Where/when did "modern" guitar tone begin?

[Solarflares]

You seem to know what you are talking about, but this take is bad. If we are considering your scope, which is a lot broader than the others here, Robert Johnson deserves the title more than Jimi. He wasn't as prolific of a guitar player, but his sound found its way into everyone's sound. Robert Lockwood Junior, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Peter Green, Led Zeppelin, Gary Moore, Eric Johnson, and basically everyone ever to some extent.

My scope goes way back to Paganini’s Guitar Concertos. Oh to be a fly on the wall there.
Fernando Sor was a real badass, but I’ll bet ol’ Nicoli was a monster.
Robert Johnson was lucky to be recorded, but thank goodness someone did.
Yardstick, benchmark, or whatever. He deserves his place as a forefather of popular mainstream performance guitar.
Jimi took a lot from everywhere and everyone, paid his dues ten times over as a sideman, was a supreme showman, and controlled equipment that would have the hardest modern rockers in tears. A real bandleader. A prolific songwriter. A visionary of dreamscapes and true extremes of emotion, which he put into his music - when his peers were still writing songs about boy meets girl stuff, and fast cars.

 

[Mincer]

I'll take McLaughlin, Fripp, and Steve Howe.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Well, but for the topic this thread is on, EVH did have a pretty direct influence. He had the 5150 voiced to his taste. Like 50% of the people who have posted in this thread mentioned the 5150 as a tool used in "Modern" tone, which we haven't agreed on what it means, BTW.