List of guitarists by genre - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Early blues

Robert Johnson

Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...

Blind Blake

"Blind" Blake was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist.-Biography:...

Tampa Red

Tampa Red , born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an American Chicago blues musician....

Charley Patton

Blind Lemon Jefferson

"Blind" Lemon Jefferson was an American blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues"....

Bukka White

Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...

Skip James

Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

Blind Boy Fuller

Blind Boy Fuller was an American blues guitarist and vocalist. He was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists with rural Black Americans, a group that also included Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss.-Life and career:Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina,...

Son House

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...

Blues from the 1960s to present

John Mayer

John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

Etta Baker

Etta Baker was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer from North Carolina, United States.-Biography:...

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

Rory Gallagher

William Rory Gallagher, ; 2 March 1948 – 14 June 1995, was an Irish blues-rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, and raised in Cork, Gallagher recorded solo albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s, after forming the band Taste...

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

Jimmy Page

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

Duane Allman

Howard Duane Allman was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary co-founder of the southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band...

Luther Allison

Luther Allison was an American blues guitarist. He was born in Widener, Arkansas and moved with his family, at age twelve, to Chicago in 1951. He taught himself guitar and began listening to blues extensively. Three years later he began hanging outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being...

Mike Bloomfield

Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...

Joe Bonamassa

Joe Bonamassa is an American blues rock guitarist and singer.-Early life:Bonamassa was born and raised in New Hartford, United States. His parents owned and ran a guitar shop. He is a fourth-generation musician...

Roy Buchanan

Roy Buchanan was an American guitarist and blues musician. A pioneer of the Telecaster sound, Buchanan was a sideman and solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career, and two later solo albums that made it on to the Billboard chart. Despite never having achieved stardom, he is still...

Albert Collins

Albert Collins was an American electric blues guitarist and singer whose recording career began in the 1960s in Houston and whose fame eventually took him to stages across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia...

Ry Cooder

Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...

Robert Cray

Robert Cray is an American blues guitarist and singer. A five-time Grammy Award winner, he has led his own band, as well as an acclaimed solo career.-Career:...

Steve 'The Colonel' Cropper

Bo Diddley

Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...

Ronnie Earl

Ronnie Earl is an American blues guitarist and music instructor.-Career:Earl collected blues, jazz, rock and soul records while growing up. He studied American History at C.W...

Robben Ford

Robben Ford is an American blues, jazz and rock guitarist.-Biography:Ford was born in Woodlake, California, United States, but raised in Ukiah, California, and began playing the saxophone at age 10, picking up the guitar at age 13...

Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".-Early life:...

Lowell Fulson

Lowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom...

Guitar Slim

Eddie Jones , better known as Guitar Slim, was a New Orleans blues guitarist, from the 1940s and 1950s, best known for the million-selling song, produced by Johnny Vincent at Specialty Records, "The Things That I Used to Do"...

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

GP Hall

GP Hall is an English guitarist, composer and improviser fusing and mixing both traditional and avant-garde styles...

Chuck Hammer

Chuck Hammer is an American guitarist and Emmy nominated digital film composer, known for seminal guitar-synth with Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Guitarchitecture....

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

Son House

Mississippi John Hurt

John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...

Tony Iommi

Anthony Frank "Tony" Iommi is an English guitarist and songwriter best known as the founding member of pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and its sole continual member through multiple personnel changes.Iommi is widely recognised as one of the most important and influential guitarists in...

Elmore James

Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was known as "the King of the Slide Guitar" and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice.-Biography:James was born Elmore Brooks in the old Richland community in...

Skip James

Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

Blind Lemon Jefferson

"Blind" Lemon Jefferson was an American blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues"....

Lonnie Johnson

Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos...

Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson

Jorma Kaukonen

Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen Jr. is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist, best known for his work with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.-Biography:...

Albert King

Albert King was an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing.-Career:...

B. B. King

Riley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...

Freddie King

Freddie King , thought to have been born as Frederick Christian, originally recording as Freddy King, and nicknamed "the Texas Cannonball", was an influential African-American blues guitarist and singer. He is often mentioned as one of "the Three Kings" of electric blues guitar, along with Albert...

Sonny Landreth

Sonny Landreth is an American blues musician from southwest Louisiana who is especially known as a slide guitar player. He was born in Canton, Mississippi, but soon after, his family moved to Jackson, Mississippi, before settling in Lafayette, Louisiana...

J. B. Lenoir

J. B. Lenoir /ləˈnɔːr/ was an African American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter, active in the 1950s and 1960s Chicago blues scene....

Mance Lipscomb

Mance Lipscomb was an American blues singer, guitarist and songster. Born Beau De Glen Lipscomb near Navasota, Texas, United States, he as a youth took the name of 'Mance' from a friend of his oldest brother Charlie .-Biography:Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895 to an ex-slave father from Alabama and...

Lonnie Mack

Lonnie Mack is an American rock, blues and country guitarist and vocalist....

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal (musician)

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...

Mississippi Fred McDowell

Fred McDowell known by his stage name; Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American Hill country blues singer and guitar player.-Career:...

Brownie McGhee

Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...

Blind Willie McTell

Blind Willie McTell , was an influential Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues, although, unlike his contemporaries, he used exclusively a twelve-string guitar...

Little Milton

James Milton Campbell, Jr. , better known as Little Milton, was an American electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul singer and guitarist, best known for his hit records "Grits Ain't Groceries" and "We're Gonna Make It."-Biography:Milton was born James Milton Campbell, Jr., in the Mississippi...

Memphis Minnie

Memphis Minnie was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.-Career:...

Gary Moore

Robert William Gary Moore , better known simply as Gary Moore, was a Northern Irish musician from Belfast, best recognised as a blues rock guitarist and singer....

Keb' Mo'

Keb' Mo is an American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, currently living in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.-Early life:From early on he had an appreciation for the blues and gospel music...

Big Bill Morganfield

William "Big Bill" Morganfield is an American blues singer and guitarist, who is the son of Muddy Waters.-Biography:Morganfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, but had little contact with his famous father, whose real name was McKinley Morganfield. Instead he was raised in Southern Florida by his...

Matt "Guitar" Murphy

Matt Murphy (blues guitarist)

Matt "Guitar" Murphy is an American blues guitarist.-Life and career:Matt Murphy was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, United States, and was educated in Memphis, where his father worked at the Peabody Hotel...

Pappo

-, 1968:-, 1969:# # # # # # # # # -Rock de la mujer perdida, 1970:...

Charlie Patton

Charlie Patton , better known as Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", and is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man...

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

Tampa Red

Tampa Red , born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an American Chicago blues musician....

Jimmy Reed

Mathis James "Jimmy" Reed was an American blues musician and songwriter, notable for bringing his distinctive style of blues to mainstream audiences. Reed was a major player in the field of electric blues, as opposed to the more acoustic-based sound of many of his contemporaries...

Kelly Richey

Kelly Richey is an American blues rock guitarist, singer and composer based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.-Early life:Kelly Richey was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, in a conservative Christian household that avoided rock music. Her first instrument was the piano. Her second instrument was a...

Duke Robillard

Michael John "Duke" Robillard is an American blues musician.After playing in various bands and working for the Guild Guitar Company, he co-founded the band Roomful of Blues with pianist Al Copley in 1967. He has also been a member of The Fabulous Thunderbirds which included Kim Wilson, replacing...

Robert Ross

Robert Ross (singer)

Robert Ross is an American blues singer, songwriter, guitarist, harmonica player, and leader of the Robert Ross Band.Ross was nominated a total 6 times for a New York Music Award before winning for Best Blues Artist in 1989. He has also won several grants for integrating music into education programs...

Otis Rush

Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...

Todd Sharpville

Todd Sharpville is the younger son of the 3rd Viscount St Davids and younger brother of 4th Viscount St Davids. Sharpville is a British musician, singer-songwriter and lead guitarist, mainly in the blues field...

Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Kenny Wayne Shepherd is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He has released several studio albums and experienced a rare level of commercial success both as a blues artist and a young musician.-Biography:Shepherd graduated Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport, Louisiana...

Jimmy Thackery

Jimmy Thackery is an American blues singer and guitarist.-Career:Thackery spent fourteen years as part of The Nighthawks, the Washington, D.C. based blues and roots rock ensemble...

Jimmy Scott

Jimmy Scott , aka "Little" Jimmy Scott, is an American jazz vocalist famous for his unusually high contralto voice which is due to Kallmann's syndrome, a very rare genetic condition. The condition stunted his growth at four feet eleven inches until, at age 37, he grew another 8 inches to the...

Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer, best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing is characterized by "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic...

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an Amercian pioneering gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock and roll accompaniment...

Walter Trout

Walter Trout is an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.-Biography:Trout's career began on the Jersey coast scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He then decided to relocate to Los Angeles where he became a sideman for Percy Mayfield and Deacon Jones...

Derek Trucks

Derek Trucks is a Grammy Award-winning, American guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He founded The Derek Trucks Band and worked as a session musician when he was still in his early teens. Throughout those teenage years, he toured with The Allman Brothers Band primarily as a slide...

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...

Yavuz Çetin

Yavuz Hilmi Çetin was a Turkish musician as well as songwriter and singer in the blues and psychedelic music genres, who gained renown in his native country for the skill and sensitivity of his guitar performances and, in the wake of his suicide at the age of 30, before the release of his...

Jimmie Vaughan

James Lawrence "Jimmie" Vaughan is an American blues rock guitarist and singer from Dallas, Texas, United States. He is the older brother of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan....

Joe Louis Walker

Joe Louis Walker, also known as JLW is an American musician, best known as a electric blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. A feature of his work is his recourse to older material or playing styles, which revealed his knowledge of blues history.-Career:Joe Louis Walker was born in San...

T-Bone Walker

Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was a critically acclaimed American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was one of the most influential pioneers and innovators of the jump blues and electric blues sound. He is the first musician recorded playing blues with the...

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...

Bukka White

Jack White

Jack White (musician)

Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...

Josh White

Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....

Johnny Winter

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

Experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...

Derek Bailey

Blixa Bargeld

Blixa Bargeld is a composer, author, actor, singer, musician, performer and lecturer in a number of artistic fields...

Syd Barret

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.-Beginnings: 1960s and early 1970s:Branca...

Peter Buck

Peter Lawrence Buck , is an American rock guitarist who is best known for playing in and co-founding alternative rock band R.E.M....

Rhys Chatham

Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...

Nels Cline

Nels Cline is an American guitarist and composer, currently the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco. David Carr of the New York Times describes Cline as "one of the best guitarists in any genre."-Career:...

Loren Mazzacane Connors

Loren MazzaCane Connors is an American experimental musician who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors...

Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...

Bill Frisell

William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...

Fred Frith

Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...

Kim Gordon

Kim Althea Gordon is an American musician, vocalist, artist, record producer, video director and actress. She has sung and played bass and guitar in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, and in Free Kitten with Julia Cafritz...

Keiji Haino

Keiji Haino born May 3, 1952 in Chiba, Japan, and currently residing in Tokyo, is a Japanese musician whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise, singer-songwriter, solo percussion, psychedelic, minimalism and drone styles...

GP Hall

GP Hall is an English guitarist, composer and improviser fusing and mixing both traditional and avant-garde styles...

Christian Hejnal

Christian Hejnal - Addams is an American visual effects producer and the guitarist and occasional vocalist of the Los Angeles-based rock band Scarling.-Musical career:...

Scott Henderson

Scott Henderson is a fusion and blues guitarist best known for his work with the band Tribal Tech.-Early days:Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, Henderson began playing guitar at an early age...

Josh Homme

Henry Kaiser

Henry Kaiser (musician)

Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer.Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "first generation" of American free improvisers.-Biography:His grandfather was the...

Yuri Landman

Yuri Landman is a Dutch experimental luthier who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a list of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japanese and Liam Finn...

Gian Luca Luke Mazza

Thurston Moore

Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

KK Null

KK Null is a Japanese experimental multi-instrumentalist. He began as a guitarist, but soon added composer, singer, electronic musician and drummer to his list of talents, and also studied with the Butoh workshop....

Mike Oldfield

Michael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...

Paul Panhuysen

Paul Panhuysen is a Dutch composer, visual and sound artist. He founded and directed Het Apollohuis, an art space that functioned during the 80's and 90's having artists doing sound installations, sound sculptures, and concerts about free improvisation, experimental music, and electronic...

Lee Ranaldo

Lee M. Ranaldo is an American singer, guitarist, writer, record producer, and visual artist, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth...

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

Marc Ribot

Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...

Omar Rodríguez-López

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez

Omar Alfredo Rodríguez-López is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, writer, actor and film director who was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico...

Keith Rowe

Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...

Jim O'Rourke

Jim O'Rourke (musician)

Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...

Elliott Sharp

Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...

Gary Smith

Gary Smith (Guitarist)

Gary Smith is a avant-garde guitarist, improviser and composer from the United Kingdom. He is known for developing dense extended techniques on electric guitar...

Steve Vai

Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

Flamenco

Vicente Amigo

Vicente Amigo Girol is a Spanish flamenco composer and virtuoso guitarist, born in Guadalcanal, near Seville. He has played as backing guitarist on recordings by flamenco singers El Pele, Camarón de la Isla, Vicente Soto, Luis de Córdoba and the rociero band Salmarina, and he has acted as a...

Niño Mekouar

Charo

María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Gutiérrez de los Perales Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Hinojosa Rasten , better known as Charo, is a Spanish-American actress, comedienne, and flamenco guitarist, best known for her flamboyant stage presence, her provocative outfits, and her trademark phrase...

Moraíto Chico

Moraito Chico

Manuel Moreno Junquera, Moraíto Chico was a Flamenco guitarist....

Miguel de la Bastide

Miguel de la Bastide is a Trinidad born Flamenco composer and virtuoso guitarist who first appeared on the scene in 1996 on the CD compilation Flamenco: Fire and Grace under the record label Narada Productions that placed him alongside some of Spain's most prominent guitarists, including Paco de...

Oscar Herrero

Oscar Herrero is a Flamenco guitarist from Spain. He was born in Tomelloso on 12th March 1959.Oscar Herrero has authored several flamenco guitar teaching DVDs and diadactic text books. Among them:Text books...

: composer, teacher and musician

Paco de Lucía

Paco de Lucía, born Francisco Sánchez Gómez , is a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist and composer. He is considered by many to be one of the finest guitarists in the world and the greatest guitarist of the flamenco genre...

(1947-): Real name Francisco Sánchez

Luis Maravilla

Luis Maravilla was a Flamenco composer. He was born in Seville, Spain.Maravilla studied guitar under Marcelo Molina and Pepe de Badajoz, and debuted professionally at the age of 12 in the Pavon Theatre of Seville. In the 1930's he toured much of North and South America. The Spanish Civil War...

Juan Martín

Juan Cristóbal Martín is a Spanish flamenco guitarist and an author of flamenco guitar method books.-Career:Martín started learning the guitar at the age of six. In his early twenties he moved to Madrid to study under Niño Ricardo and Paco de Lucía. He played in clubs in Málaga, Seville and...

Carlos Montoya

Carlos Montoya was a prominent Flamenco guitarist and a founder of the modern-day popular Flamenco style of music.His unique style and successful career, despite all odds, have left a great legacy for modern day Flamenco...

Ramón Montoya

Ramón Montoya , Flamenco guitarist and composer.Born into a family of Gitano cattle traders, Ramón Montoya used earnings from working in the trade to buy his first guitar...

(1880-1949)

Gerardo Núñez

Gerardo Núñez Díaz is a Spanish guitarist and composer. His roots lie in flamenco, but he has also ventured into fusion with other genres, especially jazz.- Career :...

(1961-)

Paco Peña

Paco Peña is a Spanish flamenco guitarist. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost traditional Flamenco players.Born in Córdoba, Spain as Francisco Peña Pérez, Paco Peña began learning to play the guitar from his brother at age 6 and made his first professional appearance at 12...

(1942-)

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

Manitas de Plata

Manitas de Plata . is a French Gitano flamenco guitarist.-Life:He was born in a Gypsy caravan in Sète in southern France...

Niño Ricardo

Niño Ricardo , born as Manuel Serrapí, was a Flamenco composer, considered by some sources as the most accomplished flamenco player of his day. He played a significant part in the evolution of the flamenco guitar. He lived in the city center of Sevilla...

Sabicas

Sabicas was a Flamenco guitarist, of Romani origin, who was born in 1912 in Pamplona, Spain and died in 14 April 1990 in New York....

(1912-1990)

Manolo Sanlúcar

Manolo Sanlúcar is a flamenco composer and guitarist born in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1945. He is considered one of the most important Spanish composers of present times, and together with Paco de Lucía, Serranito, and Vicente Amigo, one of the main figures in the evolution of the flamenco...

Tomate

Tomate is the third studio album by pop rock Brazilian band Kid Abelha. It was originally released in 1987 by WEA, following the success of previous album Educação Sentimental...

, father of Tomatito

Tomatito

José Fernández Torres, known as Tomatito , is a Spanish Romani flamenco guitarist. He grew up in a musical family, including two uncles: Niño Miguel, a flamenco guitarist, and Antonio, a professional guitarist....

(1958-): Real name José Fernández Torres

Folk and acoustic

William Ackerman

William Ackerman is a Grammy winning guitarist and composer of acoustic-based instrumental music. He founded and ran for many years the influential New Age record label Windham Hill Records.- Career :...

Chet Atkins

Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

Norman Blake

Norman Blake (American musician)

Norman Blake is an instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 50 years Blake has played in a number of folk and Country groups...

Creed Bratton

Creed Bratton is an American actor and musician, a former member of The Grass Roots...

Dan Ar Braz

Dan Ar Braz, born Daniel Le Bras , is a French guitarist and the founder of Héritage des Celtes.- The apprenticeship years :...

Peter Buck

Peter Lawrence Buck , is an American rock guitarist who is best known for playing in and co-founding alternative rock band R.E.M....

Guy Burlage

Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...

Allen Collins

Larkin Allen Collins Jr. was one of the founding members and guitarists of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and co-wrote many of the band's songs with late frontman Ronnie Van Zant...

Ry Cooder

Niño Mekouar

Jim Croce

James Joseph "Jim" Croce January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973 was an American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles...

John Denver

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...

Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...

Nick Drake

Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake was an English singer-songwriter and musician. Though he is best known for his sombre guitar based songs, Drake was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone...

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

Tommy Emmanuel

William Thomas "Tommy" Emmanuel AM is an Australian guitarist, best known for his complex fingerpicking style, energetic performances and the use of percussive effects on the guitar. In the May 2008 and 2010 issues of Guitar Player Magazine, he was named as "Best Acoustic Guitarist" in their...

John Fahey

John Fahey (musician)

John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...

Leslie Fish

Leslie Fish is a filk musician, author, and anarchist political activist.-Music:Along with The DeHorn Crew, in 1976 she created the first commercial filk recording, Folk Songs for Folk Who Ain't Even Been Yet...

Gordon Giltrap

Gordon Giltrap is an English acoustic and electric guitarist and composer, whose musical styles cross multiple genres, including folk, blues, folk rock, pop, classical and rock....

Davey Graham

David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham, originally spelled Davy Graham, , was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival...

Dallas Green

Dallas Green (musician)

Dallas Green is a Canadian musician who releases music as City and Colour. He is also known for his work as the former vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for the post-hardcore band Alexisonfire.-Name:...

David Grier

David Grier is an American acoustic guitarist. He is considered to be one of the premier flatpicking guitarists in the world. His unique phrasing and his ability to create multiple variations on a theme are hallmarks of his playing style...

GP Hall

GP Hall is an English guitarist, composer and improviser fusing and mixing both traditional and avant-garde styles...

Nick Harper

Nick Harper is an English singer-songwriter/guitarist. He is the son of English folk musician Roy Harper.-Early life:Nick Harper was born in London in 1965 to the famous folk singer-songwriter Roy Harper...

Roy Harper

Roy Harper is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid 1960s...

Michael Hedges

Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...

Bert Jansch

Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...

Jewel

Jewel (singer)

Jewel Kilcher , professionally known as Jewel, is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, actress and poet...

Kalai

Nic Jones

Nicolas Paul "Nic" Jones is an English folk singer, fingerstyle guitarist and fiddle player whose professional career spanned the years 1964-1982. He recorded five solo albums, and was a frequent guest performer.-Biography:...

Leo Kottke

Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, which draws on influences from blues, jazz, and folk music, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies...

Jack Lawrence

Jack Lawrence was an American songwriter. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975.- Biography :...

Adrian Legg

Adrian Legg is an English guitar player who has been called "impossible to categorize". He plays custom guitars that are a hybrid of electric and acoustic, and his fingerstyle picking technique has been acknowledged by the readers of Guitar Player who voted Legg the "best acoustic fingerstyle"...

François Luambo Makiadi

Francois Luambo Makiadi

François Luambo Luanzo Makiadi was a major figure in twentieth century Congolese music, and African music in general. He is widely referred to as Franco Luambo or, simply, Franco. Known for his mastery of rumba, he was nicknamed the "Sorcerer of the Guitar" for his seemingly effortlessly fluid...

"Franco"

John Martyn

Dave Matthews

David John "Dave" Matthews is a South African–born American musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band...

Ellen McIlwaine

Ellen McIlwaine is an American singer-songwriter and musician best known for her career as a slide guitarist.-Biography:...

Tony McManus

Tony McManus is a Scottish Steel-string guitarist of Irish descent born in Paisley, Scotland. English guitarist John Renbourn described him as "the best Celtic guitarist in the world". His first self-titled album was released in 1996 on Greentrax Recordings...

Paul McSherry

Paul McSherry, hailing from west Belfast, began playing guitar in 1982 at the age of 14. Inspired by two other great guitarists from west Belfast, Maurice McHugh and Mark Kane, he was self-taught on DADGAD tuning....

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

Tom Paxton

Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...

Al Perkins

Al Perkins is a Texas-born American guitarist. The Gibson guitar company called Perkins "the world's most influential Dobro player", and even began producing an "Al Perkins Signature" Dobro in 2001 - designed and autographed by Perkins....

John Renbourn

John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...

Stochelo Rosenberg

Rosenberg Trio

The Rosenberg Trio are two guitarists and one bassist—Stochelo Rosenberg , Nous'che Rosenberg and Nonnie Rosenberg from the Netherlands. Their inspiration is Django Reinhardt, the legendary gypsy guitarist of the 1930s...

Tony Rice

Tony Rice is an American acoustic guitarist and bluegrass musician. He is considered one of the most influential acoustic guitar players in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and acoustic jazz.Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from traditional bluegrass to jazz-influenced New...

Dick Siegel

Dick Siegel is an American jazz-blues guitarist from Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. He won the Best New Folk Artist award at the 1991 Kerrville Folk Festival, and became a member of the Detroit Music Hall of Fame after winning multiple Detroit Music Awards...

Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

(Simon and Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel are an American duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom & Jerry in 1957 and had their first success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl". As Simon & Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, largely on the strength of the...

)

Elliott Smith

Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and resided for a significant portion of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity...

Ivan Smirnov

Ivan Nikolayevich Smirnov (musician)

Ivan Nikolayevich Smirnov , born 9 September 1955 in Russia, is regarded as one of the greatest guitar players in Russia. He plays many different styles like fusion, folk, Russian folk, jazz, and flamenco...

James Taylor

James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....

Richard Thompson

Leon Wesley Walls

Leon Wesley Walls is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Virgil and Dorothy Walls. The third of four children, Walls was educated in the Covington, Kentucky school system, where he attended Holmes High School...

Doc Watson

Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded...

Hank Williams

Mason Williams

Mason Williams is an American guitarist and composer, best known for his guitar instrumental "Classical Gas". He is also a comedy writer, known for his writing on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and Saturday Night Live...

Don Ross

Jason Wilber

Jason Wilber is an American folk/acoustic guitarist. His five CDs comprise Lost in Your Hometown, Behind the Midway, King for a Day, Live and Otherwise Volume 1 and Lazy Afternoon...

Latin-American music

Manuel Barrueco

Manuel Barrueco is a Cuban virtuoso classical guitarist. He was born in 1952 in Santiago de Cuba, on Cuba's southeastern shore. He has toured in the U.S., Europe and Japan, and serves on the faculty of Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.-Biography:...

(Cuban)

Leo Brouwer

Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor and guitarist. He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona Casado.-Biography:...

(Cuban)

Luiz Bonfá

Luiz Floriano Bonfá was a Brazilian guitarist and composer best known for the compositions he penned for the film Black Orpheus.-Biography:...

(Brazilian)

Abel Carlevaro

Abel Carlevaro was a virtuos performer, classical guitar composer and teacher born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He established a new school of instrumental technique, incorporating a fresh approach to seating and playing the guitar, based on anatomical principles.He had a successful career as a concert...

(Uruguayan)

Oscar Castro-Neves

Oscar Castro-Neves is a Brazilian guitarist, arranger, and composer who is considered a founding figure in Bossa nova. He was born as one of triplets and formed a band with his brothers in his youth. At 16 he had a national hit with Chora Tua Tristeza. Many of the early Bossa Nova musicians began...

(Brazilian)

Alirio Díaz

Alirio Diaz

Alirio Díaz is a Venezuelan classical guitarist.The eighth of eleven children, Díaz was born in Caserio La Candelaria, a small village near Carora in western Venezuela. From childhood he showed a great interest in music. At age 16 he ran away from home to Carora, where he sought better schooling...

(Venezuelan)

Egberto Gismonti

Egberto Gismonti Amin is a Brazilian composer, guitarist and pianist.Gismonti began his formal music studies at the age of six on piano. After studying classical music for 15 years, he went to Paris to study orchestration and analysis with Nadia Boulanger and the composer Jean Barraqué, a disciple...

(Brazilian)

Guinga

Guinga is a Brazilian guitarist and composer born in Madureira, a working-class suburb of Rio de Janeiro...

(Brazilian)

João Gilberto

João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto , is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. His seminal recordings, including many songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, established the new musical genre of Bossa nova in the late 1950s.-Biography:From an early age, music...

(Brazilian)

Antonio Lauro

Antonio Lauro was a Venezuelan musician, considered to be one of the foremost South American composers for the Guitar in the 20th century.- Biography :Antonio Lauro was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela...

(Venezuelan)

Gentil Montaña

Gentil Montaña was a classical guitarist and composer from Colombia.He was the director of the Fundación Gentil Montaña.External links=* - http://www.gentilmontana.org/**...

(Colombian)

Carlos Pérez

Carlos Pérez or Carlos Perez is the name of:*Carlos Andrés Pérez , President of Venezuela*Carlos Pérez , retired MLB player*Carlos Pérez , Spanish flatwater canoer and former world champion...

(Chilean)

Baden Powell de Aquino

Baden Powell de Aquino usually known simply as Baden Powell, was one of the greatest Brazilian guitarists. He explored the instrument to its utmost limits, playing it in a distinctive, unique manner, incorporating virtuoso classical techniques together with popular harmony and swing...

(Brazilian)

Rodrigo Riera

Rodrigo Riera , was a Venezuelan guitarist and composer. He wrote a vital and important body of works for the guitar, inspired by and dedicated to the rich music legacy of his region in the Lara state in Western Venezuela, displaying a loving nationalism that led him to be associated with the work...

(Venezuelan)

Antony Santos

Antony Santos is a bachata musician from the Dominican Republic, renowned for his role in redefining the genre to include romantic music.Santos entered onto the scene in the early 1990s, beginning his career as the guira player for fellow bachatero Luis Vargas, only to leave the group and maintain...

(Dominican)

Super Uba

Super Uba is a popular singer and songwriter of traditional style Dominican bachata & merengue. Super Uba and his group are veterans of the Dominican bachata scene, and some consider them to be to the Dominican Republic what Buena Vista Social Club is to Cuba.The artist favors a traditional, down...

(Dominican)

Toquinho

Antônio Pecci Filho , better known as Toquinho , is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. He is well-known for his collaborations, as composer and performer, with Vinicius de Moraes.-Childhood and musical studies:...

(Brazilian)

Luis Vargas

Luis Vargas may refer to:*Luis Vargas , Bachata musician from Dominican Republic*Luis de Vargas, Renaissance painter from Seville, Spain*Luis Vargas...

Atahualpa Yupanqui

Atahualpa Yupanqui was an Argentine singer, songwriter, guitarist, and writer. He is considered the most important Argentine folk musician of the 20th century....

(Argentine)

Rafael Rabello

Rafael Baptista Rabello , was a virtuoso Brazilian guitarist and composer. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was considered one of the best acoustic guitar players in the world and played with many famous artists, such as Tom Jobim, Ney Matogrosso, Paulo Moura and Paco de Lucia.-Early years:Raphael...

(Brazilian)

Paulinho Nogueira

Paulinho Nogueira , was a Brazilian guitarist, composer and singer. He was an eclectic composer and his influences ranging from Bossa Nova to Bach....

(Brazilian)

Sebastião Tapajós

Sebastião Tapajós is a Brazilian guitarist and composer from Santarém .He started playing guitar with his father when he was nine years old, and studied it in the Conservatório de Lisboa and in the Instituto de Cultura Hispânica de Madrid.He played with many famous MPB artists like Hermeto...

(Brazilian)

Yamandu Costa

Yamandú Costa

Yamandu Costa , sometimes misspelled Yamandú, is a Brazilian guitarist and composer. His main instrument is the violão de 7 cordas, the Brazilian seven-stringed nylon guitar....

(Brazilian)

Rock
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

/pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

Early blues

Blues from the 1960s to present

Flamenco

Folk and acoustic

Latin-American music

See also