Keith Richards Is The Best Rhythm Guitarist In The World

Gibson name the Rolling Stones guitarist as number one   02-Nov-12

According to Gibson.com, Keith Richards is the greatest rhythm guitarist in the world. The Rolling Stones guitarist was named as number one in a list of the top 10 rhythm guitarists on Gibson's website.

The list was, perhaps unsurprisingly, filled with Gibson players. But the inclusion of Keith Richards, who is renowned for playing a Fender Telecaster, may come as a surprise to some.

Gibson recently announced their top 10 metal guitarists, and Gibson SG player Tony Iommi was named as the greatest of all time.

The guitar company offered up the words of producer Don Was as justification for Keef's position at the top of the list:

“[His] rhythm guitar parts are often the melody of the song, just by virtue of the way the Stones write. Normally the rhythm guitar player plays in the holes, where the singer isn’t singing. But in the Stones’ case, Keith is doing what the lead guitar player normally does.”

Keith Richards will perform a string of gigs with the Rolling Stones as part of the band's 50th anniversary celebrations, although you'd have to live in a vacuum to have missed that particular piece of news!

To see which legendary guitarists made up the rest of list of the top rhythm guitarists, go to the next page of this article.