Gary is the number 1 for me,simply on another level ,remember reading some of your stories about him before.Feel slightly embarrassed for not including Gary Moore in my 5 used to see him walk by my house with his guitar waiting for the bus into town,on a side note my brother knocked about with him as well when kids ..
haha do you mean all those old blues standards that had been about for decades only to be "copyrighted" as original material by artists led by record companies as a way of making money? Even the Stairway one was lost in court. take "Boogie with Stu" partially credited to "Mrs Valens so Ritchie Valens mother could get some royalties as it's basically a riff on "Ooh my head" except The execs who owned Valens music rights sued so His mother ended up with nothing receiving no royalties from his work. Valen's "ooh my head" is basically as reworking of "ohh my soul" by Little Richard anywayI'd temper that with the fact that there's numerous instances of Page being 'inspired' by others in a lot of Zeppelins output.
I've noticed that there's not a whole lot of jazz representation in some of the suggestions, but Wes Montgomery is up there for me.