Top 10 Guitarists of All Time

Carlos Santana

Rolling Stone named Santana number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and 3 Latin Grammy Awards.

Kirk Hammett

is the lead guitarist and a songwriter in the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stone's list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Dave Murray

English guitarist and songwriter best known as one of the original members of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. He joined the band just two months after their inception in 1976.

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix is widely regarded as the greatest guitar player in history not just because he had considerable blues chops but also because of his wild creativity with his instrument. The man was capable of churning out sounds that no one had ever heard before, and his mastery over the electric guitar has still never been matched. Hendrix often got lumped in with the late 60s hippie movement, but he was really a thing unto himself, a freight train that tore through the music scene with unrelenting sonic power.

B.B. King

King’s guitar playing was simply gorgeous, highly expressive and emotional while also being technically flawless. Coming out of the Memphis blues music scene, King’s playing had a uniquely soulful sound that was almost vocal in its shapes and intonations. While most music fans are now quite familiar with his style of blues guitar playing, King was utterly new in his time, and his work influenced virtually every rock and blues guitar player to come.

Keith Richards

Richards has always been openly derisive of the type of pretentious virtuosity that many of his contemporaries used. Rather than showing off, Richards always played in service of the song, and The Rolling Stones’ music in general is remarkably short on fancy solos or long instrumental passages (with some notable exceptions, of course). But even though he doesn’t show off, the pure energy of his playing is what gives so many Stones songs their power.

Jimmy Page

As a guitarist, Jimmy Page can do practically anything—blues, Beatles-style pop, folk rock, jazz, heavy metal, and so on. With his considerable talent, he could have made any kind of music, so it’s interesting that he left all the traditional forms behind and pioneered the signature Led Zeppelin sound that would prove so influential to all heavy metal and hard rock acts to come. Like all great guitar players, Page thought of his music in terms of songcraft and refrained from the type of self-indulgence that can kill a good song. With Zeppelin, he also grew into a formidable songwriter and producer.

Michael Angelo Batio

Makes fastest solos ever.

Slash

Guns N’ Roses were clearly more talented than their hair-band contemporaries, even though they didn’t always get credit for it. While Axl Rose was a big reason for their success, Slash gave the band a raw musicianship that Rose simply didn’t possess, and it’s hard to imagine that GNR ever would have gotten anywhere without him. On Appetite for Destruction alone Slash delivers five or six truly iconic guitar lines.