Guitar World Readers Poll: The Greatest Guitarist of All Time

[The Rossness]

The best guitarist of all time...

From a technical level, it's Shawn Lane. No one has ever been on his level and may never get there. Fusion isn't everyone's cup of tea, so I don't know how he'd ever get a top 10 spot???

From a composition level, its either Satch or EVH.

For pure speed- MAB, Rusty Cooley, Chris Impellitteri

IMO, the best overall players out there are either Steve Vai or Guthrie Govan. Vai is incredible both with his technical ability and song writing. Govan is simply incredible and to see him live is beyond jaw dropping and he can play any style with grace, speed, tone, technical ability and songs that don't get boring.

[Axewielder]

Mark Tremonti beat out Jeff Loomis in the first round? Puleeeeze.

[Whoopu2]

What no Lil Wayne??

[decadence5423]

What no Lil Wayne??

[Larz]

I grew up on GFTPM too....tab before the internet was a precious thing.

GW polls....ha ha, just waiting for them to crown the guys from Bullet For My Valentine as the best guitar duo of all time over Tipton/Downing

[BayRocker]

GFTPM...best guitar mag ever...still have every copy.

[xenophobe]

If it wasn't for GFTPM, I probably wouldn't be here now! I remember the first one that I discovered, it had Yngwie and Billy Sheehan on the cover. Up to that point, I had never encountered guitar tab, and thought that the only way to learn guitar from a book was chord boxes and those shitty "Play In A Day" things.

Haha omg. I had that issue too. It might still be in my storage. At least the cover. I often pulled those apart for the tabs, kept the articles in a manilla folder and hung the covers on my wall.

I have to go to my storage locker. I even think I know where that box is. I used to cut out all the pictures... I had a whole collage wall of Judas Priest, another of Ozzy and my other two walls were just covered with random stuff. lol

[Snoogans]

That was the best guitar mag ever. I miss that too.

If it wasn't for GFTPM, I probably wouldn't be here now! I remember the first one that I discovered, it had Yngwie and Billy Sheehan on the cover. Up to that point, I had never encountered guitar tab, and thought that the only way to learn guitar from a book was chord boxes and those shitty "Play In A Day" things.

[xenophobe]

Guitar For The Practicing Musician.

That was the best guitar mag ever. I miss that too.

[superduty01]

In lieu of paying writers to produce actual useful content GW will now be going 90% reader polls, 5% tabs, and 5% product 'reviews' of their advertiser's products.

Don't forget their quarterly cover/interviews with Mark Morton and Willie Adler, and whatever band happens to be the flavor of that particular month. I really miss Guitar For The Practicing Musician.

[Hellbat]

In lieu of paying writers to produce actual useful content GW will now be going 90% reader polls, 5% tabs, and 5% product 'reviews' of their advertiser's products.

[Mr Metal]

Looks like that just like many other mainstream polls, popularity has won over skill and importance to the genre. Look at how many great names never made it past the first round. Placement certainly didn't help either. It is supposedly random, but when I see Mustaine vs. Marty and Yngwie vs. Blackmore and Hendrix vs. Kenny Wayne Shepherd I can't help but wonder.

[xenophobe]

God, there is so much wrong with that list... I'm compelled to write all the WTF were they thinking matching up players by genre, but by the finals, most of the greatest guitarists will have already been weeded out because of bad initial placement. Gotta love flawed methodology...

[Hellbat]

Clearly it should be George Harrison and the guy from Coldplay. Album sales should trump skill. EVH and Steve Stevens win honorable mentions for rubbing off on Michael Jackson's fame wagon.

[VitaminG]

Kurt Cobain. Or the dude from Blink182