Most under-rate/under-exposed guitarist...

[darrin_h2000]

Id say that guys like Neil Gerrardo did some great work in the 80s...he backed up his wife in her band and had some really amazing chops...but I never even saw an artical in a guitar magazine about him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nTfWghaTFs&feature=related

 

[darrin_h2000]

That's a slippery slope, though.

For perspective, I hear that argument espoused a lot by guys arguing classical players are so much better guitarists than rock guys, so this probably isn't what you had in mind, but it's still worth thinking about. The argument usually goes, If you hand such-and-such a rock player a nylon string, he'd be lost - all the legato and trilling and whatnot he normally would do just wouldn't translate and they'd sound sloppy as all the little imprecisions hid by distortion came to light. Thus, classical players are "better."

.

and Some of the best shreaders got thier speed by learning classical first...and switching from a classical guitar to a jackson is like taking off a pair of 4" high heels and strapping on the new ballance trainers.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

and Some of the best shreaders got thier speed by learning classical first...and switching from a classical guitar to a jackson is like taking off a pair of 4" high heels and strapping on the new ballance trainers.

While that's true for some (Yngwie, perhaps?) that's also definitely not true for others (Satriani is a name that springs to mind, for a player with very little classical influence).

There's really no one way to get good at playing - I'd say your one common connection here is just years of dedication and countless hours of woodshedding, but then you get a guy like Danny Gatton, who was more into tweaking cars than playing guitar, yet who was still mindbendingly good.

Anyway...

 

[Julia87]

I'd say that Guthrie Govan is more or less underrated...or underrated might be the wrong word...it's more that he's less famous compared to other guitarists.