His greatness is not measured by technical ability, it is measured by the impact he had on guitar world.
There was before Hendrix, and after Hendrix.
His greatness is not measured by technical ability, it is measured by the impact he had on guitar world.
There was before Hendrix, and after Hendrix.
Call it what it is wrote:
Angry Willy wrote:But Jimi never played a shovel ...
https://youtu.be/V9-ltPsbw9gThat's a spade.
Never call it a spade.
The Levee Broke wrote:
LedZux wrote:Same reason people mistakenly think Jimmy Page was a great guitarist...same reason people think Led Zeppelin was anything beyond a very average band. ACID trips!
E/O/T
He was the most in demand session guitarist of the mid-60s. All those studios and bands wanted to pay an average guitar player loads of money to play on their records. Yeah, right!
The world is full of session musicians who are technically more proficient than much more influential musicians who sell millions of recordings.
Hendrix, the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones, etc. are not "great" and influential because they were the most technically proficient at playing their instruments. Technical proficiency is not the measure of "greatness" in rock/pop music/R&B, etc.
imiJ wrote:
His greatness is not measured by technical ability, it is measured by the impact he had on guitar world.
There was before Hendrix, and after Hendrix.
True, but Hendrix did have the art of controlled feedback mastered. Also the feel of his music, if some people can't feel it, then they are perhaps not very musical and not good judges?
Here is the deal with Hendrix.
Technically speaking he probably isn't the GGOAT. But he had the special combination of being technically great, a master of traditional R&B and blues, and totally revolutionary.
Consider this. Hendrix is a godhead of electronic music. Even while at the same time he is considered a godhead of being able to play Delta blues and R&B. Two totally separate genres of music.
He is basically the Bo Jackson of guitar.
The acoustic? The banjo? The Mandolin?
I am not sure you understand that a person who can play an acoustic or electric guitar can play the other. It's not like football vs cricket.
He was just into playing the genre music he was into.
Paul McCartney, greatest songwriter all-time and a great bassist, said that for him, Jimi was the best.
Jimi used to hang and jam with jazz great Miles Davis. Davis is considered a genius.
Jimi reached out to Paul to see if he wanted to jam with him and Miles.
What could have been.
Jimi, by feel, was a supernatural guitar player that knew just three chords. Did the genius jazz horn player care that Jimi knew only three chords? Did the great songwriter of all time care?
Nope.
Athletics Illustrated wrote:
The acoustic? The banjo? The Mandolin?
I am not sure you understand that a person who can play an acoustic or electric guitar can play the other. It's not like football vs cricket.
This is only true at a low level. Playing either acoustic or electric at a high level is really quite different. I'm fairly skilled on an acoustic, but much of what I do on an acoustic simply doesn't translate (in the sense of being technically unreproducible) to an electric. I have to play the electric in a completely different way. Sure it's the same notes in the same places, but the sound, and the way it's produced are quite different. Although a banjo is in fact a different instrument, what I do on acoustic translates to playing a banjo decently much more directly than it translates to playing an electric. Likewise I can pass to a flamenco guitar and produce something passable. A classical guitar already requires a lot of readjustment simply because the strings behave differently and the tone is different.
If you analyze Hendrix, you have to analyze him as an electric guitarist in his era. Technically his playing isn't comparable to that of many good classical, flamenco, acoustic guitarist on those sorts of guitars. Also one should separate analysis of his influence (undeniably huge) and his skill (he was talented, but the idea that he was just the best player of any sort on any sort of guitar is just laughable if you've listened to a few thousand great guitarists). You want to defend that he played better than Wes Montgomery? Ok, that's not fair, did he play better than Curtis Mayfield? But he did some things very well and his musicality was at a very high level. The Isley brothers fired him, and I'm not going to defend the notion that Hendrix was clearly better than Ernie Isley, or Prince, for that matter. And i'm just throwing out some well known names. There are plenty of lesser knowns who are just as good.
One thing is clear. Hendrix was astronomically better than guys like Eddie van Halen or Dave Mustaine, although he probably couldn't play as fast.
Guitarist wrote:
Second, to the people talking about technical mastery of the guitar as the primary consideration for the GOAT, no rock guitarist is really comparable to classical guitarists on that front.
x 10 with rock vocalists, though classical isn't the best in that case.
All the guff getting posted about Eric vs Jimi... no way could Jimi play Cliffs of Dover!
John Waite wrote:
Jimi thought Terry Kath was the greatest.
"That cat's better than me"
Jimi often said that about musicians. He was a very humble guy when not on stage. Terry Kath was a very talented dude as well!
He isn't. Compared to the likes of Jason Becker the work of Hendrix is feckless drool. Now, for the worst: The Edge.
Because he had horns, a little beard, hooves, and lived on a farm where people made odd-tasting cheese.
MAGANANAMOUS wrote:
1. Page
2. Edge
3. Black (not Hendrix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UOAp1SCEE
3.*White (not Hendrix)
The Happy Americans wrote:
He isn't. Compared to the likes of Jason Becker the work of Hendrix is feckless drool. Now, for the worst: The Edge.
Jason was a fine guitarist. He's not even worth the grime on Jimi's guitar strings though.
If you think Jimi had poor technique you simply don't understand technique.
Music isn't an athletic competition. Jimi had a mojo like nothing before him. Athletes don't win medals for their mojo.
I can't think of a single guitar player who'd imagine themselves even close to Jimi as a musician. Except maybe Ritchie Blackmore and Yngwie Malmsteen, both of whom see themselves as some kind of god.
Hendrix's so so so so so far beyond Clapton in vision it's laughable, from the black showbands he came up with to the jams with Larry Young and everything in between, INCLUDING writing more good-to-great songs in those few short years than Clapton has written in his LIFE.
I could, however, see Jimi being interested in the innovations of a Terje Rypdal or experimenting with a John Abercrombie-like concept, maybe perhaps "long" suite-like composition like Pat Metheny would pursue.
studio version not on youtube because of the Hendrix estate but the apartment recording is still very interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY53nsjLMkc
& then it becones
back cover of LIVE RUST by someone who knows songs AND sounds extremely well
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8585/28861367456_a29ccdddb3_z.jpg
NO WAY it's Hendrix. This is the true guitar GOAT:
Hendrix learned much of his guitar pyrotechnics from watching still living legend Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar, at the Rendevous Ballroom in Balboa, CA in the early sixties. True, Hendrix was from Seattle but often visited SoCal to visit his father I believe as a teenager. Both Dale's and Hendrix axes are the preferred Fender Strat, both play left handed. Dale however plays with the strings reversed from top to bottom thus utilizing different chord fingering. The reversed strings give a more 'splashy' sound since on a downstrum the high 'E' string is struck first. Dale's string gauges are typically 50% thicker for each string than normal. Ex. the low 'E' string for Dale is a 64 gauge rather than 40 gauge, and so on.
Dale plays next on Oct. 7 in Burbank, CA at Joe's Great American. In my area he plays Oct. 12 at the legendary Catalyst in Santa Cruz. I never miss seeing this living legend. Dick Dale is now 80yo.
back woods wrote:
Athletics Illustrated wrote:The acoustic? The banjo? The Mandolin?
I am not sure you understand that a person who can play an acoustic or electric guitar can play the other. It's not like football vs cricket.
This is only true at a low level. Playing either acoustic or electric at a high level is really quite different. I'm fairly skilled on an acoustic, but much of what I do on an acoustic simply doesn't translate (in the sense of being technically unreproducible) to an electric. I have to play the electric in a completely different way. Sure it's the same notes in the same places, but the sound, and the way it's produced are quite different. Although a banjo is in fact a different instrument, what I do on acoustic translates to playing a banjo decently much more directly than it translates to playing an electric. Likewise I can pass to a flamenco guitar and produce something passable. A classical guitar already requires a lot of readjustment simply because the strings behave differently and the tone is different.
If you analyze Hendrix, you have to analyze him as an electric guitarist in his era. Technically his playing isn't comparable to that of many good classical, flamenco, acoustic guitarist on those sorts of guitars. Also one should separate analysis of his influence (undeniably huge) and his skill (he was talented, but the idea that he was just the best player of any sort on any sort of guitar is just laughable if you've listened to a few thousand great guitarists). You want to defend that he played better than Wes Montgomery? Ok, that's not fair, did he play better than Curtis Mayfield? But he did some things very well and his musicality was at a very high level. The Isley brothers fired him, and I'm not going to defend the notion that Hendrix was clearly better than Ernie Isley, or Prince, for that matter. And i'm just throwing out some well known names. There are plenty of lesser knowns who are just as good.
One thing is clear. Hendrix was astronomically better than guys like Eddie van Halen or Dave Mustaine, although he probably couldn't play as fast.
Thousands and thousands of guitar player say that Eddie isn't all that; they can play his stuff. What they don't understand is that they can't think of it themselves.
Go up another order or two of magnitude for creativity, and that's where Hendrix was.
100th post!
Is there a rule against attaching a helium balloon to yourself while running a road race?
Jakob Ingebrigtsen has a 1989 Ferrari 348 GTB and he's just put in paperwork to upgrade it
How rare is it to run a sub 5 minute mile AND bench press 225?
Am I living in the twilight zone? The Boston Marathon weather was terrible!
Mark Coogan says that if you could only do 3 workouts as a 1500m runner you should do these
Move over Mark Coogan, Rojo and John Kellogg share their 3 favorite mile workouts
