JOE BONAMASSA

The undisputed blues superstar and gear hound of the 21st-century

You kind of get the impression from Joe Bonamassa that his position as the highest-grossing blues artist of all time is a little embarrassing – thrilling, sure, but it’s quite the affirmation. Perhaps this is why he has made it his life’s mission to widen the blues’ appeal. There’s the KTBA blues cruise, the label, the production, Nerdville... But ultimately, Bonamassa leads with his fingers when it comes to advocacy, toting a muscular, pyrotechnic style that not only references the 60s British blues scene, and the pantheon of electric blues greats, and classic rock and prog when the song requires it.

DEREK TRUCKS

The best slide player in the world right now

As the nephew of Allman Brothers’ drummer Butch Trucks, Derek Trucks had music in his blood. He started out young, but has barely taken a pause since joining the Allman Brothers in 1999, and over the years has developed a slide technique that has found its spiritual home in the soulful, pluralistic styles of the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Typically parking his Dickey Betts signature SG in open E, using a glass slide and just fingers,

Trucks has a nigh-on supernatural command of dynamics, his guitar a foil to wife, Susan Tedeschi’s vocals, cutting loose when its time to jam. And in TTB, they make the time.

JOHN MAYER

Radio-friendly unit shifter with a gourmand’s taste for tone

There are overachievers and overachievers, and then you’ve got someone like John Mayer, the Berklee dropout who has harnessed a virtuoso talent in service of songs that speak to the internet guitar geek and the pop fan alike. He has helped reestablish the guitar’s profile at the apex of popular music. When he is not out jamming Grateful Dead classics with Dead & Company, Mayer is pulling out his signature PRS Silver Sky, various vintage Strats and Martin acoustics – subliminally indoctrinating the world at large to blues-based guitar culture – and performing solo material that’s gilded by this classic sense of tone and feel.