== Worthless == 
 Lists like this are stupid; they give us no more useful information than a beauty contest. 

 Jimi Hendrix, the #1 greatest guitarist of all time?  Give me a break.  One of the most influential, certainly.  And he did contribute something unique (at the time) to the genre.  But his short career, limited stylistic explorations, and meager output (he only released four albums in his lifetime, with about 3-1/2 albums worth of original material among them), certainly don't place him anywhere near history's greatest masters of the instrument.  

 Where is Paco?  Segovia?  Robert deVisee?  Carlos Montoya?  Django Reinhart?  Grant Green (who played all those Les Paul licks without speeding up the tape...)?  What of Julian Bream?  How about Kauhito Yamashita (who made the first complete guitar transcription of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and recorded it solo)?  Where are any of the Romeros?  Carcassi, Guilanni, or Paganini (who together defined what we now think of as "guitar")?  Egberto Gismonti?  Charlie Christian?  Sonny Sharock?  Larry Coryell?  Derek Bailey?  John Fahey?  David Bromberg?  Adrian Legg? 

 Instead we get Lindsey Buckingham, Paul Simon, and Joni Mitchell(!!!)??  Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt, BTW, are the only two women who ever seem to appear on these lists.  What about Renata Tarragó?  Mary Ford?  Kaki King?  Mimi Fox?   

 Instead of lists of The Greatest Guitarists of All Time these would be better called This Year's List of the Most Popular Guitarists the List Compiler Happens to Have Heard Of 

 Oy.