She had to know.....

When I was in High School and was dating my future wife, I could name just about any guitar player in any band. The funny thing was I forced the future boss to learn them all as well. She could tell you them all (and not just the easy ones)...Who are the Guitar players for Cinderella, without blinking an eye she would tell you Tom Kiefer and Jeff Labar. Badlands...Jake E. Lee, Quiet Riot..... Carlos Cavazzo (after Randy Rhoads quit to play with Ozzy). She can still remember a lot of them (although she won't admit it). She is not quite the headbanger I am (although the CD player in her car includes Queensryche and Triumph) as her tastes run mostly in the range of Tim McGraw, Eagles etc.

So that being said, here is my list of the best all time guitar players, and if you don't like it you can kiss my ass (and it's subject change depending on what I am listening to at the time):

1) Eddie Van Halen - what can be said, one of the greatest innovators of all time, but also one hell of a rhythm guitar player. He re-invented Rock guitar. Of course now he is a ego maniac loser who lost his talent due to drugs and alcohol. Sigh, I hope we will see (hear) another disk from him and the boys in the future but I doubt it.

2) Rik Emmett - probably the most under rated guitarist of all time. He can play anything. Rock, Jazz, Blues, Classical, it doesn't matter. He does it all. Saw him play an acoustic show about 3 months ago with Dave Dunlop and it was awesome. He can rock just as good as he could in the 70's/80's. Get a copy of "Triumph - Live at the US Festival" and after watching that you don't agree...well it will only mean you don't know talent when you see it.

3) Ritchie Blackmore - Rainbow, Deep Purple it matters not. Probably the greatest guitar tone of all time, and what can be said about a guy who wrote one of the most memorable riffs of all time.

4) Randy Rhoads - To bad his career was cut short by a doped up want to be pilot. Listen to the song Diary of a Madman and tell me this guy wasn't a guitar god? It would have been amazing to hear what he was capable of if he didn't have to rush through recording Blizzard and Diary. Rumor was he was going to quit Ozzy and study classical guitar.

5) Andres Segovia - Classical master. I wish I was one tenth as good as he was. No distortion, no reverb just six string magic.

6) Then everybody else, Malmsteen, Page, Vai, Satch, Hendrix, DiMeola, I could go on and on but I won't. Where would I put myself on the list? Probably somewhere around 1,999,999,999,999, although that might be giving myself too much credit.

I am sure I left somebody off the list (how could I not it's only 11 players). If anybody out there actually ever reads this thing, feel free to post your favorites.