Rolling Stone posted the list on their website for everyone to see and make fun of.
1 Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin
10 Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones
11Kirk Hammett of Metallica
12 Kurt Cobain of Nirvana
13 Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead
14 Jeff Beck
15 Carlos Santana
16 Johnny Ramone of the Ramones
17 Jack White of the White Stripes
18 John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
19 Richard Thompson
20 James Burton
21 George Harrison
22 Mike Bloomfield
23 Warren Haynes
24 The Edge of U2
25 Freddy King
26 Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave
27 Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits
28 Stephen Stills
29 Ron Asheton of the Stooges
30 Buddy Guy
31 Dick Dale
32 John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service
33 & 34 Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth
35 John Fahey
36 Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the MG's
37 Bo Diddley
38 Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac
39 Brian May of Qeen
40 John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival
41 Clarence White of the Byrds
42 Robert Fripp of King Crimson
43 Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic
44 Scotty Moore
45 Frank Zappa
46 Les Paul
47 T-Bone Walker
48 Joe Perry of Aerosmith
49 John McLaughlin
50 Pete Townshend
51 Paul Kossoff of Free
52 Lou Reed
53 Mickey Baker
54 Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane
55 Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple
56 Tom Verlaine of Television
57 Roy Buchanan
58 Dickey Betts
59 & 60 Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien of Radiohead
61 Ike Turner
62 Zoot Horn Rollo of the Magic Band
63 Danny Gatton
64 Mick Ronson
65 Hubert Sumlin
66 Vernon Reid of Living Colour
67 Link Wray
68 Jerry Miller of Moby Grape
69 Steve Howe of Yes
70 Eddie Van Halen
71 Lightnin' Hopkins
72 Joni Mitchell
73 Trey Anastasio of Phish
74 Johnny Winter
75 Adam Jones of Tool
76 Ali Farka Toure
77 Henry Vestine of Canned Heat
78 Robbie Robertson of the Band
79 Cliff Gallup of the Blue Caps
80 Robert Quine of the Voidoids
81 Derek Trucks
82 David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
83 Neil Young
84 Eddie Cochran
85 Randy Rhoads
86 Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath
87 Joan Jett
88 Dave Davies of the Kinks
89 D. Boon of the Minutemen
90 Glen Buxton of Alice Cooper
91 Robby Krieger of the Doors
92 & 93 Fred "Sonic" Smith, Wayne Kramer of the MC5
94 Bert Jansch
95 Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine
96 Angus Young of AC/DC
97 Robert Randolph
98 Leigh Stephens of Blue Cheer
99 Greg Ginn of Black Flag
100 Kim Thayil of Soundgarden
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - TDavid
Duane Allman, Robert Johnson and Ry Cooder ahead of Eddie Van Halen? Puh-lease.
Is this a list for guitar influences or who are the top 100 guitarists?
This reminds me of every rock countdown list where Stairway to Heaven is usually the winner. Stairway is a great song, an eternal classic, but it isn't the #1 rock song on every list.
Angus Young makes the top 100? Every AC DC song is what, 3 or 4 chords? I like the early AC DC stuff, but they have made a fortune off of a handful of chord combinations and I can't say Angus is one of the top 100 guitarists of all time.
On a positive note, I do agree with many of the people on this list and I think Hendrix at #1 is solid.
2 - JR
42. Robert Fripp
Good call, Eric.
But the list is still risible.
3 - JR
Can't find Joe Satriani. You'd think the guy who's actually made a successful career of instrumental guitar music over the past fifteen years, and who taught Kirk Hammett (#11!?!) and Steve Vai, would show up in the top 100.
And some of the people who are on this list! I don't want to knock musicians who've made good music, but to the extent that some of these guys actually played guitar, they might as well have put Elvis on the list!
(Why do I bother arguing with Rolling Stone?)
4 - Rodney Welch
Placing 16, 17, and 18 over 19 is an absolute insult -- Richard Thompson is one of the greatest ever. But I am at least pleased to see him represented, as well as Fahey and Verlaine.
5 - SineSwiper
This is on par with Blender's Top 50 Worse bands, where the put up ICP as #1, even though they rated their "worse album" (The Wraith) for the "worse band" (ICP) as 3 out of 4 stars in an earlier review. Even if you hate ICP yourself, you'll have to agree that it still isn't as bad as some of the other bands they listed, such as some of the really BAD 80's bands.
They also listed Emerson, Lake and Palmer (#2), Pat Boone (#18), The Alan Parsons Project (#21), Primus (#22), Creed (#23), Crash Test Dummies (#28), Skinny Puppy (#29), Paul Oakenfold (#35), The Doors (#37 ?!?), Blind Melon (#40), The Spin Doctors (#46), Goo Goo Dolls (#47), Master P (#48), and Iron Butterfly (#50).
Please note that some of this bands rated are rated WORSE than Manowar (#44).
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/13/1060588441379.html
As far as this list goes, it is completely invalid if Joe Satriani is not on the list.
6 - SineSwiper
I also want to note that lists like these are merely for culture and marketing masterbation for the parties involved (ie: Rolling Stone).
7 - The Theory
Ahhahaha. "market masterbation"... good call.
8 - Cindy Collins Smith
What a weird list!
I have no qualms about Hendrix at #1. But as someone pointed out, Richard Thompson at #19? (when he should probably be in the Top 10!). No Joe Satriani?
And why is Johnny Ramone even ON the list, much less on the list at #16? I mean, okay, I love the Ramones. But Johnny Ramone is ahead of a lot of much better guitarists... like The Edge, for example. In fact, why is The Edge down at #22? And Kurt Cobain at #12? Oh, I get it. The Edge is alive and U2 is over-exposed. But he's still a great guitarist. And Cobain was a better songwriter than guitarist.
And did you see where Les Paul is??? And John McLaughlin? No way are those guys in the low 40s!
But hey, at least Dick Dale is represented, and that's pretty cool.
9 - andy
I agree Cindy. And I can't understand why Pete Townshend is way down in the 50s. I'm glad to see Jack White on the list though. He truely is a great guitarist.
10 - Eric Olsen
A few things: this is rock, obviously, with a couple of blues guys thrown in, and as such it could be worse. You can argue about the order - Jack White at 17???? - but there are some fairly brave and subtle choices as well.
Really glaring omissions for me include Phil Manzanera, Chris Spedding, they have Tom Verlaine but not Richard Lloyd which his odd because they really go together like the Sonic Youth guys, and Mick Ronson way down at 64 is a crime, and Bruce Springsteen is a very fine guitarist as well.
11 - Eric Olsen
Oh, and how could they leave out Robin Guthrie, Terje Rypdal and Robert Smith? No one sounds like any of them.
12 - mike
Eric Clapton ahead of Robert Johnson is a crime against humanity.
13 - JR
As long as we’re mentioning glaring omissions, let’s talk about:
Andres Segovia
Charlie Christian
Django Reinhardt
Julian Bream
Wes Montgomery
Joe Maphis
John Williams
Allan Holdsworth
Alex Lifeson
Al Di Meola
Larry Carlton
Paco De Lucia
Adrian Belew
Michael Hedges
Uli Roth
Eric Johnson
Andy Summers
Bill Frisell
Junior Brown
and (donning flak jacket)
Steve Vai
Yngwie Malmsteen
Given RS’s willingness to include rhythm guitarists, I’m surprised they didn’t include John Lennon. He could play the odd solo (“The End”), he was an adequate fingerstylist (“Julia”), and he was a brilliantly subversive rhythm player (“I Call Your Name”). Oh, and he wrote a decent tune or two. Might even have influenced a few people to take up the guitar.
14 - Marty Thau
Any list that omits Phil Keaggy cannot be considered credible. I'd definitely rate him in the top 10. But then again this is Rolling Stone. What do you expect?
15 - Natalie Davis
Leo Kottke! Where is Leo Kottke? And so many lame choices. Plus the affront of putting Richard Thompson at only 19. And Kurt Cobain? Better than 9-1/2-fingered Jerry Garcia? Please.
This list bites. But we knew it would; practically anything RS takes on sucks big time. Big time, Jann, big time! I'm surprised Boz Scaggs isn't topping the list.
Glad to see Bert Jansch and the late Danny Gatton on there, though.
16 - The Theory
I agree Natalie. Leo Kottke the folk guitar icon.
17 - Rodney Welch
Question no one has asked yet: Where's Slash?
18 - BRICKLAYER
Answer: In a purple smokey haze, lying buck naked (except for the top hat) in a circular bed atop a penthouse suite in Vegas, watching 2 Amazonian show girls get to know each other better.
19 - Rodney Welch
You and your wet dreams.
20 - andy
Ok Eric, maybe not #17, but I'm glad they put him on. Jack White is definately an amazing guitarist. Not #17 amazing, but list worthy I think.
21 - Natalie Davis
Yeah, Jack White is listworthy, but his positioning helps make the list itself (as any subjective ranking would be, I guess) useless. What is with this need RS seems to have to fold more modern performers into the top tiers of these best-ever lists, anyway? Is it merely a ploy to keep the teens and 20somethings happy? I mean, it's too bad that the young'uns don't have a Hendrix of their generation (yet, and he's just an example), but Hendrix is as much theirs as old people's. The shame is that some clueless tween will believe this ranking is truthful.
22 - andy
But take heart knowing that when they mature in taste and years, they'll realize it's a fraud, and start listening to Hendrix. Their generation, our generation, your generation, we all have a Hendrix cause the man was cross generational(now anyway haha)
23 - BRICKLAYER
The dudes in Iron Maiden kill all these gits.
24 - Rodney Welch
I'm not sure Jack White is listworthy. Will he be there on the list of 2023? And where will he rank, if at all? I think the real interest of a list like this is to survey it for people whose real heyday, so to speak, was years ago, like Scotty Moore or Tom Verlaine or Neil Young. They don't rank high, but I'll bet you anything they'll make that future list where a lot of these flashes in the pan will be mere memories.
25 - The Theory
this should be about talent, and not where they'll rank 20 years from now. In my mind, it's too early to say whether Jack White should have made the list at all, let alone at 17th slot. Sure, he can do some cool stuff with his guitar, but he seems like more of a good song crafter than a guitar god.