The Best Guitarists of All Time | Matthew Iovane

Coming up with a list of the best guitarists of all time can be a challenging task, as it is often quite subjective and taking into consideration that there are many genres to choose from such as blues, jazz, rock, funk and classical. Speaking of classical, the first guitarist that comes to my mind is Andre Segovia. He was known as the "Master of Classical Guitar". Moving from the classical realm to gypsy jazz and flamenco, Paco De Lucia and Django Reinhardt come to mind. I realize that I am jumping around quite a bit (listing the best guitarists is a bit of a stream of consciousness exercise) and I want to cover as many of my favorites here as possible.



I was heavily influenced by the jazz fusion guitarists of the seventies and eighties by artists such as Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Steve Morse, John Scofeild, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Alan Holds worth and Scott Henderson. In the straight-ahead jazz world, a few of my favorites are Wes Montgomery, Les Paul, Pat Martino, Joe Pass, Howard Roberts and of course one of my all-time favorites: George Benson who later crossed over to the Smooth Jazz and Pop Music world.

George started out in his career playing straight-ahead and bebop and was featured in the group of the great jazz organist, Jack Mc Duff'. He later went on to record several solo albums with great success and is one of the most recognized and covered guitarists in jazz. One of George Benson's long-time musical partners is Earl Klugh, who is a master of the nylon string jazz styling. Charlie Christian was a jazz guitar pioneer who influenced many of the jazz guitar icons including George Benson and Wes Montgomery! Wes Montgomery was a true musical genius, which in my humble opinion, could be the greatest jazz guitarist of all time!

On the rock side of things, we have Jimi Hendrix, who was a true pioneer and had a profound impact on guitar players of many different genres and styles to this day. I also need to mention Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana, Robert Fripp, Steve Howe, Richie Blackmore, Eric Clapton (who could also be considered a bluesman), Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. I could literally spend hours and hours compiling a list of the greatest rock guitarists and still not be able to list them all!

I am also a great fan of the Los Angeles and New York studio session guitarists who played many different styles and in various musical situations. Larry Carlton is known as the master of session work and was best known for playing on iconic recordings with Steely Dan, The Crusaders and for TV shows such as Hill Street Blues. Additionally, Steve Lukather and Michael Landau were the top session guitarists on the LA studio scene in the eighties and nineties and are still out there touring and tearing up the guitar neck! Another great studio guitarist (and one of my personal favorites) is Buzzy Feiten who has been performing recently in Bette Midler's show in Las Vegas.

Another of my all-time favorite guitarists has played the LA jazz, funk & fusion studio scene for years and more recently the blues scene. I am speaking of the one and only Robben Ford. I can't leave out the blues, which is the root of most of the modern guitar styles. Leading the way for other blues guitarists were the likes of BB King, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Albert Collins, Freddy King, the list goes on and on. I also have to acknowledge the masters of blues guitar from the Mississippi Delta area that laid the foundation for modern blues, rock, R&B and soul music, but there are just too many to list here! I think that I might have to write a second article covering more great guitarists and any genres that I may have left out.

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