Greatest Acoustic Guitarist
 

Gotta go for Steve Howe (Yes), the man is truly great.

gotta go with andres segovia. the man was truly better. but paco de lucia is probably the greatest living accoustic guitar player.

I've got to suspect that the greatest living acoustic guitar player is some gypsy or fulani no one has ever heard of. However, if you have to pick one, Paco de Lucia is probably your best call. OTOH, they had a storry on ATC a bit ago about classical guitar, and there were a couple of folks on there who could really give him a run for his money. Sadly, I can't recall any of their names. :(

Argh, so many to choose from... Two stand out in my musical library:

Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) writes great, dark acoustic passages

John Petrucci (Dream Theater) is a God relating to all things guitar. Check out "An Evening With John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess" for some tasty bits

Leo Kottke......some amazing shit comes from this guys fingers.

I'm also going with Leo Kottke. Doc Watson would be my second.

Probably not in the "best" category but Mason Williams' "Classical Gas" from the "The Story of Us" soundtrack is incredible.

http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/contes...ciousd_002.jpg

Asta!!

there are so many people who play acoustic guitar that the idea of determining a "best" seems absurd to me. generally i agree with tophat--for every guitarist you know about there are probably a hundred who could wipe the floor with him or her technically, conceptually....
over the past couple years, i have been listening to lots of recordings made "in the field" by musicologists or just people with travelling with recording equipment--of people who do not operate in a space where "musician" in something seperate from being alive in general--and some of these folk are astonishing players, just astonishing, doing things that run way outside of the four chord 4/4 crap that ciruclates as "pop music" and its derivatives in the states....

it keeps you humble.

Hard to pick a best one because of so many different styles. Some favorites:

Paco DeLucia
Al Dimeola
John McLaughlin
Tony Rice
Bryan Sutton
Michael Hedges
Steve Howe
Warren Haynes

Mason Williams gets my vote too!

Well, and Les Paul of course.

Adrian Legg

All the above are great. How about:

Larry Carleton
Paco Pena
And some guy with his guitar case opened standing on a street corner in downtown Boston one day. Don't know who he was, but could he play.

Yea hard choice, theres always a new gunslinger in town. My choice is John Mclaughlin on the Shakti albums and then Egberto Gismonti on Danca das Cabacas.

agreed with albob on players that i like.
would add ralph towner to that list.

adrian legg -- awesome player, funny too. (check out his "tall tales" cd)

and a friend introduced me to kaki king. (http://www.kakiking.com) she's awesome! two hand tapping, alternate tunings.... simply amazing!

A friend of mine, Bob Capiotis, is absolutely amazing on acoustic guitar with a totally original concept of guitar playing. Unfortunately this is probably the only time you will ever hear of him.

Yea roachboy Ralph Towners right in there. His twelve string work is some of the best. Sounds like we have similiar tastes. I really liked the 1970's ECM catalog. I was an aspiring Sitar player back then and the late Colin Walcott always inspired me.

I think I would go with paco de lucia or vicente amigo

ani difranco is pretty impressive on her guitar considering she also sings while doing stuff most people can't do.

And Leadbelly can't be omitted.

albob: oregon was a fine band--not just in themselves, but (for me) as a gateway band into much other stuff. i always liked walcott, from the snippets included in "on the corner" through the stuff with don cherry.

on the thread topic: there is a whole new generation of acoustic players starting to surface in what for some reason gets called "lowercase" or "reductionist" improvisation. polwechsel is a good intro to this world. highly controlled, very precise extended technique-based improvisation. often lovely stuff. polwechsel and fennesz, "wrapped islands" is an excellent place to start.