I think highly of Hendrix, not Zappa.

 

Some people I know really dislike technically competent musicians, and think it destroys the soul of the music. My thoughts on Hendrix are that all of his songs are fantastic, but he is not my favorite guitarist. Anyway, his music always sounds the best the original way. He is a true guitar hero and icon for all rock musicians! (I also believe that Zappa is underrated as a guitarist )

 

I like a nice balance. I'm very big on putting effort into performance.

 

I enjoy "Purple Haze" and "Foxy Lady" as much as the next person, but I think of Hendrix as more of a pioneer/innovator than someone whose music I want to regularly hear, especially since he has so few albums. My guitar player tastes run more to Vince Gill, Eric Clapton, Brad Paisley, Brian Setzer, and Keith Urban.

 

Your view on Hendrix matches up directly with mine.

 

Hendrix was amazing and I have a fist full of his albums on CD but don't listen to them. Much prefer Johnny Winter or Neil Young for heavy guitar to get my guitar fix.

 

Hendrix was a solid musician. And he was able to control his sound and playing at ridiculous volume. I love many of his songs. Especially the stuff on Bold As Love, and The Cry Of Love. Neither Hendrix or Zappa were virtuosos but I think Frank had a bit more musical knowledge where Hendrix was an unschooled blues based player. But both had great imagination and creativity.

 

One of my favorites is this one:

 

The thing to remember about this one is that it was a one-off. When Jimi was starting out, he met this exec named Ed Chalpin who pulled some strings for him. In return, Jimi had to sign a contract promising to record an album of free and new music whenever Chalpin called for it. Hendrix signed the contract. After making it big, Chalpin showed up with the contract telling Jimi he owed him an album of free music--new songs. Having no way out of the contract, Jimi and Billy Cox talked Buddy Miles into joining because Buddy had written some new songs and Jimi didn't want to give Chalpin too many of his own new songs. Buddy agreed. So they did a live show where they played these five new songs. The rest of the show were all previously released material. You can find the rest of the show on other releases. It was so one-off that at one point there's a bit of pause between songs and then Jimi tells the audience "We're trying to figure out what else to play."

But Chalpin took the five new songs for his album of free material releasing it as Band of Gypsies. Since he could not make any profit from it, Hendrix did everything in his power to destroy sales telling fans in interviews that the album sucked, it was badly recorded, just a contractual obligation, it was just crap jamming without any real inspiration, a total rip-off--don't buy it. But radio stations played it, in spite being recorded on a single cheap tape machine, it was remarkably good sounding. Fans bought it anyway and it became a legend.

 

The sounds Jimi were able to conjure out of his guitar and through the amp were revolutionary. I don't think he is sloppy at all, I think he intentionally added lots of rubato, but had great technique. Part of the sloppiness may be from the recording with feedback to add a more trippy sound. For me there is no rock guitarist that came close to achieving his spellbinding sound.

 

Well, I'm going to say Fripp is up there. I love that Frippertronic sound. No mistaking it. Although Fripp seems to play electric exclusively now, if you listen to the early Crimson stuff including alternate takes, his acoustic guitar work was impeccable. The man knows his way around the guitar. I'd say technically and creatively, Fripp is without peer.

 

Are You Experienced is/was one of the great mind-blowing albums in rock history, introducing a voice, a face, a style, a talent that were unprecedented, unique. A black phenom guitarist-songwriter-singer fronting a trio with two white Englishmen and singing about seeing the sun rise from the bottom of the sea. Amazing.

 

Love Hendrix and love Zappa, both great guitarists in their own ways

 

Everyone agrees on his guitar playing, but he was also a creative songwriter and a unique singer. One of a kind. It is tragic that his drug use truncated his life. The potential for exponential growth and exciting collaborations was there and it would have been a real treat to have seen where he might have gone.

 

It is tragic that his drug use truncated his life. The potential for exponential growth and exciting collaborations was there and it would have been a real treat to have seen where he might have gone.

Very true. I also think the same thing about Duane Allman. Of course, in his case it was a motorcycle rather than drugs (directly, at least) that did him in, but we're left with the same void.

Just think... when Hendrix died, basically the only electronics available to him were the fuzzbox and the wawa pedal. Imagine what he could have sounded like if he had had all of the devices that guitarists like Robert Fripp and Steve Vai use today.

 

...overall he was a really sloppy musician...

That's a pretty bold statement. Would you care to post some examples of his "sloppy" playing?

 

I suppose lose is a better term.

 

i think he was an amazing guitarst. That is my thought.

 

Jimi Hendrix still has the power to amaze me even after all these years. The only post-Hendrix guitarist I felt equally excited about on first listen was Eddie Van Halen back in 1978, but his box-of-tricks style has not aged that well, especially as so many metal guitarists in the 1980s imitated him and painted it all into a corner. Hendrix's music may be about 50 years old but it contains so much texture, vitality and breath-taking brilliance that not even the passing of half a century can dull its impact.

 

I love both Zappa and Hendrix (and many others). It's not about the technique, it's about the music's impact. Hendrix' impact on me and the world was enormous. No one like him in that respect.

 

He stands alone, a towering giant. Nobody has been able to touch him.

 

Hendrix could be sloppy live, partly because he had no inhibitions about exploring new ideas on stage. But he was a solid musician and played all of his composed and prepared material well.

Zappa was a slob when he improvised, although much of what got onto records was brilliant. When he had a second guitarist in the band, like Vai or Belew, he should have let them solo more since they were better players and more consistent in their improvisations. He also tended to get lost metrically and his bass players had to work to keep things together behind him (watch Patrick O'Hearn compensating and more or less conducting on "City of Tiny Lights," on the Dub Room Special DVD). And of course soloing over a repeated riff or progression is easy compared to being a good group improvisor like Holdsworth, Frith or Fripp.

 

You obviously have not listened to Zappa 72 thru to 75, particularly his Jazz sets.
While Vai or Belew both great neither was in a Zaooa band for long periods (belew 12 months or less)

 

I've never heard Holdsworth do any group improv. Zappa played long solos and not every bar of music he played was brilliant, but that's what editing is for. As great as Below and Vai are, I'd still rather listen to Frank for extended soloing. Vai is too flashy. Belew is great as an all around ensemble player and soloist but I like Zappa's phrasing which sounds more unique to my ears.

 

As for Hendrix. What did other guitarist have to say about him?

Here is an article with dozens of great guitarists' thoughts on Jimi.

 

I think this says the most:

Jeff Beck, after hearing Hendrix -
"I had to think long and hard about what I did next."

 

Here is Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter jamming together at the scene.

That is Tommy Shannon's bass guitar Jimi is playing. Tommy said:

Well, at the time I was playing with Johnny Winter and I was living in New York and there was this club called Steve Paul's Scene. And we'd go there every night and there would be a jam session - there would be all these people there like Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jerry Lee Lewis, just all kinds of people and there would be jamming going on. And I was playing one night and he [Jimi] came up and asked if he could play [my] bass. I went, `Sure'. And he really surprised me `cause he just turned it upside down and just played the **** out of it! He played with a pick and played the bass like a bass player would, not like a guitar player who just picked up a bass. He was a really good bass player, funky and really solid.

 

JImi was the best at Heavy Rock Blues guitar simple..............

 

my idea on Hendrix is that he's a bit overrated but he was still a great guitarist.
Why overrated? Only because he seems to be considered like the ultimate god of the instrument, and I don't think it's true. There are many guitarists who were as original as he was, better composers than him and that are often almost unknown.
That said, he was certainly an original who changed the history of rock music. Not because he was the first to use wah, feedback, distortion or other effects but because he was the one who mixed those things transforming the idea of the electric guitar. He was also a great rhythm guitarist and for a guy who didn't read music, he made also some interesting tunes like Manic depression, the wind cries Mary, Little wing etc. Not that his harmonic vocabulary was outstanding, he was far from have the knowledge of the jazz guitarists of the period, but certainly more interesting than a lot of rock guitarists of the period.
In any case the idea that he was sloppy does not have a lot of sense to me. It's actually a bit ridiculous: Hendrix was a guy who even if he was labeled as a rock musician was still a blues guitarist, and blues is about expressivity, not about perfection. He was trying to make the instrument sound like an animal, like bombs, he wasn't Segovia looking for a pure tone.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that he was truly humble and that he listened to a lot of great guitarists: the fact that he was a huge fan of the AMAZING Billy Butler (check him out to know where he took the idea for the "hendrix chord"*) says a lot about his tastes.



(*obviously even Butler wasn't certainly the first to use the 7#9 chord, but I think that he was him who inspired Hendrix for it)

 

He was also a great rhythm guitarist...

Thank you for pointing that out. I was about to say that myself... in fact, I can't remember ever hearing a better rhythm guitarist, with the possible exception of Leo Nocentelli of the Meters. If you want to hear a great example of Hendrix's rhythm guitar skills, just listen to Come On (Let the Good Times Roll) on Electric Ladyland. If you can sit still through that, you'd probably better call 911.

In any case the idea that he was sloppy does not have a lot of sense to me. It's actually a bit ridiculous...

The idea doesn't make any sense to you because, as you note, it is indeed ridiculous.

 

Jimi didn't just play the guitar, he made love to it; the rock version of Segovia in that regard! And the guitar apparently loved him back! That's my impression. There are some guitarists whose playing makes me feel that the love making is not consensual!

 

Stevie Ray Vaughan, a Jimi disciple, also similarly loved and was loved by his instrument.

 

Hendrix was an innovator that I believe changed rock guitar playing.

As an actual musician, he was just okay. Yes, he was sloppy. And for the most part, he was just playing standard blues licks.

I don't think I'd describe Zappa as sloppy, per se, but more as undisciplined. And he was a much more interesting player than Hendrix. At the height of his creativity, he rarely played standard blues rifs.

David Gimour is another player, who is undeserving of his acclaim (IMO). I just never got it. Standard pentatonic blues stuff.

Some people I know really dislike technically competent musicians, and think it destroys the soul of the music.

I think this is BS.

Just because a player doesn't hold and bend a lot of notes, or close their eyes with their head held skyward while playing, doesn't mean they are playing without soul. If they are playing faster than some arbitrary speed limit, does that mean they are not playing with soul?

Now, there are plenty of musicians whose playing instills emotion in me through their playing. Is that an example of soul?

Alan Holdsworth, for example, would hardly be described as a player with 'soul', (by those that describe Hendrix, Gilmour, Clapton, et al, as having soul), but his playing instills plenty of emotion in me.

 

Yes, he was sloppy.

What do you mean by sloppy? That he was out of tune? That he was out of time? That he was off key?

Please post for us some examples of Hendrix's playing that you consider "sloppy."

 

If I'm interpreting sloppiness correctly (I'm assuming it means looseness of some kind) then Paul Kossoff could be as sloppy as they come, but that helped to make Free the band they were. If I want sanitised precision in blues rock (which I don't) I'd listen to 80s stuff by the likes of Robert Cray and Donald Kinsey.

 

If I want sanitised precision in blues rock (which I don't) I'd listen to 80s stuff by the likes of Robert Cray and Donald Kinsey.

I'll take those cats over all of the highly promoted suburban white boys. Robert Cray is a great player and singer with an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Others that get ignored in favor of generic white boys are James Armstrong, Larry Garner, Mem Shannon, Lucky Peterson, and Larry McCray. All are well rounded players, vocalists, and songwriters.

 

Hendrix is an interesting case and a bit of a one-off. Although undoubtedly a hugely gifted guitarist, he could be sloppy on occasion in a live context (although never in a studio context). I suspect that this was more due to his mood at the time rather than other factors. It certainly couldn't have been technical ability.

By comparison, live recordings of Clapton made during the period that Hendrix was alive show that he pretty much always turned in a tight performance with great attention given to the architecture of his solos. However, despite that, I personally would take Hendrix on a night when he was "on" over any Clapton performance, even if Eric was less erratic as a whole. In addition, Hendrix's apparent ability to control guitar feedback as a musical device was unique and has never been repeated. Hendrix was also a great songwriter (music and lyrics) and a pretty good singer. Very few guitarists have exhibited both these talents in addition to being excellent at their chosen instrument.

One of the all time greats and it would have been fascinating to see what he might have achieved had he lived longer.

 

Hendrix is an interesting case and a bit of a one-off. Although undoubtedly a hugely gifted guitarist, he could be sloppy on occasion in a live context (although never in a studio context). I suspect that this was more due to his mood at the time rather than other factors. It certainly couldn't have been technical ability.

Or too high on drugs.

 

Possibly, like the infamous final Band of Gypsys appearance at Madison Square Garden in January 1970 where Hendrix was obviously too wasted to carry on playing and the set was terminated after two songs (although there are rumours that he was spiked before the show). However, Clapton and other guitarists of the period weren't exactly strangers to heavy drug use either.

 

ok well stated by all but a radio DJ stated on air "what if jimmy page passed in stead of jimie hendrix"? would all back in the days be more enamored with pages music and work over hendrix??
just asking..

 

I would say Yes and No. They would rightfully laud Page for creating and maintaining one of the Titan groups in Rock history, and for the spate of great songs he cowrote and executed with Zep. But while Page's guitar work was fine, Hendrix was absolutely sui generis, unprecedented, utterly unpredictable at the time. Possibly several Pages. Only one Jimi.