101 unsung guitarists

I am not going to even attempt to list all of the players that made this list, but I will start. We'll see where it goes. I might make it an installment kinda' deal.I do beleive that the next great guitar player is some 11 year old kid , playing in his bedroom or garage and driving his parents crazy like we did ours. HEY! LAY OFF THE KID. They won't be complaining when he buys them a mansion with profits from "all that racket" ROCK ON!



Junior Barnard
Of all the amazing guitarists to go through Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys, Barnard’s tonal audacity stands out. His solos on Wills’ “Brain Cloudy Blues” and “Fat Boy Rag” are jazzy, distorted wonders—and this is in the ’40s! Barnard was killed in a 1951 car crash at just 30 years old. “Junior was playing rock and roll years before it had a name,” his brother, Gene, told GP in 1983. —DF

Jan Akkerman
European guitarists in the ’60s and ’70s were often influenced as much by classical, jazz, and gypsy swing as they were by blues and rock and roll. That was definitely the case with Dutch virtuoso Akkerman, whose thrilling performance on Focus’ classic instrumental “Hocus Pocus” [Moving Waves, 1971]—as well as his signature sounds crafted by a volume pedal, a Colorsound treble booster, and multiple Cordovox rotating speakers—brought him to the attention of American listeners. —BC

Davie Allan
Throughout the 1960s, the garage/surf instrumentals of Davie Allan and the Arrows set the pace for scads of motorcycle-gang films. Inspired by Duane Eddy, Nokie Edwards, and Link Wray, Allan created his signature fuzz sound on the song “Blues Theme,” which director Roger Corman used for his 1967 film, The Wild Angels. It turned into a single, and, by the end of the decade, Allan’s guitar work could be heard on dozens of B (for “biker”) movie soundtracks. —AT

Oscar Aleman
It has been said that Aleman could out-swing Django Reinhardt, and Aleman was clearly an equally formidable jazz guitarist. Hitting his stride in Paris in the early ’30s, Aleman sounded less “gypsy” than Django—and he used his fingers instead of a flatpick—but his fiery, virtuosic playing makes him one of the truly unsung heroes of his time. —AT

Scotty Anderson
“It was quite possibly the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Eric Johnson said of watching Cincinnati Tele ninja Scotty Anderson perform. Chet Atkins once told Anderson, “Each time I hear you play, I learn something.” But Anderson must be the Stealth Bomber of guitar, because, although as dangerous as Hank Garland, Merle Travis, and Jimmy Bryant all rolled into one, he hasn’t made much of a blip on radar screens. —JG

Mickey Baker
Known for his ’50s session work with Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, and tons of others, Baker also authored