I think you might be confusing Danny with Richard Thompson, who was married to Linda. Danny and Richard often play together, Danny was also in the group Pentangle and is an excellent double bassist.

I like Ry Cooder's finger-picking and mandolin work, and I've been listening to Hermeto Pascoal (sic?) lately, perhaps THE instrumentalist

For me I would currently have to say Tom Morello or Audioslave, and RAtM because of his unique ways to make sounds with only a guitar and overusage of the killswitch.

Tom Morello is a really cool guy. And amazing.

My bad.

Xavier Rudd,
He's amazing at heaps of different instruments.

For electric guitar i have: Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Fernando Miyata.
Acoustic guitar: Andy McKee, Adrian Legg and Miyavi.

They all have incredible skill and make good music :)

it's actually Nick Drake

amazing finger-picker

Seconded.

Thank you for bumping this thread. What a shame it's years old and only 2 pages deep.

I'd like to say, first to come to mind was Dave Schmidt aka Sula Bassana. He's a multi-instrumentalist. He's most known as a bassist, but does a bit of everything depending on what the project is and if/who he has any/for support.

But I don't find him to be the most technically proficient player or anything of that sort. But he is a favorite.

Might as well go ahead and say Buckethead on guitar (anyone heard his acoustic album? That's why I didn't say electric guitar... any guitar works for Buck)
Mattias "IA" Eklundh and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal are up there too.

Drummers: Brian "Brain" Mantia, Danny Carey, Mitch Mitchell

Keys: Jordan Rudess, Travis Dickerson, Bernie Worrell, Derek Sherinian

All ties for favorites :D
Bass: Jean Baudin, Les Claypool, Victor Wooten

Including voice as instrument, each in their field:

Cecil Taylor, Angelo Debarre, Domenico Scarlatti, Tatsuya Yoshida, Elvin Jones, Evan Parker, Karou Abe, Kenji Haino, Charlie Parker, John McLaughlin, Richie Blackmore, Jimi Hendrix, Les Claypool, Janick Top, Christian Vander, Mike Patton, Jean-Luc Ponty, Grigoraş Dinicu, Sergei Rachmaninov, Buckethead, Klaus Blazquiz, Freddie Mercury, Tommy Iommi, Agata, Sun Ra, Carla Kihlstead, Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, Jimmy Page, Bach, Busoni, Brian Chippendale, Art Tatum, Don Cherry, Tim Smolens, Timb Harris, All Members of Gentle Giant, Zeena Parkins, Jelly Roll Morton, and more.

It's hard to really name all when you listen a lot of prog/zuehl type bands that require every member to be virtuoso, or every inhumanly skilled classical composer or jazz pianist.