Consequence surveyed over 100 artists to create our 100 Best Guitarists of All Time list for Guitar Week, and now we’re revealing all the respondents’ personal lists. Check out who everyone picked as their top five favorite guitarists below, and also read our list of the 70 Best Guitar Riffs of the 21st Century.
Over the last 80 years, thousands of guitarists have picked up the instrument and inspired the next generation to do the same. Whether those original players knew that their contributions would be pored over by faithful students for years to come is irrelevant; their innovations, whirlwind solos, unique ways of voicing chords and riffs, and mastery of tone speak for themselves.
For Guitar Week, we attempted to track which individuals left the largest legacy on our list of the 100 Best Guitarists of All Time, but with so many legends to choose from, it was a challenge to narrow them all down. So, we enlisted the help of over 100 guitarists across genres to weigh in on who their favorite guitarists were.
Each guitarist provided a list of their personal top five guitar heroes, with explanations for each — but often it was the number of repeat selections that demonstrated how impactful certain players were. Jimi Hendrix, predictably, was selected over 20 times, with Eddie Van Halen garnering a similarly prolific amount of votes.
Meanwhile, not all the guitarists picked were old school greats; many selected newer instrumentalists that are currently inspiring them, like Jason Richardson, Misha Mansoor, Leslie Feist, and, in one case, Lil Wayne (yes, you read that right). While some guitarists felt strongly about their rankings from one through five, the vast majority of the survey responders picked their players in no particular order — just the five guitarists who they’d select for their personal hall of fame.
So, join our jam session and read on to see who guitarists like Slayer’s Kerry King, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, FINNEAS, My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel, Sepultura’s Max Cavalera, Spiritbox’s Mike Stringer, PUP’s Steve Sladkowski, The Driver Era’s Ross and Rocky Lynch, Underoath’s Tim McTague, and dozens more feel are the best to ever pick up the axe.
Content shared from consequence.net.