Stevie Ray Vaughan is the G.O.A.T. Change my mind

The Moose said
I am just gonna leave this here.

Two masters playing another master

I bought that CD shortly after it came out, it is absolutely brilliant, with the Dregs ex fiddle player Mark O'Conner playing on some of it....

Yatman said
SRV is my favorite modern-era blues guitarist, followed closely by Robert Cray and (gasp) John Mayer. BB, Albert, Buddy, et al are from a different time.

Many great axemen listed in this thread, and many more not listed. My vote for all-time best goes to Pat Metheny.

BTW, where are the wimmins? No mention of Shawn Colvin, Patty Larkin, Susan Tedeschi, fo' shame.

GOAT guitarist is like GOAT ice cream; too many flavors and nuances of flavors. At least there's someone for everyone.

Love Pat Methany, he is one of my favorite players and a mindboggling brilliant composer....he went to Miami to study music and one of his classmates was Steve Morse, he said in an interview after seeing Morse play he felt like he was going to have a heart attack....Jaco Pastorius was also in that music school...can you imagine? My god....

UndeadSnoopy said
I never cared for Clapton. I never got it.

Jimi was a great.

Eddie is my guitar god.

I would argue that no one ever influenced more guitar players than EVH.

For good and bad.

No offense but this is patently false. I won't deny EVH is a great player but most influential? Not by a long shot...Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Gilmore, Alex Lifeson....all way more influential....Here is the thing all of those guys above, the bands they were in, their music has overcome the test of time....I really don't think Van Halen's music has as big an impact as any of those other bands....may not be your favorites but they were the more influential than EVH....

UndeadSnoopy said
Maybe you're not.

It's subjective.

I would say that most wannabe guitar players that heard EVH tried to imitate him.

All of the Hair Band's guitarists were trying to play his solos in the eighties.

Page was incredible. So was Hendrix. Stevie Ray (his influence was Hendrix) also.

But EVH was a Mozart that people tried to copy (and usually failed).

You do know that EVH wasn't the first to do the tapping technique, right? He did make it mainstream for sure. Most interviews I've seen he goes back and forth on major influences, with Clapton and the guy that developed the technique...Allan Holdsworth, who technically was superior and was more dynamic than EVH...so are Steve Morse, Paco de Lucia and a whole lot of bluegrass players...I'm not saying they are better, that is subjective, but they were capable of more on the guitar...