Greatest Guitarists of All Time
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine published a list called The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. This list included 100 guitarists who the magazine considered the best with a brief introduction for each of them. The first in this list is the American guitarist Jimi Hendrix introduced by Pete Townshend, guitarist for The Who, who was, in his turn, ranked at #50 of the list. The list is heavily in favor of electric US blues rock guitarists.
The Top Ten of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time by Rolling Stone are:
| # | Guitarist | Nationality |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Jimi Hendrix | Template:USA |
| 02 | Duane Allman | Template:USA |
| 03 | B.B. King | Template:USA |
| 04 | Eric Clapton | Template:UK |
| 05 | Robert Johnson | Template:USA |
| 06 | Chuck Berry | Template:USA |
| 07 | Stevie Ray Vaughan | Template:USA |
| 08 | Ry Cooder | Template:USA |
| 09 | Jimmy Page | Template:UK |
| 10 | Keith Richards | Template:UK |
In informing the list to readers, Paul MacInnes from British newspaper The Guardian expressed: "Surprisingly enough for an American magazine, the top 10 is fair jam-packed with Yanks", although he also noted three exceptions in the top 10. The online magazine Blogcritics criticized the list for introducing some undeserving guitarists while forgetting some artists perceived being perhaps more worthy, such as Phil Keaggy or John Petrucci.
The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time is mentioned in many biographies about artists who appear in the list.
Guitar World
Guitar World, a monthly music magazine devoted to guitar, also published their list of 100 greatest guitarists in the book Guitar World Presents the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time from the Pages of Guitar World Magazine. Different than the list of the Rolling Stone which was introduced in descending order, Guitar World preferred dividing the guitarists by music genre such as "Lords of Hard Rock" for hard rock artists or "Jazzmen" for jazz players. Despite the appearance in other magazines like Billboard, this publication by Guitar World was criticized for including no female musicians within its selection.
Others
Following the death of Les Paul, TIME website presented their list of 10 greatest artists in Electric guitar. Like the Rolling Stone's list, Jimi Hendrix was chosen as the greatest guitarist followed by Slash, B.B. King, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.
