If you visit this site regularly, chances are good you've had lively discussions on the way to or from concerts about who the top five or ten guitarists of all time are. There's almost as good a chance that each of your rankings ended up with at least a couple of players that did not make the other's cut.  Gibson Guitars, a company with plenty of players with damn good chops themselves, invited Gibson.com readers and recruited Jeff Cease of the Black Crowes, James Williamson of the Stooges, Steve Mazur from Our Lady Peace and Martin Belmont of Graham Parker's Rumour to get together a Gibson list of the 50 best string slingers of all time - and they did not take the easy way out of just announcing all 50 in no particular order.  Also to their credit, numero uno turned out not to be a Gibson loyalist.  The top 10 hit the web site Friday (5/28). Pete Townshend, who did so much for and to his Gibson guitars, was 10th, followed by Robert Johnson (9), Chet Atkins (8), Eddie Van Halen (7), Jeff Beck (6), Chuck Berry (5), Eric Clapton (4), Keith Richards (3), Jimmy Page (2), and Jimi Hendrix.  We might have shuffled a few up or down within the top 20, but you can make just as solid case for every one of them being where they are.
Gibson.com