz, psych-metal-stoner?
Tom Dowse from Dry Cleaning, top post punk style 

EricTheWeary

I never really know what to say in these. But in terms of maybe less obvious but not too obscure:

Jim Campilongo (Orange is one of the great guitar albums of all time or the first Little Willies album to hear him in more of a song context). 

Sonny Sharrock (made some quite hard to listen to music but the Ask the Ages album is jazz for people who don’t normally listen to jazz)

Neol Davies (his career was mostly the early days of The Selecter but great moments of melodic, bluesy playing scattered here and there and wrote a few hits)

Freddie King (the greatest electric blues player)

Roland said:

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/187519/

Lot of love for Billy Duffy on that list. So I’ll say Billy Duffy for number five; if I was walking the dog and started humming a riff it would probably be a Duffy one and he’s great at the short, in your face solo. 

Cryptid

AntonHunter said:

Currently...

Nels Cline
Ava Mendoza 
Bill Frisell
Jonny Greenwood
Susan Alcorn (pedal steel player)

Thank you so much for introducing me to Susan Alcorn... sublime. I love the others on your list so had to check her out. Pedal steel has a special place in my heart, if only I'd taken it up when I was much younger!

My current top 5 are, probably:

Tobias Hoffman
Bill Frisell
Julian Lage
Guthrie Trapp
Duke Levine

markblack

Dessner brothers (The National)
Jack White
Ben Harper
Jason Isbell
Jeff Oddie (wolf alice)

Are a few of my current favorites.

I also watched Sarah Lipstate on EQD's channel and found it interesting to see how she approaches guitar.

darthed1981

markblack said:

Jeff Oddie (wolf alice)

Good call - love Wolf Alice.

Of course Ellie plays guitar as well.. she's more my favourite person than guitarist though.

Grumpyrocker

1, Tony Iommi
2, Adrian Smith
3, Greg Mackintosh
4, Michael Amott
5, Dave Mustaine

My all time list would include the likes of Page, Satriani, Gilmour, Blackmore, Gary Moore and others. But I think my top five more represents what I'm listening to these days.

Gassage

I have updated mine, adding the exquisite Steuart Smith.

DesVegas

markblack said:

Dessner brothers (The National)
Jack White
Ben Harper
Jason Isbell
Jeff Oddie (wolf alice)

Are a few of my current favorites.

I also watched Sarah Lipstate on EQD's channel and found it interesting to see how she approaches guitar.

Yes to Ben Harper.. well done!

tweedphan

Richard Thompson 
Jack Pearson
Al Dimeola
John McClaughlin
Derek Trucks

duotone

George Harrison
Steve Lukather
Randy Rhoads
Jimi Hendrix
Stevie Ray Vaughan

roberty

I find this sort of thing difficult

Brian May and Kurt Cobain were the two who made me pick it up in the first place

Then Johnny Marr when I got a bit older

As an adult probably Marc Ribot, and then Bob Balch who I got lessons from

Lodious

Jimi Hendrix 

Billy Gibbons
Eddie Van Halen
Pat Metheny
Allan Holdsworth

Boromedic

In no particular order:

James Hetfield
Slash

Peter Buck

Dan Hawkins

Adrian Smith

Nothing revolutionary, sorry,

Could probably do about 10 more lists of 5 too!!

richman6100

Today...

John Martyn
SRV
David Gilmour
Freddie King
Joncan Kavlakoglu

Tomorrow, there'd be five alternatives. The day after, five more.

gusman2x

Billy Corgan
Dave Gilmour
John Sykes
J Mascis
Steve Vai

prowla

Michael Schenker

Ritchie Blackmore

Alex Lifeson

Jimmy Page

Steve Howe

(Excluding Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen, who were the ones who said what a guitar is for.)