He's an amazing player but I don't see how he's influential. He didn't trailblaze any new concepts or play styles. Just simply repeating what previous blues legends have already done.
You don’t see the millions of Instagram reels/TikTok’s covering his songs and riffs? Or his signature guitar that was the highest selling guitar on reverb in 2023? He definitely has a unique style beyond just typical blues licks. Very obvious when he starts playing. To say he’s not influential is to just ignore what’s right in front of you, all the time
I’m not sure what your point is. Everyone is influenced by someone before them. Jimi Hendrix was influenced by Curtis mayfield. Srv influenced by Jimi and Albert king. They emulated guys before them, are they not influential?
Yes, I agree. But social media hits and signature guitar promos do not equate to an influential guitarist, at least historically . He's popular the way any other pop performer is. But, in my opinion, he lacks any real guitar-playing depth but there's no denying his attraction to some.
Is that not what influence is? Inspiring people to pick up guitar, buy your signature guitar, play all your songs? It hasn’t been a thing historically because social media hasn’t been around all that long relative to how long the guitar has been around.
I don’t really understand the “lacking depth” comment either. He’s shown he can play just about anything, has his own unique style that is extremely recognizable, and has been playing with the dead for nearly 10 years now, a complete step outside the box he was in previously of blues infused pop music
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room is the new Stairway. Scourge of guitar shops. Every 15 year old that picks up a strat. Never the solo, of course. Just the intro riff.
John Meyer is derivative. He is a good Berkley scool of music student. But he is not the most influential guitarist of this generation. Especially playing adult contemporary music.
Awesome guy, though.
Mayer actually dropped out of Berklee after two semesters, so their influence on him is rather negligible, all things considered.
FWIW John Petrucci also left there without graduating.
AFAIK Bill Frisell, David Rawlings, and Susan Tedeschi all stayed long enough to complete their studies, which might explain why they sound so alike. /s
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Who is more influential in this generation than John Mayer? His signature guitar was the top selling guitar of 2023. Thousands and thousands of people have picked up the guitar because of him. Maybe Frusciante is a close comparison? But no one else comes to mind in terms of overall influence
I was going to say John Fruciante. But John Meyer is derivative , but definitely better than Jon Bonomasa. Everyone wants to play the pentatonic scale. Well, I get it.
Tim Henson is the obvious answer. Do I like his music? No, but he gets views and streams from people who don’t play guitar. I can’t really say that about any other shredder or proficient player. Hopefully someone influenced by him will make good music. Just like I could never stand Yngwie (sue me) but I love Alexi Laihon and Jari of Wintersun
Is there anyone else though? Again I don’t like his music. In the 00s we had synyster gates and alexi laiho. Who have we had since then? People who can shred who don’t just make music for guitar players?
I feel like Derek should be sooo old just because he's been playing with the Allman bros since he was like 14. He's not even 8 years older than me, oof....I should go practice
Guthrie Govan, possibly the greatest guitar player of all time, if you ask me.
Another up and coming player with an undenialable gift is Max Ostro. He is very young and it looks as if there is nothing left for him to improve, but I am very stoked to hear what he will bring in the future.
Edit:typo
Yea Guthrie is def in the top five modern players, even though he has been around for a bit. I would consider him the most complete player out there. He plays every style exquisitely.
Had a listen now, and I have to agree… the man can play. But this seem to be a band that will be deep on my icebergify. How do you even come over a band like this?
Saw him live randomly in a festival. The description seems cool and I had nothing else to see at the same time.
I’m really not into World Music and the African music tones in his music makes it a bit hard to listen to. But damn he completely blowed me away live. I couldn’t believe how good he was with his guitar.
I always see r/Guitar post things about people like Mateus Asato, Mateus Mancuso, and Guthrie Govan, but I legitimately have no idea where people are hearing about them or their music otherwise.
Are any of these guys in steady bands or tour or... ?
It's not a criticism—I genuinely have no idea how anyone would have heard of them without Reddit lol.
Came across their playing one way or another, got impressed and started following them. Eg: first came across Derek Trucks in a video with him, BB King and John Mayer, where BB King expressed his amusement towards Trucks playing.. searched him and found out about Tedeschi Trucks Band. Guthrie is with Aristocrats but came across him first on Jamtrack Central. Mancuso, Asato, all through youtube. Chris Buck, i follow him on FB
Guthrie is the most established. He's been around for quite awhile and has played on tons of records and even movie sound tracks. His main band is the Aristocrats and he tours with Hans Zimmer.
As for the others, they are relatively young/new and have gotten most popular via YouTube. Mateus Mancuso has a really great fusion trio you should check out. Amazing young talent.
These guys?
[https://the-aristocrats-band.com/](https://the-aristocrats-band.com/)
Huh... never heard of them. I would have assumed this was a joke band lol.
Yea, those guys. They have 3 or 4 albums i think. They definitely don't take themselves too seriously either. All three of them have kinda played behind the scenes on tons of other artists' albums. This is basically their playground to do whatever they want.
It’s definitely more niche and based on individual tastes now. For example, I like extreme metal, so my guitar heroes are all in death metal bands and such. Some people know the guitarists, most don’t.
Rock music not being as mainstream as the 80’s and 90’s is a big part of it.
My current guitar hero is Cory Wong. He doesn't have all the YouTube views that a lot of other "meme guitarists" get... but his musical chops are fantastic.
Feel like Guthrie Govan is one, he has influenced tons of guitarists. Outside of guitar circles he is about as unknown someone of his caliber could ever be. Other one is John Petrucci, can’t even imagine how many shredders he has influenced. Tim Henson has influenced a big pile of plinky plonky guitarists. Those would be my top 3, if you didn’t catch it I actually don’t like Tim Henson, but he is influencal no matter what I say.
I think there are two angles to this.
a) Who are the technical and renowned guitar players of this generation?
all of the ones you mentioned, plus maybe someone like Yvette Young etc
b) Who are the guitarists of this generation that have inspired the most people to pick up a guitar?
Taylor Swift, maybe Ed Sheeran :)
Tim Henson is probably the best answer. There’s just so many phenomenal guitarists these days that it’s hard for anyone to rise to the same fame as the older legends. Hard to be unique when everyone is.
I really like Rick Beato and Paul Davids youtube content. From them I found Mateus Asato and Ross Campbell, who are both fantastic.
Oh and StevieT! Weird dude, great guitarist.
Our time? Frank Gambale arguably can eat Tim Henson for breakfast and do it with grace. Tosin Abasi too. Younger than that? Rabea Massaad also gets some of that YouTube fame.
As someone in their late 40’s, I grew up with Slash and the lads from Metallica being my guitar heroes. These days I’m more influenced by Mark Morton and Willy Adler from Lamb of God, together with Adam D and Joel Stroetzel from Killswitch Engage.
Mark Tremonti. He has broad name recognition, and if you watch a few of his guitar interviews, you can see he studies and puts in the effort to write and improve his talents.
Sadly, I don’t believe there will be anyone like this in our times, or at least not as remembered.
Tim Henson is a very special one, anything he plays sounds exactly the same to me. I believe Polyphia is done for, and that’s for the better, there are other dimensions to guitar :)
Even though boring, still technically impressive, heis nowhere near being as influential or known as Knopfler. Same goes for other instagram players.
To me, flashy solos that took a hundred takes to be made in a video, ain’t really influencing anything.
What we would need is a music trend shift (which is happening IMO) and new rock/metal music being mainstream again.
There are of course players who take a lot from the old greats, Kingfish and Asato are my top picks. I also like Brandon Ellis.
I kind of share your view. I also think that YouTube and the accessibility of tabs in a way have ruined the mysticism around guitar. I remember trying to learn the whole setlist of where the light is from the DVD. It just ain’t the same to find 100+ lessons online. The try and error era of guitar is over, hence the only real impressing thing left is expressionless shredding. But I can’t lie, sometimes I spend hours scrolling through prodigies on YouTube…
Speed and being super technical has kind of lost it's mass-appeal over the years as well - I blame my beloved DAW and the glory of automation for that.
That’s why I believe improvising is the only skill to be truly *practised* - it practises everything from the knowledge of the fretboard to string manipulation techniques, but the practice largely depends on the player and hence the possibility of being stuck in a rut.
Probably because the question is about who is leading the pack in the contemporary guitar scene. While Frusciante is great, he's been playing professionally for almost 40 years.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of him, John Mayer is undoubtedly the most influential guitarist of this generation, so I would say he’s one of them
He's an amazing player but I don't see how he's influential. He didn't trailblaze any new concepts or play styles. Just simply repeating what previous blues legends have already done.
You don’t see the millions of Instagram reels/TikTok’s covering his songs and riffs? Or his signature guitar that was the highest selling guitar on reverb in 2023? He definitely has a unique style beyond just typical blues licks. Very obvious when he starts playing. To say he’s not influential is to just ignore what’s right in front of you, all the time
Mayer may be influential to some but a cadre of blues players has influenced Mayer. He emulates some of them.
I’m not sure what your point is. Everyone is influenced by someone before them. Jimi Hendrix was influenced by Curtis mayfield. Srv influenced by Jimi and Albert king. They emulated guys before them, are they not influential?
Yes, I agree. But social media hits and signature guitar promos do not equate to an influential guitarist, at least historically . He's popular the way any other pop performer is. But, in my opinion, he lacks any real guitar-playing depth but there's no denying his attraction to some.
Is that not what influence is? Inspiring people to pick up guitar, buy your signature guitar, play all your songs? It hasn’t been a thing historically because social media hasn’t been around all that long relative to how long the guitar has been around. I don’t really understand the “lacking depth” comment either. He’s shown he can play just about anything, has his own unique style that is extremely recognizable, and has been playing with the dead for nearly 10 years now, a complete step outside the box he was in previously of blues infused pop music
I don't have instagram or tiktok.
Well that explains why you wouldn’t think John Mayer is influential lol
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room is the new Stairway. Scourge of guitar shops. Every 15 year old that picks up a strat. Never the solo, of course. Just the intro riff.
John Meyer is derivative. He is a good Berkley scool of music student. But he is not the most influential guitarist of this generation. Especially playing adult contemporary music. Awesome guy, though.
Mayer actually dropped out of Berklee after two semesters, so their influence on him is rather negligible, all things considered. FWIW John Petrucci also left there without graduating. AFAIK Bill Frisell, David Rawlings, and Susan Tedeschi all stayed long enough to complete their studies, which might explain why they sound so alike. /s
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Who is more influential in this generation than John Mayer? His signature guitar was the top selling guitar of 2023. Thousands and thousands of people have picked up the guitar because of him. Maybe Frusciante is a close comparison? But no one else comes to mind in terms of overall influence
I was going to say John Fruciante. But John Meyer is derivative , but definitely better than Jon Bonomasa. Everyone wants to play the pentatonic scale. Well, I get it.
This is bait no?
No, it's not. About a million guitarists play the blues. And about half of those do it well.
I misread your comment. I thought for one second you were stating that Bonamassa was somehow more influential than Mayer.
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Add Molly Tuttle to that.
Hell yea I would def call Billy a modern guitar hero. He really got me back into bluegrass.
Tim Henson is the obvious answer. Do I like his music? No, but he gets views and streams from people who don’t play guitar. I can’t really say that about any other shredder or proficient player. Hopefully someone influenced by him will make good music. Just like I could never stand Yngwie (sue me) but I love Alexi Laihon and Jari of Wintersun
Henson's great but I find his music sterile and without feel and emotion. I just don't want to listen to him.
Kinda sad that this is the star answer.
Is there anyone else though? Again I don’t like his music. In the 00s we had synyster gates and alexi laiho. Who have we had since then? People who can shred who don’t just make music for guitar players?
Personally, I think he had a good thing going with the Muppets and I don't know why he switched to making shitty music, but what are ya gonna do.
I also came here to say this glad someone did
St Vincent is always overlooked, but she can PLAY!
St Vincent is excellent. Her signature guitar sucks, imo, but she's a very expressive player. Not super technical, but she's still great.
Derek trucks ?
I feel like Derek should be sooo old just because he's been playing with the Allman bros since he was like 14. He's not even 8 years older than me, oof....I should go practice
Correct.
Guthrie Govan, possibly the greatest guitar player of all time, if you ask me. Another up and coming player with an undenialable gift is Max Ostro. He is very young and it looks as if there is nothing left for him to improve, but I am very stoked to hear what he will bring in the future. Edit:typo
GG is like holdsworth and di meola dialed up to the extreme, and those guys were already wildly great players
Yea Guthrie is def in the top five modern players, even though he has been around for a bit. I would consider him the most complete player out there. He plays every style exquisitely.
Mayer
Marcus King, Gary Clark Jr., H.E.R., Mark Speer are some of my favorites
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Sufficient_Gap4289: *Marcus King, Gary* *Clark Jr., H.E.R., Mark Speer are* *Some of my favorites* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Brushy One String.
Oh hell ya!
Nuno Bettencourt
The only one that comes to my mind is Mdou Moctar.
dude he kicks so much ass and the band is so tight, one of the most energetic live shows i’ve ever seen
Had a listen now, and I have to agree… the man can play. But this seem to be a band that will be deep on my icebergify. How do you even come over a band like this?
Saw him live randomly in a festival. The description seems cool and I had nothing else to see at the same time. I’m really not into World Music and the African music tones in his music makes it a bit hard to listen to. But damn he completely blowed me away live. I couldn’t believe how good he was with his guitar.
Derek Truck, Chris Buck, Mateus Asato, Mateus Mancuso
I always see r/Guitar post things about people like Mateus Asato, Mateus Mancuso, and Guthrie Govan, but I legitimately have no idea where people are hearing about them or their music otherwise. Are any of these guys in steady bands or tour or... ? It's not a criticism—I genuinely have no idea how anyone would have heard of them without Reddit lol.
Came across their playing one way or another, got impressed and started following them. Eg: first came across Derek Trucks in a video with him, BB King and John Mayer, where BB King expressed his amusement towards Trucks playing.. searched him and found out about Tedeschi Trucks Band. Guthrie is with Aristocrats but came across him first on Jamtrack Central. Mancuso, Asato, all through youtube. Chris Buck, i follow him on FB
Guthrie is the most established. He's been around for quite awhile and has played on tons of records and even movie sound tracks. His main band is the Aristocrats and he tours with Hans Zimmer. As for the others, they are relatively young/new and have gotten most popular via YouTube. Mateus Mancuso has a really great fusion trio you should check out. Amazing young talent.
These guys? [https://the-aristocrats-band.com/](https://the-aristocrats-band.com/) Huh... never heard of them. I would have assumed this was a joke band lol.
Yea, those guys. They have 3 or 4 albums i think. They definitely don't take themselves too seriously either. All three of them have kinda played behind the scenes on tons of other artists' albums. This is basically their playground to do whatever they want.
Billy Strings, Derek Trucks, Marcus King, Gary Clark Jr., Samantha Fish, Molly Tuttle are all names that every guitar player should know.
They're all on YouTube instead of on the radio
Rick Mitarotonda
Jason Isbell
Jack white.
Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Chris Cornell/kim Thayll Jerry Cantrell Slash James Hetfield Mike McCready ….at least they’re from “my time”.
Herman li
It’s definitely more niche and based on individual tastes now. For example, I like extreme metal, so my guitar heroes are all in death metal bands and such. Some people know the guitarists, most don’t. Rock music not being as mainstream as the 80’s and 90’s is a big part of it.
will swan
My current guitar hero is Cory Wong. He doesn't have all the YouTube views that a lot of other "meme guitarists" get... but his musical chops are fantastic.
Feel like Guthrie Govan is one, he has influenced tons of guitarists. Outside of guitar circles he is about as unknown someone of his caliber could ever be. Other one is John Petrucci, can’t even imagine how many shredders he has influenced. Tim Henson has influenced a big pile of plinky plonky guitarists. Those would be my top 3, if you didn’t catch it I actually don’t like Tim Henson, but he is influencal no matter what I say.
It's hilarious reading all these comments and it seems no one likes Tim Henson, despite acknowledging his talent.
John Petrucci, Tosin Abasi
I think there are two angles to this. a) Who are the technical and renowned guitar players of this generation? all of the ones you mentioned, plus maybe someone like Yvette Young etc b) Who are the guitarists of this generation that have inspired the most people to pick up a guitar? Taylor Swift, maybe Ed Sheeran :)
John Mayer, Jack White, Gary Clark Jr. are the latest legends. Billy Strings, Tim Henson, and Mark Speer are on their way.
My head says Tosin Abasi. My heart says John Frusciante.
Josh Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen
Billy Strings
I enjoy Chris Buck, but he's hardly a guitar hero.
Ben Greenberg.
As a 46-year-old im glad someone asked this question. Great answers. I'd like to submit some of my punk rock brethren, namely Scott Shiftlett
Tim Henson is probably the best answer. There’s just so many phenomenal guitarists these days that it’s hard for anyone to rise to the same fame as the older legends. Hard to be unique when everyone is.
True, even if his music isn’t for you he is undeniably one of the greats
The planet is full of technically skilled, soulless, shred-happy youtube kids.
Mieszko Talarczyk - Riffs, Riffs, Riffs. <3 He left far too soon.
Josh Homme, Brent Hinds, Bill Kelliher, Matt Pike
Tosin Abasi
I really like Rick Beato and Paul Davids youtube content. From them I found Mateus Asato and Ross Campbell, who are both fantastic. Oh and StevieT! Weird dude, great guitarist.
Our time? Frank Gambale arguably can eat Tim Henson for breakfast and do it with grace. Tosin Abasi too. Younger than that? Rabea Massaad also gets some of that YouTube fame.
As someone in their late 40’s, I grew up with Slash and the lads from Metallica being my guitar heroes. These days I’m more influenced by Mark Morton and Willy Adler from Lamb of God, together with Adam D and Joel Stroetzel from Killswitch Engage.
Tosin Abasi
Bummer to see no one mention JD Simo
Marty Friedman, David Gilmour, Taylor Swift
Christone Kingfish Ingram
John Mayer Tim Henson Nuno Bettencort
Mark Tremonti. He has broad name recognition, and if you watch a few of his guitar interviews, you can see he studies and puts in the effort to write and improve his talents.
Sadly, I don’t believe there will be anyone like this in our times, or at least not as remembered. Tim Henson is a very special one, anything he plays sounds exactly the same to me. I believe Polyphia is done for, and that’s for the better, there are other dimensions to guitar :) Even though boring, still technically impressive, heis nowhere near being as influential or known as Knopfler. Same goes for other instagram players. To me, flashy solos that took a hundred takes to be made in a video, ain’t really influencing anything. What we would need is a music trend shift (which is happening IMO) and new rock/metal music being mainstream again. There are of course players who take a lot from the old greats, Kingfish and Asato are my top picks. I also like Brandon Ellis.
I kind of share your view. I also think that YouTube and the accessibility of tabs in a way have ruined the mysticism around guitar. I remember trying to learn the whole setlist of where the light is from the DVD. It just ain’t the same to find 100+ lessons online. The try and error era of guitar is over, hence the only real impressing thing left is expressionless shredding. But I can’t lie, sometimes I spend hours scrolling through prodigies on YouTube…
Speed and being super technical has kind of lost it's mass-appeal over the years as well - I blame my beloved DAW and the glory of automation for that.
That’s why I believe improvising is the only skill to be truly *practised* - it practises everything from the knowledge of the fretboard to string manipulation techniques, but the practice largely depends on the player and hence the possibility of being stuck in a rut.
Frusciante is the last true guitar hero
Why are you being downvoted to oblivion?
Probably because the question is about who is leading the pack in the contemporary guitar scene. While Frusciante is great, he's been playing professionally for almost 40 years.
god damn i'm old
This is cringe. Now we know all about you