I like most all the pickers listed in this thread! One of the best concerts I've EVER seen was a Merle Haggard show at the old Ziegfeld's in Tulsa off 71st street back in the late 70's. That was when he had his large band and I got to see Eldon Shamblin up close playing that gold colored Strat that now hangs in the Cains. There may be better guitarists than Shamblin somewhere, but none more complete. That man knew his stuff!
I got a 'lesson' with him once in the 90s in Pawhuska at a Bob Wills Reunion picnic/benefit at the Osage county fairgrounds a few years before he died. My grandfather was a fiddler/violinist and a good friend of Bob Wills. Bob had lived in Pawhuska at one time and was married to a woman that was friends with my gramma. At the time I worked on the side for Peavey when I wasnt playing music and we supplied the PA gear for the show so I was there helping with the sound and met Mr Shamblin who was going to be playing at the benefit. We did his sound check and then he showed us some chicken pickin. Many years later when I played a Cancer Sucks benefit at the Cains in a metal band I looked up at Bob and Eldons pictures the afternoon of the show and apologized for the godawful ugly noises we were about to make in that holy shrine. My name is scrawled on the Cains' green room wall a few times now.