Wow! How on earth did we get two lists of 15 without including Slash or Billy Duffy? I'm appalled!
So FWIW in no particular order.. I want to make sure a few get added...
1. Slash (to be even more specific, the combination of Slash and Izzy on Appetite, one of my top five albums of all time). The reason I don't play Strats
2. Billy Duffy from The Cult. The solo from "Love Removal Machine" is one of my top 5 solo's of all time. If I buy a Gretsch one day, he is the reason.
3. Andrew Stockdale from Wolfmother. Not exactly an original tone, but if your a fan of vintage fuzz/rock tones then I don't think anyone comes as close to sounding like he should be 60 years old than Andrew. Get your SG's out!
4. Tom Morello from RATM. Very unique and original style with all his weird trademark noises. I saw them again just last year and that gig resulted in a whole bunch of Rage songs going back on my playlist. Maybe not the best tone, but his unique style puts him on this list.
5. Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys. Fuzzy fingerstyle alt.blues.rock. He inspired me to build my first Ge Fuzz and it's still my "Desert Island" pedal. He also inspired my to drop the plectrum and go at it with fingers.
6. OK so it's a bass guitar, but how about Les Claypool?
7. Dimebag Darrell (RIP). He took the preconception that to play metal you need a Les Paul/Jackson and a Marshall/Mesa etc, rolled it up and smoked it with solid state amps (Randall RG100H heads) and Dean guitars. Looks like tone IS in the fingers. In the video "Vulgar Video" the guitar sound when they are playing live in Moscow (I think the track is Domination) is the most brutally heavy thing I've ever heard.
8 & 9. I have to double up here because I'm not sure off the top of my head which guy played what parts, so both Jim Moginie & Martin Rotsey from Midnight Oil. If you like your tone to include a bit of surf rock style Fender reverb with a huge rock crunch that somehow manages to sound "clean" even though there's a wax melting level of drive going on, check out an early "Oils" album, 10-1 or Head Injuries especially. (they were quite Anti-USA back then though, you have been warned)
10. Stevie Ray Vaughn (RIP). I wouldn't say I was a -massive- fan of his music, I think my favourite track is probably his cover of Voodoo Chile, but as this list was about tone, he has it in spades.
11. Jimi Hendrix got a nod already, but I have to drop him in my list too. I would love to have heard that sound live.
12. Randy Rhoads! (RIP) The sound of Ozzy Osbourne! The sound of Metal!
13. Angus Young. Not my favourite tone, but an unmistakable rock sound that inspired so many more. I wonder how many SG's have been sold over the years as a result of Angus.
14. Peter "Dirty" Jones (RIP) from Cosmic Psycho's. Or as he was known to my mates back in the day "Give us some wahwah Dirty!" Dirty, loud rock guitar with plenty of, you guessed it, wahwah based solo's. I've tried twice to form a band to play the same kind of music. It's OK that you've never heard of them though, it's enough that LA band L7 cited the Psycho's track "Lost Cause" as the influence for the song "Fuel my Fire" that was then covered by Prodigy. I also have their tour poster from when they played CBGB's. I'm sure the sub genre "Yob Rock" was invented for them.
15. Finally, because there's talk of a FNM tour -without- him (which would be just bogus frankly) Jim Martin. I also have "The Real Thing" down as a top 5 album of all time, but Jim gets on this list for the guitar tone in the (best ever?) cover of War Pigs.
Well there you have it.
