Each month, a new question and answer from TRIUMPH frontman Rik Emmett (also STRUNG-OUT TROUBADOURS) is selected from the questions that appear on the Network Members Messageboard at RikEmmett.com. This month's question reads as follows:

Q: Was curious on who your favorite Guitar players were from various decades??

Emmett: "The problem for me is - how to deal with guitarists who keep getting better, decade after decade?

'60's - My own personal inspiration and education began with THE BEATLES. Along came CLAPTON, then HENDRIX, PAGE and BECK.

'70's - Page and Beck. But I had entered into my Blackmore (DEEP PURPLE) period, which lasted from maybe '69 or '70 for a few years at least. During that time, along came the progressive guys - and mostly Steve Howe of YES. But how can I overlook the influence of David Gilmour (PINK FLOYD) and Jan Akkerman (FOCUS)? And my head and heart was opening to the genius of Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt - the entire world of guitar was becoming important to me. SANTANA was a very influential guitarist: but so were Segovia and Julian Bream, as classical players. What aboutP AUL SIMON? How many of his tunes did I learn to play at high school parties? JAMES TAYLOR? But the '70's is also when I eventually started in Triumph - '75 - so the heavy influences there were Page and Blackmore. Yet everything was steeped in the blues-rock that I had encountered through Clapton. But if you were to ask me - what did I consider to be the most important guitar records of the 70's? I would have Beck's Blow by Blow and Wired right up there near the top of the list - maybe Blow by Blow in top spot by a wide margin. When Guitar Player magazine asks, on its recent Jeff Beck cover, is this the greatest guitarist of them all? I would have to say - I think he might be the greatest of the boomer generation, yes. Maybe not the most influential on me personally, for the guitarist I started out as, professionally, but certainly, in my intellectual consideration of this kind of topic, I would probably have to vote for him, as the most important guitarist to affect the industry, after Hendrix [even though, emotionally and contextually, I would still opt for Clapton, Page and Blackmore as the guys that MOVED me more. Plus - the other day, watching the video for Never Say Never - I had completely, totally forgotten about the intro to the tune, 'Prologue: Into The Forever' - which is pure, unadulterated homage to the influence of Jeff Beck. And if you think about things like Epilogue Resolution, or Little Boy Blues - it's pretty obvious that Jeff Beck reigns supreme, eventually, as my biggest single influence, coming out of that decade, and over into the '80's.

'80's - Beck. By the time Triumph was winding down, for me, towards the end of that decade, it seemed that I had lost my enthusiasm for the things that guitar was bringing to the world of 'pop' & rock music. My tastes were starting to run towards more sophisticated players of fusion styles: PAT METHENY, LARRY CARLTON. I would spend more recreational time listening to my old STEELY DAN records, and new acoustic players, than I would to rockers from popularity contests. I was personally leaving 'rock' guitar behind, as it was failing to move me emotionally. You are younger than me, so you were listening to a guy like Jerry Cantrell from ALICE IN CHAINS. I admit - I wasn't even paying any attention to that stuff any more. My bad, I realize - but a human being can only pay attention to, and digest, a certain amount of stuff. My love of Pat Metheny was well-developed by the back end of this decade.

'90's - Metheny. Without a doubt, in my mind, one of the most important guitarists of my generation. I would put him right up there with Beck, for different reasons, but for the same amount of guitar musicianship and virtuosity that appeals to my taste. Intellectually, I would say he is a far superior musician than Jeff Beck, but Beck uses sustain and distortion to capture a singing style of guitar playing that Pat never approaches --- Pat always goes to his guitar synth / trumpet-sounding patch when he wants sustaining, singing, wailing - which is cool, but does not push my pleasure buttons in the same way that Beck's overdriven sounds and tones do. Once a rocker, always a bit of a rocker, I reckon.

2000 to present - JOHN MAYER is a good choice, because he is a well-rounded singer/songwriter/guitarist, which is right up my taste alley. I do enjoy the smooth jazzings of Peter White, and ACOUSTIC ALCHEMY. Tommy Emmanuel should definitely show up in a 'survey' type question like this. While Mayer is probably a much better tunesmith than Tommy, and lives more in the 'pop' and 'rock' world, I would have to say that Tommy is as much a 'monster' of the acoustic guitar as Jeff Beck is as my still-reigning preferred 'monster' of the electric one.

For honorable mention, I would like to toss JOE BONAMASSA's name out there, as a younger guy from a new generation who has the right idea about guitar-playing, a la Eric Clapton, as far as I can tell."