There are millions of guitar players.
There are thousands of really good guitar players.
There are hundreds of really great guitar players.
And then there is an elite group very near the top whose style is so unique that you know who they are immediately when you hear them. Santana, B.B. King, Duane Eddy, Chuck Berry, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck and Albert King come to mind.
But, at the very top of Mount Olympus, where Zeus resides, there exist the most astonishing guitar players of all.
This select group created a musical language and pathways that did not exist before they took their first breath of life.
This group consists of Django Reinhardt, Andres Segovia, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen.
Like athletes who break world records, these special guitar players have shown us where we can go when we thought that there was nowhere else to go.
These players broke the rules by steamrolling over them.
These giants gave us a new language.
There is no higher recognition that can be given.
Eddie Van Halen now resides with the Gods of Guitar.
Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Abby Gillardi.
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