During the final episode of The Nightly Nuge, Ted Nugent was asked to choose the best guitarist in rock history. Legendary guitarist Ted Nugent named Eddie Van Halen as the best guitarist.
There’s so many. I’m gonna go ahead and give it to Eddie Van Halen because he was so diverse in not only his histrionics but his groove. He had an unbelievable organic sense of rhythm in his delivery of not just exciting lead guitar parts but his grind of a grooving rhythm as a white kid.
He really defied the history of who can groove like that. ‘Cause I come from the world of The Funk Brothers of Motown, so I know what the gods of groove look and sound like. And Eddie Van Halen, the times I jammed with him and just listening to the records, you can tell he had an unbelievable, uncanny Superman sense of rhythm beyond just his outrageous athleticism on the guitar neck.”