THe Best Guitar Player Ever ? Allan Holdsworth

"If I knew what you were doing, I'd steal everything, but i dont know what you are doing" (John McLaughlin to Allan Holdsworth - 1990)

"The best in my book" (Eddie Van Halen)

When you make a list of the best guitarists ever the same old people get trotted out, Hendrix (yes), Clapton (no way), Zappa (Obviously !), but what about Allan Holdsworth

Holdsworth was massive in the 1970's working with jazz rock groups Gong, Soft Machine, The New Tony Williams Lifetime, Jean-Luc Ponty and UK.

Here's a description of his unique playing from discogs.com (you can get most of his albums here too)

Holdsworth is an innovator who dreams up fiendish and delightful chord progressions and melodies, and then proceeds to improvise over these ethereal and outlandish changes in a way which lets you know that he is actually completely omniscient regarding all of the formulations and permutations of notes at his disposal. The notes he chooses to play come at you from angles which constantly surprise and delight your ears, mind and heart. His technical prowess is simply astounding - his greatest technical achievement is to fool you into thinking that what he does is anything less than impossible by way of inflecting and articulating his playing as if it's easy (for him).

Holdsworth also plays an instrument called the SynthAxe, earning him 'Guitar Player' magazine'Best Synth Guitarist' for several years.

Have a listen