Who Are the ‘Big 4’ of Rock Guitar?

America has had dozens of Presidents, but only four have their faces carved into the side of a mountain in South Dakota. Similarly, some very big and important names will be regrettably but unavoidably excluded from any ranking of the “Big 4” rock guitar players.

This list attempts to identify the four guitar players who have made the biggest impact on the evolution of rock music, on their peers and on future generations of guitar players. With apologies to Tony Iommi, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend and many, many others, here are the ‘Big 4’ of Rock Guitar:

Keith Richards

Keith Richards’ guitar playing is one of the main reasons the Rolling Stones have become the most enduring and successful band in rock history. He’s also the co-writer of nearly all of their biggest hits. He’s also the “how is he still alive?” embodiment of rock and roll, the guy who composed and recorded the famous riff to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in his sleep. Although primarily acclaimed for his rhythm work, Richards can be heard playing lead guitar on many classic Stones songs, including “Sympathy for the Devil,” which also features him on bass.

But if he was writing this list he’d almost assuredly put somebody else first. “Chuck [Berry] is the granddaddy of us all,” Richards told Rolling Stone in 2017. “Even if you’re a rock guitarist who wouldn’t name him as your main influence, your main influence is probably still influenced by Chuck Berry.” Fair point, but Richards helped the Stones take the genre to even greater creative heights by steadily incorporating a wider range of influences and textures into landmark songs such as “Gimme Shelter,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Miss You” and… this could go on forever.

Working together with three distinctly different guitar duo partners – Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood – Richards has helped the Rolling Stones build a recorded catalog that towers over every other rock band in terms of both quantity and quality, and inspired an unimaginable  number of younger rock stars. Plus, let’s be clear, the story isn’t over yet. In 2023 Richards, co-founder Mick Jagger and their band mates released the very well-regarded Hackney Diamonds album, and earlier this year they mounted a highly successful stadium tour of the United States.

 

Jimi Hendrix

It’s safe to say Jimi Hendrix made a strong first impression on the rock world. “After Pete Townshend and I went to see him play, I thought that was it, the game was up for all of us, we may as well pack it in,” Eric Clapton later said of his first time seeing Hendrix perform.

After paying his dues as a sideman for acts such as the Isley Brothers, Little Richard and Curtis Knight, in 1966 Hendrix moved to London and exploded onto the scene by completely re-writing the vocabulary of rock guitar with his use of feedback, distortion and effects such as wah-wah on singles such as “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze” and “The Wind Cries Mary.” His talent, creativity and bold experimental streak helped him craft songs such as “Are You Experienced?,” that still sound like they’re from the future more than five decades after their release. But he was also a devoted student of the blues, capable of delivering a mesmerizing version of “Hear My Train A Comin'” with just a 12-string acoustic guitar.

Although he only released four albums of original material (three studio, one live) before his untimely death in 1970, Hendrix’s unique blend of rock, blues, soul and psychedelia instantly changed the way many of his peers played, and continues to inspire and influence countless generations of rock musicians. The demand for his music is so strong that nearly every studio session or live concert of his that was recorded and preserved has been released as part of one of the dozens of posthumous Hendrix releases.

Read More: Who are the ‘Big 4’ of Prog Rock?

Jimmy Page

After spending years honing his craft as a highly-sought after session musician, Jimmy Page took over and completely rewired a floundering late-era version of the Yardbirds, and wound up building and leading perhaps the most important band in hard rock history: Led Zeppelin.

“I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music,” Page explained in a 1993 Guitar World interview. The collective talent and chemistry of Page, singer Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham and John Paul Jones proved to be the perfect vessel for Page’s vision, with his guitar playing front and center at all times.

“I owe a lot to Jimmy Page, of course – the master of the riff and the master of deliberately getting lost in time signatures,” Queen’s Brian May told Guitar World in 2023. “Those guys were not that far ahead of us in age, but the first time we heard Zeppelin, we thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is where we’re trying to get to, and they’re already there!”

Page’s hard-earned studio mastery also played a big role in the band’s recorded sound and overall success. He produced all of the band’s albums, using creative tunings, unique microphone placement techniques, violin bows and innovations such as reverse echo to enhance his playing on classic songs such as “Whole Lotta Love” and “Kashmir.”

Although Page has largely retreated from the public eye, only sporadically releasing new music or performing live since Zeppelin’s demise in 1980, his influence looms as large as ever. “Jimmy Page, to me, is the consummate guitarist,” Kiss star Paul Stanley declared in Guitar World. “He’s Beethoven. He paints with music in a way that’s just so stellar. He’s not rock or metal, he’s true world music that encompasses so much.”

 

Eddie Van Halen

As rock music was in danger of being pushed aside by punk and disco in the late ’70s, Eddie Van Halen and his namesake band exploded onto the scene. Just like Hendrix before him, Van Halen re-wrote the vocabulary of rock guitar, partly by popularizing (not inventing) the tapping technique of using both hands on the guitar neck.

His 1978 instrumental showcase “Eruption” almost instantly became the much-imitated gold standard for guitar solos, essentially serving as a new alphabet for a legion of hard rock and heavy metal players. But what kept Eddie elevated above the pack was how well he used his technique to enhance, not detract from, his band’s songwriting. Van Halen (the band) spent years on the club circuit before emerging on the national scene, playing covers of everything from Black Sabbath to disco. When the time came to write their own songs they used that knowledge to meld Eddie’s jaw-dropping riffs with big pop hooks and tightly disciplined arrangements. This helped Van Halen become the most popular rock group for both guitar nerds and mainstream fans.

“From the first moment I heard them, I knew straight away that they were something special. The way that Ed plays is very different. He came up with a style that’s been imitated a million times, and they had great songs,” Tony Iommi declared in a 2010 Guitar World interview. Van Halen was also a mad scientist off stage, custom-building and drastically modifying his guitars and amplifiers in an eternal pursuit of better sound.

Ironically, in 1984 Eddie Van Halen brought the band to even greater commercial and creative heights by briefly temporarily putting his guitar down (over the initial objections of singer David Lee Roth) for their first-ever No. 1 hit, the keyboard-dominated “Jump.” Almost immediately just about every other hard rock band added the instrument to their arsenal. It was yet another example of the boundary-smashing innovation that made Eddie not just one of the most influential guitarists, but one of the most important musicians of the rock era.