5 Electric Guitar Virtuosos Who Are Often Forgotten

There have been hundreds of incredible electric guitar players over the years—artists who redefined what the instrument was capable of, and in doing so ushered music into the amplified era of electric blues and eventually rock and roll. Names like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Chuck Berry, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and BB King are household staples for anyone with even a passing interest in the guitar and have inspired generation after generation of musicians.

However, there are dozens of slightly lesser-known virtuosos who had just as much of an impact as the artists listed above—and in many cases actually inspired their careers. The following are five of the all-time greats who are often overshadowed by the big-name musicians who tend to dominate discussions about the electric guitar.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Although the younger generations of guitarists might not recognize her name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe may have done as much as anyone to make the electric guitar what it is today. A rare woman in a style of music that at the time was dominated by male acts, she is credited with almost single-handedly bridging gospel and popular music. Tharpe leaned on her clear voice and exemplary guitar soloing to meld religious music with blues and jazz, and she was also one of the first popular electric guitarists to experiment with distortion. Her sound paved the way for artists such as Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, and an entire generation of British guitarists—including Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards—drew inspiration from her European tour with blues singer Muddy Waters. In other words, she’s the mother of electric blues and rock and roll. 

Albert King

BB King receives the bulk of the attention when it comes to blues guitar, but Albert King (no relation) was arguably just as influential. The legends surrounding this blues artist are as incredible as they are varied, from creating his first guitar out of a cigar box and tree branch to playing a right-handed guitar upside down as a lefty and taking extreme liberties with his tunings, which just happened to facilitate his extreme string bending. King’s 1967 album Born Under a Bad Sign was a seminal work in the blues genre, influencing future rock and roll and blues artists such as Hendrix, Clapton, and Vaughn. It was famously covered by Gary Moore and Cream. But depsite this high-profile legacy, it is King’s own playing that truly demonstrated his genius, with his performances standing on their own merit, creativity, and beauty.

Prince

It’s not that Prince’s guitar playing hasn’t been appreciated over the years; it’s just that he was so good at everything else he did, from singing, writing music and lyrics, and putting on flamboyant, explosively choreographed performances to playing virtually every instrument with incredible talent, that his talent with the guitar is sometimes overlooked. Behind the elaborate costumes, crowd-pleasing stage presence, and earth-shattering performances, Prince was one of the greatest musical geniuses of his time, and it was ultimately the guitar that he returned to the most. Although he dominated a genre that wasn’t typically associated with electric guitar (pop), any serious guitar player or historian knows that there were few from his generation who could compare with Prince’s chops on the instrument. For proof, one need look no further than his soul-stirring solo on “Purple Rain” or his next-level live solo during the 2004 tribute performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps," when George Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Joe Satriani

Joe Satriani isn’t exactly an underrated guitarist—just about everyone in the know has him on their top 100 list, if not top 10. But, for some reason, he always seems to get lost in the shadows of bigger names like Hendrix, Clapton, and Harrison. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t a vocalist, so he never enjoyed that coveted frontman status, though he actually was the front man of arguably the greatest guitar-dominant rock act in history. Satriani’s stratospheric licks inspired many of the next generation’s greatest guitarists, and remain as relevant to today’s aspiring soloists as they’ve ever been. He is possibly the most commercially successful instrumentalist in the history of rock and roll, selling out venues and millions of albums with little more than his preternatural talent and emphasis on fast, frenetic, technical perfection. 

The ultimate musician’s musician, Satriani has spent a large part of his life teaching guitar, and in doing so helped shape the future of rock. But, despite the influence of his various albums, years of teaching, and decades of performing, Satriani is perhaps best known for his guitar-led opus “Always With Me, Always With You”—arguably the most famous and widely-played non-vocalized song in rock and roll history.

Carlos Santana

Similarly, no guitar aficionado is going to argue with Carlos Santana’s talent, but sometimes, so much emphasis is put on how well he plays that people overlook how innovative he was and how much he changed the rock genre. In an era when rock had grown past its initial youthful rebellion and was quickly becoming formulaic, Santana integrated elements of Latin American and African music into his sound, simultaneously paying tribute to his Mexican heritage and showing the world that rock and roll didn’t have to have a British or American accent. At the same time, his soulful, almost mournful style became a movement in and of itself, with his 1969 performance at Woodstock quickly becoming the stuff of legends. The next year, his album Abraxas revolutionized a genre that was supposed to have revolutionized popular music.