I'll stick to blues guys for this list since 2 of 3 you named are blues boys...
Story time boys and girls. I love SRV and I remember right around the time I was starting to learn the guitar around grade 3 sitting in my uncles car driving to Hastings funny enough to go fishing and him asking me to listen to this CD of a guy, SRV he wanted me to learn some songs of. I wasn't really all that interested, but quite a few years later in middle school, I go for a BBQ at my uncles and I hear the intro to Pride and Joy and I'm hooked from then on...
Although SRV introduced me to the blues, I can't say that he is my favourite. Here it is, my list of blues guitar gods.
I really love BB King because he makes such simple sounding licks sound so good and he can play lucille, like an opera singer can control his voice... He makes blues sophisticated and took it away from the cotton field to the city of Chicago... Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with some delta stuff, but his playing reaches the biggest audience of all blues guitarists
I love SRV because of his look, persona, and wide variety of tone he gets out of his old beat up strat, I mean he treated his guitars like a wife! He sounds he could get out of that strat, I mean unbelievable, he started the culture of teenage boys wanting an strat and to carry that strat around with them where ever they went. If I got asked to give an example of Texas blues, he's my go to.
I love John Lee Hooker because I love the sound of some boogie-woogie piano and this style of playing sounds sorta like that where he would play the walking bass pattern with his thumb with some hammer-ons and pull offs added in Lord of mercy! He also popularized the "talking blues" I mean who doesn't like Boom Boom or 1 bourbon, 1 scotch and 1 beer. Hell his guy is tough as nails, strikes fear into the hears of the men his baby been cheatin on him with.
I love the king of the Chicago blues, Muddy Waters. I mean Mannish Boy is what kids today will tell what the blues sounds like! Pretty much every blues, rock, jazz hell any genre of guitar player after him as to give him credit as an influence. He was the face of blues abroad especially in England. This guy is so popular in the guitar world, Clapton was his best man! He revolutionized electric blues.
I love Albert King, one of the three Kings of the blues. I mean, here's a giant of a man standing at 6 foot 7 at 250lbs he's taller then Howling Wolf! Sporting one of the first flying v's in blues upside down cause he's a southpaw, he played a major influence on Hendrix. He has bad ass written all over him! At the time, his playing was relatively clean and you can make out the individual notes. I saw a video of him giving advice on playing a solo to SRV in a studio session and he said something along the lines of playing fewer notes with some time to let em breath is better then a whole flurry of crap. This formed the basis for all of my soloing... Born under a Bad Sign... Ohhh I can hear it already!
I love Lighting Hopkins his style often included playing all parts of the band, bass, lead, percussion, rhythm and vocals. To me he plays the guitar so that it sounds like a bass and a guitar playing at the same time! His licks are often chromatic with is neat and his songs like Bring Me My Shotgun really portray emotion that very few other blues players can bring from with in me... He's a classic blues guy and has influenced pretty much everyone after him. Not only was his guitar playing on key his voice is so powerful, few can match it in my opinion.
I love Herbet Sumlin, he's the man behind Howling Wolf. This say a ton. He re-invented Chicago blues with Killing Floor. I mean his playing is just an amazing mess of music filled with bursts of notes, sudden pauses and awesome rhythms. He is one of the most underrated guitarists of the blues genre of which there is a ton. Think of Smokestack Lightning, how many times have you heard that line played over and over again in tons of different songs.
I love RL Burnside cause he is the face of country blues for me, I mean this guy is tough as hell and not to be messed with, he killed a man at a dice game and sentenced to six months of labour at Parchman Farm, (this was a prison well known for convict labour and a lot of blues guys have been in it, read Slavery by another name if you get the chance) After he got out Burnside said "I didn't mean to kill nobody ... I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord." His style is powerful, in your face and just plain old awesome. I mean you really have to listen to this guy.
I love Son House, he's the king of slide blues! His music is so emotion and he throws himself into the blues and he knows what the blues is after spending time at Parchman Farm. His style is unique that it combines his powerful rhythmic guitar playing, killer vocal chords and the emotional intensity he learned as a preacher to bring the blues to a new level. He was the one that taught me if you break the neck off a bottle you got a slide and his style is greatly influence from the songs of chain gangs. Blues at the heart is this guy.
I love Leadbelly because he was pardoned by the governor of Louisiana after playing his guitar for the governor and the fact that he was an ex-con who recorded a popular children’s album! He also recorded some great songs like the "House of the Rising Sun" and "Black Betty". Though his guitar playing is not amazing his story makes up for it...
I love Skip James because he really got me into delta blues, although his style is more of an eastern style. I mean he is just haunting with his taught voice and finger-picking style. Using an open e tuning it's hard to find a deeper guitar, matched with his high pitched voice, I get goose bumps like no other guitar can give me.
I think Clapton and Gibbons should be on the list but they don't play straight blues so I don't know where to put em... Johnson didn't make the list because I think the only thing that set him apart from the other players of his time was that he got recorded... I know many will probably disagree with this though.
So I guess in the end if guitar playing where to be a religion mine would be polytheism hell, I haven't even covered rock in my book...
