Tony Iommi

@softball13 Jimmy page and Tony lommi are both alive, buddy

ALL HAIL IOMMI!!!

i'm not sure why anyone would consider him a "guitar god", he's one of the worst of the metal guitarists.  i'd rather listen to george bush give a speech.

i don't think Tony is the best. i think jimmy page was and still is even though he is dead.

simply the best riff writer and player that ever existed,i think he's a star.fave:cornucopia

Best Guitarist of All Time - without a doubt, he is amazing, after I heard the guitar riffs on 'War Pigs' at age 10 changed my life forever

TONY'S RIFFS CREATED METAL.

Im 50 years old now. I started playing guitar at 14. Still make a living at it. When my parents were gone, Id crank up Masters of Reality while practicing in the mirror. :) I saw Sabbath 7 times. I made a few experimental tracks with cool edit pro a few years ago. http://home.gci.net/jt101 You can probably hear a little Tony in there. Point is, he was the first to use real distortion the way it was meant to be heard. I read a review saying he wasnt to technical and played the same thing all the time. And Ill have to agree. But the heart and drive behind it, who NEEDS more :) my favorite technical guitarist would have to be Steve Vie (or however its spelt) Either way you slice it up Iommi was the first at his style. metal and hard rock all stems from him. Unfortunatly I never had a chance at the bigs. (still playing dumps for a living) But if I had, One of the things I would have killed for, would be to jam with Mr. Iommi. Hey Tony. If you read this and feel im worthy. Le... Read more

I would have given him five stars, because he started that heavy metal sound, but I couldn't because there are far more better players in that genre then him.

Guitarist from one of the first heavy metal bands, amazing talent

He's very infiuential on riff guitarists.But he's very boring to me, i own most of Black Sabbath albums and his riff playing is very simple and most of his solos sounds alike.Many believes songs like Die Young,Loneley is the word and heaven & hell have very very good solos and yeah they are good but just compared to others Iommi's solos which are below avarage.

The lord of guitar riffs. Few players can say they have the number of great riffs Iommi has. He is also a great soloer, but this is often overlooked by his riffs. Greatest Song- Warpigs

As a stylist and innovator he's just behind Hendrix and at least on a par with EVH. I have to knock 1 point off because he has inadvertantly spawned a genre that is far from my heart. Im afraid to say that we have to trace back the sh*te that is Trivium, Killswitch Engage, As I lay dying, In flames etc etc right back to Sabbath.

Numerous other guitarists on this list had/ have more technical ability, and many had more versatility too. However, in terms of sheer power, few can compare with Iommi, and relatively few were as ultimately influential, or in other words, as influential well beyond the context of their own time. There was always something rather theatrically clownish about post Sabbath Ozzy, but Iommi has always seemed truly evil...he even LOOKS evil if you know what I mean. His use of incredible volume, and the dark chords ( like the spooky, medeval riffs on the eponmous first album's title song)that he played gave Black Sabbath a sinister, and almost unprecedented sound that has influenced countless acts ever since.

Tony Iommi is THE best riff master on Earth! Ritchie Blackmore is THE best soloist!

Very original. He could teach Blackmore and Page a thing or two.

Iommi is a classic musician, and I like those old Sabbath riffs. However, there's no way he could be considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Absolutely TIMELESS guitar god and metal innovator! His bombastic power chords are legendary, and his soloing not of this earth! You can hear the raw emotion and agony/pain in his expressive solos! His solos are so hauntingly gut wrenching at times, they've brought tears to my eyes!!! One of the all-time GREATEST hard rock/metal axemeisters!!!

I love this guy but he needs to suffer for the progeny that he has produced. We can't seriously believe that white rap (heavy metal) purveyers need to be rated among the rock's elite. Sorry girls, You didn't make the team. Grab your skateboards, pull up your pants, huff a few flurocarbons and join your boyfriends for a big circle-jerk. The guys have the gym this period.

The creator and master of the THOR SOUND!!!!!

his riffs and his style will never be matched, he was the backbone of sabbath

TONY IOMMI IS ONE OF THE TEN GUITAR GODS AND HE'S EVEN MORE SO NOW !!!!!!! I JUST SEEN BLACK SABBATH AT THE OZZFEST JULY 19,2005 , THEY NEVER SOUNDED AND PLAYED BETTER!!!!!!!!! IOMMI BLEW ME AWAY WITH HIS PLAYING !!!!!!!!!!!!!! GLITTERGIRL519

i am a great great guitarest i know most all tony riffs and yes van halen may smoke the ground but when it comes to true classic awsome powerful riffs tony is the master of realaity!

made some f**king amazing guitar riffs. influenced countless other guitarists. definitley a god among guitarists.

Not the best but like stanuzbeck said... inventor of metal, what more do you need to know?

Tony is the man,im sure that you don't know him as far as me so don't judge him if you didn't listen to all of his album...

He's great, and helped boost metal along. but after that, his followers in my opinion left him in there dust.

An early inventor of the Metal Style.

I'm biased. I freely admit it. I think metal is the sweetest sound this side of heaven, and Iommi basically invented it. He had his fingertips severed in an industrial accident at an early age and had to use prosthetics to play the guitar. With weakened fingers he found it easier to detune the guitar to make the strings looser, and invented heavy metal in the process. He was never a technical wizard, nor was he any more than a competent player, but his contribution to music can never be understated. His doomy riffs provided the inspiration for far more bands than giants like Clapton or Page, so we should judge him based on that and not so much his fretboard dexterity or lack thereof.

relative to many guitarist he is good but doesn't have that extra bite that other guitar gods do