"He did nothing new, he just altered what was already there."
Baloney.
You've heard Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Mary Had a Little Lamb", right? :P Your statement applies just as well to SRV as it does to Hendrix.
And there isn't even any comparing those other guys to either Hendrix or SRV. For those of you who don't know, Zach Wild is a guitarist for Ozzy, Kurt
Hammett is a guitarist for Metallica (and a damn good one), Mustain was the
good guitarist for Metallica before going to Megadeth, the Young Brothers are the Young Brothers and Eddie VanHalen is likewise himself.
Those are all talented people, *especially* Mustain. However, he is the ONLY one that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with Hendrix and SRV, and even then -- it's just not the same, it's not on the same level.
Mustain is probably the single most proficient guitarist in metal -- he has the mad goddamned skills.
But he could not take "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and make it worth listening to all by himself. Hendrix and SRV were that kind of players.
You want real proof of how good Hendrix was?
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So now, did you ever get a chance to actually, uh, meet Jimi Hendrix?
Never did. Never did. Lots of dreams. But, uh, for a period of time, I would have dreams that we would be showing each other stuff -- sometimes unloading semis in a driveway in suburban . . . uh, housing district, you know? Sometimes in some kind of wild-looking hall. But, one morning, I remember jumpin' up and trying to go play what we were playin' in there, and I realized that we were playing on the bottom of the strings [laughs] between the strings and the neck, and I went "Naw this couldn't be right...this couldn't...this isn't it!" [laughs]
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And check this out:
http://www.guitar.com/features/viewf...p?featureID=62
Hendrix and SRV are really cut from the same mould. Even if (like me) you prefer SRV to hendrix, SRV imitated Hendrix to such an extent, and had the same heroes as Hendrix to such an extent, and tried to even dress like Hendrix to such an extent that you can't listen to SRV without listening to Hendrix.
SRV's wife told a story about him waking her up in the middle of the night -- air guitaring in his sleep, so intensely that he would be crying out, and she would shake him awake and ask him what it was. And he would tell her that he had been playing with Jimi, and Jimi was showing him new chords and fingerings and transitions, and that he kept forgetting them.
I think Stevie Ray Vaughan could probably gauge Jimi's musical worth a tad better than you or I.
Btw, how did either of us get this far without mentioning Carlos Santana? There's another guitar player more talented by himself than your entire list. Also, a lesser-known but extremely talented guitarist: John Mayer, who is without a doubt the best currently performing *all-around* guitarist out there. He can make classical guitar sing, dance and cry, he can do blues, he can do a lot of insane stuff. I'd put him after Mustain but ahead of anyone else on your list. (If you have never seen Mustain play you really can't appreciate just how skilled he is. He has a very delicate touch for a metal man.
It's kind of a bummer that Mustain isn't more creative minded).
Aside from (arguably) Mustain, who is a very talented and, rarer, well-rounded guitar player, your list does not have "great guitar players". It has great rockers that play the guitar. There is a huge, huge difference.
And Ozzie? Please. I respect Black Sabath's musical influences, but Ozzie was just a guy that got lucky and was in the right place at the right time to get famous and get by on lots of spectacle and some good (not great, but good) music. He was in the right place at the right time to really step into an important role in defining a genre, but he was not nearly revolutionary. Not even Nirvana-level revolutionary.
Jeez I'm tired. (Just got home from work a few minutes ago
.