Rinji Fukuoka and Akira Yamanouchi of Overhang Party
Maurice Deebank
Robbie Basho
Bert Jansch
Keiji Haino
Paul Metzger
Jack Rose
Chris Martin (Of Kinski, not Coldplay)
Gibbons Bros of Bardo Pond
Munehiro Narita of High Rise
Michio Kurihara of Ghost
Iommi
Dude from Flower Travellin Band
Manuel Gottsching
Jason Kesselring

More will come to mind later....

Have we got certain criteria by which to make these judgements? Skill, stage presence, experimentation, nice ass, best mullet?

I always thought if Slash had a couple of hot oil treatments, he could do Pantene commercials.

I always thought slash would look great locked inside an iron maiden.

Funny, I always thought Steve Harris and Slash would look great locked together...

Preevert.

you might be poking fun but you remind me of another guitarist i forgot.

rudolf's brother:

michael schenker of ufo

i think i'll just post my favorite reggae guitarists, so as not to confuse myself with a seemingly endless list....

peter tosh and earl "china" smith and the most outrageous and technically proficient guitar players in reggae, period.

Oh stop, that word gets me all kinds of hot 'n bothered.

Like you don't live in a constant state of arousal.
You can't blame me.

I'm not the one who needs to surround myself with interactive genitals.

i also really like leo kottke's early instrumental folk stuff. some inhuman shit right there.

James Iha was always great. He's really psychedelic, man. He plays toy rayguns through his pickups. What a legend.

Oh, and Nigel Tufnel.

Jimmy Page was a big influence on me. His playing got me into guitar.
Now my main influences are Thurston and Lee. I've tried so many different tunings and different ways of playing guitar (using a screwdrive/drumstick) because of them.

Some great ones i havent seen listed so far:
Steve Howe
Mark Knopfler
Dave Navarro

Thurston, Lee, Joey Santiago, Greg Ginn, East Bay Ray... probably more.
Ray was really awesome, fast and inventive and you never really hear anything about him.

Kevin Shields & Eliott Smith.

of coure the collectiveof sy...
and so on,,,
tom verlaine
j mascis
lou barlow (style points yesi)
dave pajo
billy corgan (shut up)
johnny greenwood
who ever plays guitar in built to spill
lou reed (metal machine music!!!)
ronald jones (was in the flaming lips around transmissions to clouds)
avey tare and deaken (animal colllective)
keith richards
easy bay ray (i second that notion)
ron ashteon

man, who else can play a guitar solo with two guitars and a violin at the same time?

no one else!!!!

I like the dude from AOR.

Frank Zappa.

okai for real.

lee ranaldo
t.moore
j.mascis
tom verlaine
sonic boom
nels cline

Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire and other projects i've never heard is pretty rad.

Billy Corgan (I find he is really underrated)
Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg
Bernard Sumner
Matthew Good
Jonny Greenwood
the guitarists of Controller.Controller

Shit, I forgot about Dick Dale! Yay,surf rock!!!!!

I met Dick Dale once. Nice guy. I think he broke three of my fingers when I shook hands with him. It was like a vise.

me too!!!!

man, a great inspiration!!

Savage Clone: that's sounds both awesome and intriguing

Jimi Hendrix

Dick Dale is the man. To bad he ripped off the Black Eyed Peas.....siiiiike:fuckyou:

the no jive five

Jimi
Sonny
Skip
Muddy
Buddy

Annie Clark from St. Vincent is amazing.

Danny Ash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e3mILuRfY0

Someone I know and speak to occasionally recently told me about the time he went to go see him in NYC back in the 80s. Which... if I would've been able to experience I might've been content dying afterwards. That's a blissful way to put it.

Ron Asheton
Buddy Guy
Jimi
Cheetah Chrome
Lee Ranaldo
in
no
particular
order
always
subject
to
change
sans
ronnie
and
lee r.

Favorite guitarists? Can't really think of any offhand.

Alan Sparhawk
Vic Chesnutt
Efrim Menuk
Lou Barlow
J Mascis
Neil Young
Lee Ranaldo
Peter Visser (Bettie Serveert)

I agree with Fahey.

Most of my favorites are probably pretty ordinary. The usual suspects. Verlaine, Mascis, Shields, Ranaldo.

I think my list would be different if I played the instrument myself. Wish I did. :(

ditto most of the people listed here, plus:

Davey Graham
Kenny Hakansson
Bo Anders-Persson
Reine Fiske
Richard Thompson
Omar Khorshid
Ibrahim Ag Alhabib
Mick Turner
Susan Alcorn
"Sneaky" Pete Kleinow
Link Wray
John Renbourne
Michael Rother
Rafael Toral
Debashish Bhattacharya
Brij Bushan Khabra
Dr. Kamala Shankar
Rev. Blind Willie Johnson
Bola Sete
Roebuck "Pops" Staples
Junior Kimbrough
Bruce Langhorne
Santo and Johnny Farina
Duane Eddy
John Abercrombie
Stacy Sutherland
Alessandro Alessandroni