Who is the absolute best guitar player you've ever seen play live?

Kid named Chag in Michigan, when I was a kid. We were both in garage bands. Amazing talent....never heard from him again.

 

Well I've seen SRV, Pete Townshend (I love The Who), Alex Lifeson (local hometown band for me), Eddie Van Halen, and Steve Vai live so those are probably my top five.

 

Best live I ever heard was Steve Morse. Or Vince Gill.

 

Best I've seen live was Joe Walsh. Although, thinking back, Frank Zappa was pretty damn good.

 

TE. Back in the eighties before america heard of him, he played a little pub in beautiful downtown Woolloongabba. There were maybe fifty patrons standing around a tiny stage with just Tommy and his guitar doing his amazing thing.

 

Steve Howe, but perhaps not always easy to listen to unless you liked the music. For my newer taste and just plain cool, Doug Pettibone with Lucinda. Of course, Eddie Perez with Dwight awakened me to a new tone, one of them Telecasters.

 

a homeless dude on borrowed gear in a club, never did catch his name

either him or Monty Montgomery maybe

 

I don't know how hard it is to play a bender with the chops that Marty has but it's some of the best guitar of the sort out there...

 

Tommy Emmanuel

 

Danny Gatton by a long shot.

 

I worked at a small blues club as a bartender in the early 80's in Dallas called Nick's Uptown and their was this guy Stevie Ray Vaughan who played every Wednesday night, probably about 80 people there. Those were just rip roaring crazy shows every time.

 

Just so you know, that guy had a good career and got fairly popular.

I do have some bad news though....

 

Tab Benoit and Kim Simmonds of Savoy brown - not necessarily in that order

 

At the age of 66 ive seen a hen house load of them, but the very best is Guthrie Trapp! Fast, Clean, and Pure.... The man not one time did he F$#%-up!

 

Well dang! I was wondering what happened to that guy. He'd jump up on the bar and walk across it playing behind his back, then stop, hold a note, turn around and wedge the bottom of the guitar on the bar and grab the neck and shove his boot into the back and bend the crap out of it and start riffing again at the same time from behind crouched down, while the bartenders waved lit bar towels at him "I'm not worthy" style.

 

I've seen a lot of pickers in my time, I won't put a "best" on any of them. A classical guitarist, a flamingo guitarist, a rock guitarist, they are all worthy in their respective venues. Saw a lot of really good jazz musicians in Vegas when I lived there, don't who they were now, but man could they play. Best, I don't know about best, there's a lot of people who play very, very well, hanging a tag on 'em ain't for me.

Saw Glenn Campbell one time live years ago, of that genre of pickers, he would have to be considered "one" of the best that's for sure. Saw Don Rich live, what he did seemed simple, but it wasn't and he was such a good backup singer for Buck, how do you put a handle on that? Naw, there's a lot of pickers, don't know if there is a best.

 

The best guitarists I've seen live are probably jazz guys. Bill Frisell and John Abercrombie might be #1 and #1A.

 

Haven't got to see that many in person. Junior Brown probably the best of the chicken pickers I've seen. Warren Haynes, Buddy Guy & Matt "Guitar" Murphy also all left lasting impressions on me as a young player.