Steve Howe. Listen to The Yes Album. If you were to learn every song on it, as a guitarist, you would need a half dozen different instructors just to get you through all the styles. Even then, Clap alone would take most guitarists YEARS to master, if ever.

Its to hard to listen to yes and not worship the bassist. Howe is no doubt great, but god damn Squire rules.

With Yes, I always liked to listen focusing on any one member. I have to agree, especially on early Yes stuff, Mr. Squire ALWAYS played something that 99.99999% of bassists would never have thought of, and the tone and choice of notes coupled with his immaculate timing made any given Yes song 10X more explosive.

Fripp, Zappa, and Buckhead should be beating out Gilmour.

Why is that?

I like Pink Floyd but I feel that it's more for general atmosphere as whole than guitar work. Not that I dislike David Gilmour, his guitar work was good, mind you, just don't feel it particularly is the trait that made Pink Floyd a success, and I believe if you compare sheer importance of his guitar work to the music compared to the three mentioned, he's less notable.

Albeit, I guess, Zappa maybe not as much since he relied more on composition and could easily do without his rather overlooked sheer skill, and the same could probably be said about Fripp even if his guitar work is obviously a very essential element to King Crimson.

Essentially though, David Gilmour is very noteworthy, but I don't think particularly as a guitarist.

In that sense your definitely correct. For instance listening to a Buckethead album, you know who the prodigy is right away. In Gilmore's case I wouldn't let the fact that he had amazingly talented musicians around him take away from his playing. Or im not making any sense :(

Naw, I get what you're saying. Not to say that his playing should be overlooked, either. Just don't think, of the people on the list, he's as noteworthy as a guitarist, that's all.

Steve Wilson won my vote. He rarely uses too much technical skill in his lines, but that's not to say he doesn't have any. I feel like he's the reason Porcupine Tree has such a diverse style, just because a lot of the time his playing is all over the spectrum from the calm acoustic intro of Trains to the heavier sounds of Anesthetize.

I had also considered John Petrucci for the opposite reason, being that he was probably the most technical guitarist on the list. But the emotion Wilson brings to the table outweighs Petrucci's barrage of 32nd notes any day.

There's no option for Fripp AND Belew? I voted Belew anyway.

Are you sure Steve Wilson belongs there - he sounds pretty pedestrian to me.

oops I meant Fripp.....