Wow, I can’t believe I said Neal Morse,that was stupid.
United States=Good Guys: what???
Petrucci from Dream Theatre. From what I understand he sometimes plays as a solo guitarist with Vai and Satriani.
Some underrated guitarists (relatively) are Roy Buchanan (already mentioned), Clarence White and Steve Cropper.
Rock Drummers–
Keith Moon, Levon Helm, Ginger Baker, Stephen Jo Bladd, from the J. Geils Band (who did a lot of good albums before the “Centerfold” video hit big)
guitar-ace frehley
drums-keith moon
bass-les claypool
Guitar - Satriani
Drums - Lars Ulrich
putting on flame resistant suit I never could understand why many people list Jimi as being the best guitarist. I realize that most guitarist claim he is an influence. I just don’t get it.
hendrix all the way!!!
Slash from guns ‘n’ roses.
what about the one arm dude from deff leopard?
Carlos Santana said Prince is by far the most under-rated guitarist, when asked who he thought the best guitarist was.
Dave Lombardo is tight saw slayer live once.
pour some sugar on meeeeee=gay
i’d like to see their one armed drummer play the guitar, then i’ll be impressed.
what about chris contos(sp)?
a big part of who is the best is how many people that person has influenced as a result, in hockey Partick Roy would be a good example, he changed the nature of the sport.
Eddie Van Halen did the same for the guitar, you don’t see the influence so much any more, but hundreds of thousands picked up the guitar because of him and what he did had never been done before, those Roth era albums still hold up today. He still doesnt get the respect he deserves for his song writing either, many virtuosos could write their way out of a paper bag.
Peter Criss, Tommy Lee and Vinnie Paul have done the same for drummers. Minus the song writing, of course.
That’s my 2 cents.
Petrucci did the G3 tour a while back. It was pretty good. Satriani for mainstream was the best, but nobody could keep up with Vai for showmanship; it was simply astounding.
Paul Gilbert’s playing is technically amazing and quite humourous a times but I find myself questioning his songwriting skills. Petrucci’s instrumental writing was similar in that respect. At G3 he had a couple of catchy tunes but I was mostly there to watch him shred, which he did for most of the show.
The highlight of the show is when Steve Morse made a surprise showing and played the last 30 minutes of the show when Petrucci, Vai, Satriani and he were all up on the stage together. They did some cover tunes and it was cool to see them all.
For me:
Vai - Passion and Warfare
Satriani = Flying in a blue dream
Petrucci = Images and Words (Dream Theater)
Morse = High Tension Wires
Jimi Hendrix
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Carlos Santana
Whatever happened to Kenny Wayne Shepherd? A few years ago people where touting him as the second coming of Jimi.
Best drummer: Doug Flutie hehe
Guitar - Hendrix, Steve Ray Vaugn, Randy Rhodes,Angus Young, Chad Taylor(Live), Pete Townshend
Drums - Rick Allen(Def Leppard), Neal Pert, John Bohnam
Bass - John Entwistle
bon jovi?
Dr. D-Lo: What do you think about drummers (at least out of the drummers from that G3 tour Portnoy, Donatti, and campetelli?)
I took a picture with petrucci outside of the NY show on that tour.
BradTGIF - What? No Santana in your list of guitarists?!
note to self - send Brad Santana’s “Moonflower” CD…
Nice list, though! I completely forgot Eddie Van Halen, who has some of the quickest fingers around.
humanator - Ace Frehley? I used to absolutely love KISS back in the day, and Ace was definitely the coolest looking guitarist ever (with the makeup), but his solos were pretty simple and basic, in my opinion.
I give him a “one thumb up”.
Stevie Ray Vaughn was good.
Eric Clapton? Overrated.
Grundy: You forgot to sign off, dude. 
Eddie Van Halen is great. He was influenced by Alen Holdsworth though. Eddie’s a great player but Allen was doing that stuff before Eddie and better than Eddie. No dis on Eddie though, we all have to get inspiration from someone.