Originally Posted by: aschleman
This thread is never going to end.

Yup. Heck, if you're looking at inspirational guitarists, you have to go back to the blues players and the early jazz greats. Zep owes a majority of their stuff to the early blues guys as does Clapton and Richards and Lennon&Harrison and so on and so on....

Even the early cowboy sound sort of begat the sounds of early rock and roll, country and rockabilly, which, of course, served to inspire punk...

The supposed King of Rock and Roll, Elvis, openly did blues and 'race' music.

Chet Atkins was so good that almost every guitarist out there credits him and Chuck Berry for their sound. It's funny but so few invent anything but actually put their own spin on something that's already been done and take it to the next level. Which, in a sense, brings us right back to Jimi or EVH. They were different guitar players with different skills but I think that Eddie heard Jimi and thought "Oh yeah..." and then spun off in his own direction.

All in all, I prefer Jimi because I think he was more 'musical' if that makes any sense. Eddie is a faster player than Jimi, but Jimi could make you ache when you heard what he played.