Who is your overall favorite guitarist?

Gary Moore Emil Ernebro Albert King 

I don't have an overall favorite... how could I?  When I'm in the mood for  Hendrix, he's my favorite. Likewise, Freddie King, Grant Green, Ralph Towner, Jeff Beck, Otis Rush, Emily Remler, Richard Thompson, Peter Green, Sonny Sharrock, Duane Allman, Tony Rice, Pat Martino, J. Garcia, Santana, Jimmy Raney, Ronnie Earl, Philip Catherine, Roy Buchanan, Wayne Krantz, J. McLaughlin...  

It would make sense to me to ask us to name a favorite guitarist in one genre, but this, I don't understand. . . 

Jimmy Page

The first who comes to mind in Rock would be Jerry Cantrell, although I have a lot of love and respect for Johnny Winter and Jimi Hendrix of course. In the world of Jazz, it would have to be Joe Pass.

It's interesting: Rock'n' Roll was the result of the combining of disparate elements: mostly Jump Blues (a form of Black dance music popular in the late 40's and early 50's, played in Juke Joints in the South. That's the Black music Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, etc. were going to the Jukes to hear. The lead instrument was usually tenor sax, not guitar), Hillbilly (all the Rockabilly guitarists had the same main influence: Merle Travis. On the Moontan album I recorded with Evan Johns---a maniac of a Telecaster player---we did an instrumental song Evan wrote, entitled "Shoot The Merle". Get it? ;-), Pop, and a little Gospel.

Yet the majority of the guitarists mentioned in this thread are primarily Blues-style players. The Yardbirds and Stones, then Cream, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and all the other UK bands (the U.S. musicians following their lead) made non-Blues-based music passe'. Yes, Hendrix (@730waters: show some respect, and spell Jimi's last name correctly ;-) was American, but he came out of England. Jimi's influence amongst other players is unquestionably the greatest of any guitarist to have ever been recorded. 

When Dylan went electric, he chose Mike Bloomfield---a very influential American guitarist largely forgotten---as his guitarist. Mike came out of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, who did purely Chicago-style Blues. But after his Blonde On Blonde album, Dylan's taste went hard Country. He had already been recording in Nashville, but his John Wesley Harding album went very much against the current in Rock music in 1968: completely devoid of any Blues elements, pure acoustic Hillbilly.

In the wake of the JWH album, and then Music From Big Pink, the Hillbilly strain in Rock 'n' Roll found a new awakening in a growing underground movement in both the U.S. and UK. The music of that movement has endured, and currently resides in the Americana scene. Unlike Blues players, Hillbilly/Country players approach the playing of music in a song-first manner. It was that approach (heard by him in Music From Big Pink) that caused Eric Clapton to completely abandon his Cream-style playing, and move toward the Southern-style playing he heard in that of J.J. Cale. Mark Knopfler obviously likes J.J. a lot, his playing very similar to Cale's.

Jeff Beck is a very interesting player. He has a huge love of Rockabilly, and unlike most of his generation UK players is not really a Blues-based player. Too subtle for most, perhaps, is Ry Cooder. You younger fellas think of Duane Allman when the subject turns to slide guitar playing, but Ry is the true master. He and Jerry Douglas, master of the dobro.