The best ROCK guitarist of the modern era.

[flatheads_4ever]

Clapton and Page never did anything for me. Hendrix was epic.

 

[jcj]

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone better than Nuno...

 

[Stradazone]

HOLDSWORTH!!!!

Just ask these guys:

Quotes:
Originally Posted by Frank Gambale
"I saw Allan play last night at the Baked Potato and I must say that, without a doubt, he is truly The Grand Master..."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn Lane
"I saw Allan Holdsworth when I was about 14 in 1978. I never dreamed a guitar could be played like that and that really changed my whole life.

If I hadn't had seen Holdsworth I may have just continued to play some blues and rock music and might have even given it up later or something,

but when I saw him at 14, that really inspired me to try to play guitar in my own way at another level."
Quote:
Originally Posted by John McLaughlin
"I recall a concert of Allan in London some years ago, and after the performance I went to see him backstage only to tell him that if I knew what he was doing, I'd steal it!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yngwie Malmsteen
"Allan Holdsworth also has a strong style. A long time ago, Jens took me to see him in a small club in New York. I had to take my hat off to him."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Metheny
"I totally agree that Allan is one of the greatest guitarists ever - his work on the mid-70's Tony Williams records was revolutionary and changed everything for guitarists everywhere. It is a real mystery to me why he is not a household name. but it really doesn't matter, his contribution is large and i think all musicians know it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Morse
"His influence is just that he's such a drastic unyielding individual. You know, 'I'm going to do my thing and I'm going to do it the best I can."
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Petrucci
"There's so many great guitar players. Al DiMeola, Alan Holdsworth, Mike Stern, John Scofield, so many great players..."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Santana
"He has something totally beautiful..."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Satriani
"You know, I should say at the beginning, a big difference between me and Allan is that I built on stuff that Allan pioneered, and in a small way (chuckles) I tried to assimilate a lot of what he did on the guitar technically. So it's very different. His musicianship was so far ahead of mine when I was starting out, looking at books and picking out scales and stuff;

Allan was in a stage where he was constantly reinventing guitar, and I was a fan in the audience, you know what I mean?

So I'd have to say in all honesty, I've taken from Allan Holdsworth, and tried to figure out, "How can I use what this guy has done to further what I'm trying to say?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Vai
Steve Vai did an article entitled "Guitar Secrets" - "Pull off and Hammer-on" in Guitar Power magazine in May 1986 and explaining the "legato" technique with examples he says ...

"Allan Holdsworth is a master of playing this style."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eddie Van Halen
"Holdsworth is the best in my book. He's fantastic. I love him."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Zappa
Q: Was there ever a practitioner of the guitar - Hendrix say - that blew you away in terms of being a total original?

FZ: "One of the most interesting guys on guitar on the planet is Allan Holdsworth. I really respect his playing."

 

[SpiderWars]

There's a lot of technically gifted players out there, especially since the internet put learning stuff into warp drive.
I'll go ahead and cross off Doug Aldrich types because they are essentially copying someone else's creations (and putting a great flair of their own into it). Abasi is amazing but too much mathematical perfection. Joe Satch writes his own tunes and they are memorable. You have to have that and lead acrobatics. I really like Jeff Loomis a lot too ...though I wouldn't say Satch and Loomis have the world's best tone. Petrucci may have been it for me but I find DT unlistenable anymore because of the vocalist. I'm still open for candidates...

What I bolded I think makes this a different era than the post-EVH era. That era is over and we are now in the internet era.

The basic yet enormous difference is that the previous era guys learned by playing to records and there was no internet. The resources like youtube and other learning sites/tools make the learning process different. Way more TAB available (even though a lot of it is still probably wrong). To me this is a huge difference and enough to define a new era. The 'post-EVH era' can't last forever and I don't know what year we transitioned to 'internet era' but I think we are def in the newer era. And I'm from the old era fwiw.

That said, Satch just might be the guy from that era. Everyone has their own criteria for 'best' and per mine, I can't think of anyone to top Satch.

 

[Dave L]

Well, if we´re talking about an internet era, I´d say it starts somewhere around 2002-2005. Before that you were definitely still using instructional tapes/DVDs and booklets, much the same since the mid 80s, and scouring the internet for page after page of word-formatted tabs wasn´t that much of a quantum leap. But from 2002, maybe, there´s GuitarPro, Tuxguitar and stuff like that, and even if Youtube didn´t come along until 2005 or so you could still find tons of video at that point.