It's no longer "cool" to state the obvious.

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Love David Gilmour (hence my avatar). He's definitely the winner of the "doing the most with the fewest notes" award. There's also no one to whom you can listen for a shorter period of time and know who's playing.

This is all kind of like a "It all depends on what your definition of the word "is" is" argument. There are so many different ways to define great guitar playing. If you like guys who play to the song, you would like George Harrison. And who wouldn't want to play to the song if you're a Beatle? You've got the best-written songs to play to. Fast, showy guys are often playing crap songs, in my opinion.

Keith Richards is not the best technical player, but he's one of the greatest writers in rock and roll history. He uses his guitar to project the songs he writes. You guys know all the riffs that he created with open G tuning. I think that makes for a great guitar player.

That being said, no Ritchie Blackmore yet?

I'm more drawn to melodic bass playing. I'll take Paul McCartney.

On a Fisher-Price hoop??

Always love how a music thread can pull the greatest Pinsider of all time, Vid, out of his crypt. Of course, it's usually Vids greatest hits... Clapton sucks, Zep are ripoff kings, and The Monkees are better than The Beatles. I never appreciated anyone who I never agree with at all more than Vid.

1. Clapton (and Hendrix) introduced the blueprint for the rock guitar sound.
2. Did John Mayall or The Yardbirds want Clapton in their group because he sucked?
3. Who are all those other guitar players playing the "difficult parts" on the four Cream records? From the looks of things, the one and only guitarist
on all those recordings was Eric Clapton. And there was nothing even remotely sounding like the guitar work in Cream when they came out in
1966? All the other mainsteam, bombastic bluesy "Guitar Gods" didn't release their first records until 1967 or later.
4. So, it's safe to say that Clapton's playing has inspired and informed other guitarists, who all sound like him, not the other way
around.
5. He is the only 3 time member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (certainly not the be all, end all, but shows that he has the respect of his peers).
6. John Lennon wanted him to join The Beatles if George didn't come back.
7. Put together the Concert for George after George's passing. It is the greatest dedication concert ever put on tape, in my opinion.
8. What 60's-80's rock star didn't have his way with women? Whatever he had, I'm sure Mick Jagger had more. If he was bragging about anything
non-consensual, of course that's not acceptable.
9. Has apologized for racist comments. Don't know what else someone is supposed to do. Besides, we're debating "greatest guitarist", not highest
morals.

You didn't quote the rest of the comment, "If he was bragging about anything non-consensual, of course that's not acceptable." Women threw themselves at these guys. Everyone knows that. And where's the quote about him supposedly bragging about raping women? Of course, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility, but you are prone to making things up.

You keep twisting my words into something that sounds like I'm pro rape, so we're done on that. Just ridiculous. My statement was clearly about consensual sex, not rape. Give me a break. Clapton said, "There were times when I just took sex with my wife by force and thought that was my entitlement. I had absolutely no concern for other people at all." There's no bragging there. Sounds more like someone who knows he screwed up.

This is a fun thread to debate the best guitarists. You don't think that Clapton belongs in that conversation. I do. Half-truths and innuendo about their personal lives, which we really don't know the whole story, doesn't matter. And even if we knew every detail, it still has nothing to do with their skills on the guitar.

Well, apparently Roger Waters thought that Clapton was such an awful guy (and apparently such an awful guitarist), that Clapton joined him on a leg of his 1984 tour in which one of the songs they did was, wait for it, "In the Flesh". So, apparently even Roger Waters thought that he could be redeemed a decade after the comments were made. But you, on the other hand, hold him to comments that he made 50 years ago in a drug-induced stupor as the only thing he's ever said.

I would never spin your words the way that you tried to spin mine. But one might say that your obsession with this "Blackie" guitar name and your insistence that it's somehow racially motivated might be an indication of your own guilty conscience. How is naming something that happens to be black "Blackie" out of line at all? You could accuse him perhaps of not being very creative in the naming of his guitar, but that's about it.

Oh, he was still plenty into dope in 1976, regardless of what he said. Saying you're clean is a classic junkie line. And even after he finally did clean up from heroin, he spent the 80's drunk. Again, not going to argue that those areas. He could have done a whole lot better.

Townshend could do it all. Not the greatest guitar player, but a great nonetheless. And when you couple that with the fact that he wrote all those great Who songs by himself, it's really astonishing. Most of the other 60's British powerhouse groups had a songwriting duo (Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Page/Plant, etc.), but Townshend did it all himself. He also played all the guitar parts himself (in studio and on stage) at least in the 60's and 70's. He has help now from his younger brother.

What about Robbie Robertson? Surprised he hasn't gotten a mention yet.

Ace's lack of total technical proficiency is one of his strengths. His playing always sounds like it's about ready to fall off a cliff, which gives him his signature sound. I love it. His solo work is also better than anything Gene and Paul have done in the last 20 years.

Like a lot of bands, Kiss' best record was their self-titled debut. All Ace all the time. No stand-ins. Strutter, Nothin' to Lose, Firehouse, Cold Gin, Deuce, 100,000 Years, Black Diamond. Hell, Kiss has so many songs that I like, but I think that my very favorites are all on that first album.

He was already in two successful bands and was in the waning months of Cream when he recorded that solo for The Beatles. Clapton had already done by the age of 25 what most would have been happy to achieve in a lifetime when it came to popular music at the time. There is no doubt that his sound changed after this period. He always said that Cream was nearing its end when he heard "Music from Big Pink" by The Band. That's the kind of music that he really wanted to play at the time. Masterful guitar work by Robbie Robertson, but a whole lot less "in your face". Also, the playing became secondary to the fact that he was becoming a front man. He had sung some songs with Cream, but Jack Bruce sang the majority of the songs. Descending into major drug and alcohol addiction didn't help either.

Make no mistake though. Clapton didn't somehow forget what to do with the guitar. For example, when Cream reunited in '05 for four shows at Royal Albert Hall, he was awesome. I remember a quote of his saying that he hasn't worked that hard in a couple of decades being "the guy".

Every short-term member or studio musician that Steely Dan has ever played with is a great. Jeff Baxter's work on My Old School alone is unreal. Donald Fagen is another ace songwriter who seems like an asshole, but certainly knows how to build a band.

Wow! A keeper. That’s just like a woman saying that Yes is her favorite band. A total unicorn.

Does she like the Graham Bonnet and Joe Lynn Turner eras too? I feel like Street of Dreams was the most played video on MTV when it first came out.

Heart of the Sunrise is a great example of what he can do. And of course harmonizing with Jon Anderson was no small feat either.

McCartney's all-time favorite bass player. That's good enough for me.

12 Platinum records over a 30 year span. They were commercially relevant longer than any other band that I know of. I'd take that if I were them.

I wanted to see their Detroit show so bad, but tix were unobtanium. Sean Lennon turned into quite the guitar player himself.

He’s an odd duck. Anyone who follows music knows that. He relishes the challenge that his Montgomery Ward’s catalog guitar poses.

Don't disagree with much of the top 15 from this list at all. I might change a few of the numbers around, but it's a pretty good list.

After much consideration, I’m changing my vote to Keith Richards. I love raunchy riffs over virtuosic playing anyway. I like bands with a one-two punch on guitar the best. And besides, he’s 1/2 of the second best rock and roll song writing duos of all time (behind Lennon/McCartney). So, yeah, Keith Richards.