Most Influencial Guitarist

I have a SRV shrine area so I guess???? Hendrix was great and Harrison was highly underrated.

Ah, George Harrison, of course! Harrison was a great player, but I think his "influence" mostly comes from being in The Beatles. There isn't another band that got more people - especially kids - playing guitar. His tasteful solos made a big impression on a whole generation.
 
personally, everything was different after Jimi, then EVH, then Vernon Reid, then Buckethead and Shawn Lane, then Danny Gatton
 
I have a few

John Frusciante

Brent Hinds

John Baizley

Mike Scheidt
 
Any guitarist who played with Procul Harum, because they all had the good taste to stay out of the way of the piano and organ players.

On a more serious note, Albert King.
 
I likely should have phrased the question ... "Who is the most important guitarist."
 
Slash - maybe not the most 'technical' guitarist but when I heard GNR's Sweet Child O' Mine, that made me want to learn guitar so I went out and bought an Epiphone Les Paul Custom and learned to play that intro. I have loved every album Slash has done and is still a big influence to me.

Obviously guys like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci are big heroes of mine too and we all know that Jimi and Jimmy (Page) were big influences on them as well as myself but I got into these more later in life after my 'heroes' cited these as their big influences. I didn't really discover these as my parents were more into Pop than Rock so I wasn't really aware of Rock until the very late 70's, early 80's but it was Slash that made me want to learn to play Guitar.

Most influential overall is difficult to answer - some may say Hendrix for example because the majority of modern professional Guitarists cite him as a major influence on them or at the very least, the person that influenced their 'heroes' - Joe Satriani for example picked up a guitar the day he heard Hendrix died and was a big influence on him. Obviously Stevie Ray Vaughn was influenced by Jimi too.
 
Probably Duane Allman & Dicky Betts (I think Live At The Fillmore East) on the blues side
On the jazz side - Larry Carlton & Jeff Golub
 
Of all people I've ever thought influenced me, mine is odd. Richard Berry of the Kingsman. That lead break in Louie Louie, would still be red hot today. I heard that and thought, Man, I wanna play like that. I don't know if it was because I was in the service in that time, or disconnected but I wasn't much influenced by any of the Rock Gods, Clapton, Page, etc. I know their stuff now, but back then I was a bit meh...I was influenced by Jimi, alot.
 
Personally:
Jerry Garcia. I learned mixolydian from St. Steven & Dark Star 20 years before I knew it had a name.

Acoustic players were always a big influence. Bert Jansch, Gary Davis, Davy Graham.
 
Most influential guitarists... to me... SRV, Jerry Cantrell, Trey Anastasio, Dave Navarro, Dave Matthews, Tuck Andress, Paco de Lucia, Mike McCready and Stone Gossard
 
To me they gotta be Tom Morello and Randy Rhodes, Tom Morello especially because of all those unique sounds he has created
 
For me as a British teenager in the mid 80's through early 90's I'd say Brian May first, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith because of Iron Maiden. Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore through Deep Purple. Early 90's saw Gary Moore and found out about Peter Green. Paul Kossoff was pretty cool too.

Only American guitarist I grew up with was Hendrix, Strangely Van Halen didn't really seem very popular or well known outside of the America.
 
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