The decline and fall of western civilization:

[Andy Volk]

Western Civilization is safe for the moment. Elvis Costello is telling folks to buy Louis Armstrong's records instead of an expensive box set put out by his record company. A rare combination of class and brass balls.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/ ... 4O20111129

[Dana Blodgett]

One of the things that kinda bugged me was: they listed Neil Young in front of Les Paul! I love both players but Really!?

[Joachim Kettner]

"To Barney Kessel" by a famous rock guitarist ( number 10 in the list):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2bWwo_1g-0

[David Mason]

Neil Young, Kurt Cobain, the Grateful Dead and a host of others can be interchangeably inserted into the joke,

"What did the ________ fan say when he/she/it ran out of drugs?"

"My god, this music sucks!"

You either "get it" or not. I "get" the '72 to '78 Dead, and not the others. Woe to anyone who attacks Neil Young in the wrong company, those wolverines have sharp little teeth. I liked his 39-minute joke rockabilly record best, at least he was pretending to be happy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmiOBYJy2vk

[James Mayer]

Taste is an interesting thing. I love Neil Young but I get into trouble when I state my opinion of the Stones' "Exile On Main Street", which bores the **** out of me. Maybe the most overrated album ever.

[Larry Miller]

...you have to ask yourself, how valid is a list that omits Derek Bailey?

[Mark Eaton]

...you have to ask yourself, how valid is a list that omits Derek Bailey?

Larry, the reality is that there are likely very few people who are not serious students of the guitar that have asked that question. Nor did they ask themselves why wasn't George Van Eps, Tal Farlow, Charlie Christian (well - maybe Christian should have been a no-brainer), and Grady Martin included.

I was in the supermarket the other day and perusing the magazine rack there it was - this issue. "Oh, so they're doing this Top 100 Guitarists thing again. It was about 10 years ago when they did this with Hendrix on the cover."

This time it's Jimmy Page on the cover and the magazine did its job - it got me to pick it up and open it to this article. I was in sort of a hurry so I couldn't spend too much time digesting it, and no - I didn't buy it. But I'm sure a little later some other baby boomer type came along and put it in their shopping cart.

And to use a popular Seinfeld line: "not that there's anything wrong with that..."

Because Rolling Stone, sometimes, still does a good job. You want something kind of entertaining to read during your lunch break at work, this Top 100 article would fit the bill. Yeah, there are omissions - but this sort of thing provoking discussion isn't really any different than baseball fans sitting around in a bar with a brew and bowl of pretzels arguing about something like who was that greatest center fielder of the three: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, or Joe DiMaggio.

It's become somewhat fashionable to slam the 'Stone in the past decade or more. That's right - I called it the 'Stone, and back in the day we all knew what that referred to - didn't have to use the full title - it was culturally that important. Growing up in the Bay Area near Ground Zero where the magazine was founded and existed for its first several years before Jann Wenner moved it to New York, my older brothers and I treasured every issue when they came in the mail and devoured them from front to back. It's changed a lot over the years, and it has been many years since I have subscribed, but I occasionally buy a copy off the newstand if something seduces me to do so. And I'm sure glad that Jann Wenner thought of this thing and started publishing in 1967.

It would probably be much more appropriate to lengthen the title of the article and call it "The 100 Greatest Guitarists In the History Of Popular Music."

But then that wouldn't invite the outrage of leaving out the likes of Derek Bailey. Maybe the editors knew exactly what they were doing!

And if this is indicative of "the decline and fall of western civilization" - then I guess we're not as bad off these days as I thought. The real decline I see comes from some of the nearly illiterate buffoons I see contributing to blogs, forums, and the comment section below some YouTube videos.

And yes - it seems to be a trend to slam Clapton as well and declare him overrated. I saw him play for the first time in several years at the HP Pavilion in San Jose earlier this year. Tix were free which was nice, otherwise they were too expensive. And on a scale of 1 to 10 I have been to many concerts in my life that were better. But I have to tell you, when they would put closeups on the big screen above the stage of the left hand, the "Slowhand" - and I could watch vividly what he was doing and study those liquid movements - maybe I'm just impressionable, but it impressed the hell out of me.

[ebb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Kjtp4sA9E

[James Mayer]

So, i guess no one here thinks that maybe Sabicas or Paco De Lucia should be in the top ten, at least?

[Mark Eaton]

So, i guess no one here thinks that maybe Sabicas or Paco De Lucia should be in the top ten, at least?

We can take that further - what if if they put Sabicas on the cover instead of Page, my theoretical baby boomer magazine buyer might have passed it by and picked up a guitar mag below it with an aging Eddie Van Halen on the front.

Of course any Flamenco fans that ventured past the magazine rack later in the day would have snatched it up in a jiffy!

[Mark Eaton]

I just found these comments by Rolling Stone's David Fricke in reference to the 2003 (not ten years ago as I wrote earlier) version with Hendrix on the cover.

"In 2003, I proposed to my editors a special issue devoted to the best and most influential guitarists in rock. They suggested a number – 100 – and the idea of ranking them. I came up with the names, based on my life-long love of the instrument and those who play it. One hundred proved to be too small for the job – my working list of the worthy ran closer to 500 – and the running order was frustrating work. In the end, I looked at it this way: Jimi Hendrix was Number One in every way; the other 99 were all Number Two.

The original inspiration was a celebration of the guitar and how it changed the world – and me. Everyone has their own version of this list. This was mine, in 2003.

– David Fricke, 2011"

[Lane Gray]

Personally, I'm storming the barricades over the omission of Karl Farr.
EDITED: Stupid Autocorrect.

Just assuming he ain't there. Didn't bother looking, though (if Charlie and Django ain't there, probably safe to assume).