Who is your overall favorite guitarist?

I haven't read through all the answers, so forgive me if I'm duplicating others. For lyricism and funkiness it's hard to top Ry Cooder. His solo on John Hiatt's "Lipstick Sunset" is the most poetic I've ever heard. For Chuck Berry style Rock 'n Roll it would be Dave Edmunds (he plays like Keith Richards wishes he could, and in fact was one candidate for Brian Jones' replacement in The Stones). For virtuosity, there is a relatively obscure guitarist from the Washington D.C./Virginia area named Danny Gatton, a guitarists guitarist if there ever was one. Vince Gill (a fine guitarist himself) nick-named him "The Humbler"! Then there is a guy I'm sure others have already named, Jeff Beck.

I neglected to mention that Danny Gatton committed suicide years ago. But there are a number of his CD's available, the first one to get probably being the double-CD collection on WB, I believe it is. His sometimes-partner Evan Johns (also a maniac on guitar) told me Danny just wanted to stay home and work on his hot rods (something he had in common with Jeff Beck), playing around locally in bars, but that his nagging wife would not stop pushing him. Evan said Danny shot himself to get away from her!

Roy Clark is always a refreshing change of pace.Jawdroppinly good

Bdp,

Gatton holds a special place in my heart. What a player! His name brings a funny story to mind:

It may have been in the 1970s or 1980s at Fat Tuesday's (a club in NYC) that our group saw him play. On one song, Gatton tuned his guitar by ear while staring at the ceiling. We were close enough that my friend asked what he was looking at. He replied that, for the dropped tuning in that song, he tuned his low e string to the 60hz hum from the fluorescent lights. (Don't ask what he did at clubs without fluorescent lighting, I have no clue).

I understand that he injured himself in IIRC a welding accident and was never the same afterward. Some stories attribute his suicide (at least in part) to that as well.

I hadn't heard that one, Marty. I met Evan in the late 90's, and learned that he and Danny had played together in the 70's. Evan was the songwriter, singer, and second guitarist (everyone is second guitarist in Danny's presence!) in a group they had together in DC. Evan said Danny was the best musician he ever played with.

I did an album with Evan in the late 90's, getting to spend some time with him. He made a bunch of albums, three on Rykodisc, but I don't know how many are still in print. He's a true madman on guitar---he recorded with his Telecaster plugged straight into a blackface Super Reverb on 10. His first choice is a blackface Deluxe, but the studio didn't have one. The Super was in an isolation closet, and the engineer opened the door briefly with Evan playing---it sounded like a jet taking off. The loudest thing I've ever heard, and I saw Hendrix and The Who with Keith Moon! Actually, the loudest band I ever heard were The Kinks---Ray Davies' Telecaster plugged into a Hi-Watt stack was intensely painful.

Evan ate only once the entire week in Atlanta, the rest of the time sustaining himself by chain-drinking room temperature Bud in cans. He got to Atlanta a day before the rest of us, and when we passed the door of his room leaving the hotel our first morning, there were two 18-packs of empty Bud cans laying on the floor. We were supposed to go on the road to support the album, but upon getting back home to Vancouver B.C. (where he lived at the time), Evan didn't feel well and checked himself into the hospital, where he fell into a coma. The doctor told his woman to make funeral arrangements, Evan was in the final stage of liver failure. Three weeks later he woke up and walked out of the hospital. Turns out this had happened a couple of times before. Whatta nut! He lives in Austin Texas now, in what shape I don't know. If you ever get a chance to see him play, don't pass it up---who knows how much longer he'll be around!