10 Greatest Hard Rock Guitarists Of The '70s

There are probably a lot of people who would cry heresy for having a guitar god of Eddie Van Halen's stature down this low. Given that he practically reinvented everything that we know today as rock guitar, how the hell is he not taking the top spot going forward? Even though Eddie has practically rewrote the language of rock guitar, the killing blow he made on the decade didn't really flesh itself out until the '80s.

That's not to discount his debut in the '70s because...this is some life-changing stuff here. From the moment that Eddie showed his flash on the solo Eruption, it was almost as if you were hearing guitar again for the first time. Coming from years of players who were mining the same type of blues progressions, here was a guy who was taking the guitar to places it had never been before, whether it was the hyperspeed of his picking or his trailblazing work using the signature tapping technique, which would go on to influence every other hard rock guitarist that followed.

That's before you even get to the rhythm playing, where Eddie practically performed in lock step with his brother Alex to create one of the tightest foundations for David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar to deliver their songs on. Van Halen may have waxed and waned throughout their career, but when almost every rock guitarist is being compared to you, you know you've done something right.