3 of the Best Guitarists of All Time, According to Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend is more than a guitar player, but his skills on the instrument cannot be ignored. His talent has inspired many subsequent rockers to try their hand at the guitar. But who inspired Townshend? Below, find three guitar players who were either Townshend’s contemporaries or some of his biggest influences. These are some of the greatest guitarists of all time, according to The Who co-founder.

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Jimi Hendrix

Townshend is undoubtedly not alone in his opinion that Jimi Hendrix is one of the best guitarists of all time. Hendrix tops many people’s personal lists. Moreover, he’s on the objective master list of incomparable instrumentalists. Despite not really needing to be said at this point, Townshend once dished out some major praise for Hendrix’s playing.

“Yeah, well, that was a cosmic experience,” Townshend once said of seeing Hendrix live. “It was at Blaze’s, at a nightclub in London. He was really amazing. I think you had to have seen Jimi Hendrix to really understand what he was about…he was a brilliant player, a wonderful player – very inventive.”

Howlin’ Wolf

Howlin’ Wolf inspired many burgeoning rock bands in the ’60s. Many English rockers fell in love with American blues at an early age, creating a subset of rock that married those bands’ ideas with something new. Townshend once recognized the blues musician’s impact on rock, saying, “He is not just some guy with a band, he helped to change our view of the world and to harden up this new way we have found to express our deepest feelings.”

“Unlike the radio pop of that period, Howlin’ Wolf had real teeth; he showed us we could let our music be unapologetically masculine without being,” he added.

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Link Wray

Many people influenced Townshend and the rest of The Who, but the guitarist once credited ’50s rocker Link Wray with inspiring him to pick up a guitar for the first time.

“He is the king; if it hadn’t been for Link Wray, I would have never picked up a guitar,” Townshend once said. “When I grew up, what was interesting for me was that music was colour and life was grey. So, music for me has always been more than entertainment.”

(Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)