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Even now watching him play star spangled banner at Woodstock makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
My 20 year old daughter says He is her biggest influence in her songwriting... So he has spanned a generation and I suspect in 100 years you will still hear his music being played ..
Hendrix was the originator of it all in the rock world, much the same as Elvis etc..but Hendrix was a lot more charismatic than the slick haired, peanut butter sandwich eating bloke......
OK, Travis, Atkins et Al probably brought some techniques to the table, but Hendrix brought the whole VIBE as well.
I agree that some of his live stuff is off, but then a lot of it was fuel drugged and a lot of it was done under protest - from all the biog's I have read (I've read loads) a lot of the "showmanship" was something Hendrix was forced into..
His live sound too..it can't be easy playing a wall of Marshalls at full blast, the days of "micing up through the PA to reduce stage volumes" hadn't been invented then..
If you can, try and seek out the Eddie Kramer interviews that were part of the album re-releases where he breaks down a lot of the recordings and you get to hear what Hendrix was trying to achieve in the studio - the guy was a genius.
Also, I tend to agree with the posts on here about "The Experience" not being "talented" enough to showcase Hendrix's abilities..that is obvious from the Band Of Gypsys album where Hendrix (live too..) is on fire - he needed the right platform to perform.
For me, Hendrix was/is god, without him, anything rock based since the late 60's would not have sounded the same, his whole vibe and stage presence changed the musical world forever and if it wasn't for those sometimes manic moments we'd still be listening to Elvis trembling his right knee....IMO
Oh, one downside to him though, f'in Strat GAS
What a demonstrative answer. Obviously a good counter point would have been too tricky to muster, but no big surprise eh?!
Or alternatively is there any guitarist that you don't personally like but can have some constructive view on beyond snippy 'too cool for school' teenage criticisms? It would be respectable if maybe you could provide some actual musical critique or viewpoint. It gets really hard to tell if the comments are born from close mindedness or the need to prove some superiority over common-or-garden guitarists.
That's because you are only thinking rock music. But even in rock and blues music, how many have tried to copy James Burton. Hello Mary Lou was the tune that made Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, keith Richards all sit up and realise the possibilities of bending strings to change notes leading to all the other intricacies of guitar playing such as vibrato and percussive techniques. I would even argue Chuck berry and T Bone Walker was more influential than Hendrix.
Still waiting a reply on this one !
You can definitely hear it though, especially amongst the wave of West Coast hippy bands who were early on the rock scene, bands like Blue Cheer, Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company, and many, maybe most others. I reckon you could guess the actual day Pete Townsend first heard him from live Who recordings too.
The US latched on to Hendrix about nine months after our coolest bands did, and there's a noticeable shift in tone amongst American guitar players after Monterey, both obscure and famous.
It's pretty well beyond doubt that he changed the way new and existing musicians thought about how to make music, and is probably in third place behind Elvis and The Beatles for that.
You can't take this stuff in isolation though, and @koneguitarist has a perfectly valid point about the influence of earlier country players. Hank Marvin wanted to BE James Burton, in turn throwing up a whole new generation of guitar owners who were ripe to be astonished by Hendrix. Young lads who could already play a bit were the most gobsmacked, and they WERE the following generation.
Rory Gallagher always made a big deal about how playing in Irish showbands schooled him, but it's Hendrix who turned his world upside down.
Whoever influenced who though, one thing remains about Hendrix even leaving aside his soulful singing, amusing or clever lyrical songwriting, his pop sensibilities and his production skills - when you strip away all the clever stuff he had a dark, primeval magic about the way he played matched only in my lifetime by Jascha Heifetz. (IMHO, obviously)
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.