What still blows my mind is that Hendrix’s mainstream career was only 3 years long and over 50 years later he has influenced nearly every guitarist to ever pick up a guitar since 1970
I’m not trying be argumentative, but Hendrix played with lots of folks, especially on the Chittlin’ circuit, that helped to make him the great artist he became. You can’t replace that experience.
@@dkelley9661 That experience was more blues not rock and roll, in fact wasn't he kicked out of one band because its leader said that there could only be one showman. Go back and look at the bands, they were blues bands or groups like The Isley Brothers. If he played briefly with Little Richard, that would be the only band that you could say was Avant Garde. No, musically, talent wise, Hendrix was literally decades ahead of everyone else, at the time. If you look at any documentaries addressing WHY HE WAS SO GREAT, they usually centered around his ability to play the guitar coupled with the many complexities associated with riffs and chord changes. Lastly, if you look up Greatest Guitar Player of Al Time, he is usually at the top or near the top.
As a 17 yr old in a garage band in 1967 it’s impossible to express how different he played compared to everybody at that time. It literally “blew our minds”. The first notes of Purple Haze were like nothing anybody had ever heard before. The Wind Called Mary, Manic Depression, Foxy Lady, nobody did that! Unbelievable, mind boggling, etc, set the guitar world upside down. I know his stage presence was also on another level but it’s the music that was so epic. Glad I lived thru that time. Historic
I am jealous and wish I lived through that time when he was alive . I remember going out for a work lunch with my future wife and Purple Haze came on the radio as I was driving - everyone in the car except me was chinese, so when it came on it was great for me, since I loved the song so much. The looks I got from those coworkers - you hit the nail on the head, it blew their minds and some of them liked it, like nothing they ever heard before too....too funny how your words lined up with my 'Experience'.
My moment of "Ohh, that's why hendrix is unique" was learning castles made of sand... then being like "He is singing and playing that riff at the same time"
He didn't have a great voice but it was unique. There have been singers throughout history that aren't great singers but they make their music their own. Bob Dylan, Shannon Hoone, Kurt Cobain, and a few others.
So my favorite thing about Hendrix is how he played around with syncopation. It gave his playing this kind of groove that you don't usually see outside of jazz. He would do these beautifully subtle rhythmic changes that are near impossible to replicate. Sometimes in a solo he would drag ever so slightly behind the beat, then shred to "catch up" and land right on the down beat. I always hear covers of Hendrix and miss that swaying unpredictable flavor he mixed in.
@capitalistraven: I agree w/u for the most part. But when I hear really good covers of Jimi's music I'm simultaneously able to enjoy how well the artist is able to capture so much of the beauty of Jimi's artistry, yet fall a bit short of his unparalleled instinctive genius. That only enhances my level of appreciation for his unique ability that u have stated so well.
Yes! He was constantly pushing and pulling at the beat. And his dynamics were also gorgeous. A lot of imitators just play the notes. They miss all those nuances, and the nuances are key.
Jimi Hendrix was a fearless pioneer and was not bothered to be technically perfect. He was in a way a good example of what Beethoven once said he can forgive a player playing a false note but playing without feeling was unforgivable.....
Talking about perfection with Hendrix is silly . Sure he would play a riff , find it lacking , and play it differently a moment later . But everybody knows he invented the style that still can be heard constantly in today's players , who have the style down , but lack the vision to create their own .
@@jameskennedy721 tbh a lot of people say his playing is easy or we have it down but really don’t. We haven’t seen anyone play or make music remotely the same since his death. Listen to nine to the universe and you’ll understand no one makes music that can touch your inner soul like that
Before Hendrix electric guitar was simply an electrified guitar. He single handedly turned it into an industry of guitars, amps, pedals and the rest as followers tried to re-create it. Other players created musical lines, Hendrix created soundscapes.
Hendrix is OK. I enjoy most of his music. He is very sloppy though. There is not a lot of variety in the music he plays. There is no good reason to even mention Hendrix in the goat talk.
@@TeutobergForestryService G.O.A.T talk is always subjective in any field, there are strong arguments but no definitive answers. I am merely saying Hendrix was incredibly influential and his legacy is as great as anybody else.
Before hendrix there was clapton, the yardbirds, Garcia, and so many more. I wouldn't say that hendrix completely changed electric guitar from an "electrified guitar" he just did something different. Btw I love hendrix but I dont think he made the electric guitar a different instrument as you propose.
@@robertrice5097 Yes, there were great players as you say but please see the attached on when Hendrix first jammed with Cream . Jack Bruce says "Eric was a guitar player, Jimi was a force of nature". Chas Chandler at the same gig says that when Clapton left the stage he tried to light a cigarette but his hands were shaking saying "Is he really that good?". Other top guitar players felt the same. I am not saying that Hendrix was 'the best', that is being subjective, but the evidence shows that he changed electric guitar playing forever. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KPJgtQwtVVA.html
@@robertrice5097 Nobody else in the world would think of to play Star Spangled Banner the way he did or how to even approach something like that. That moment changed how the electric guitar was seen forever.
The difference is that Hendrix had a soul background, not just blues. He'd learnt that the blues had progressed into that lovely major sounding soul sound, and he blended the two. Also, he mixed up timing between a swinging sound chug and a flourish of classical sounding trills. He just soaked everything up; jazz, Indian music, psychedelic, you name it, if it was happening, he took it in.
I think the secret to Hendrix was that he was a born natural musician who did it his way. He didn't over-analyse but simply played from the heart with pure feeling and now, today, people like to analyse his style because it certainly was very unique. And that uniquness is what made him so great.
Jimi Hendrix was so uniquely great there will never be another guitar player like him. He was the first electric guitarist to make listening to guitar feedback enjoyable.
Uniquness?? There are thousands of guitarist like that :D Good ones as well as bad ones. I personally know half a dozen, a couple of them being really good. (I'm a piano and percussion player myself.)
@@herrbonk3635 How many are as proficient and advanced as Hendrix was while still maintaining their own sound? This is the same question all the guitarists in London England were asking shortly before Hendrix showed up to a London club one evening and changed many people's lives forever, especially Eric Clapton's.
You can be totally unschooled in music, never had a lesson, and still become a great musician. It’s a talent granted to the few that are gifted enough to figure it all out. Jimmy had “it”. He could create music in his head like he was hearing it, and spontaneously transfer that thought into guitar notes at live venues. We call it musical genius. He called it FUN!!! ✌️
Honestly, Electric Ladyland is literally a head and mind trip to listen to in and of itself. It's truly unique, like it was made by someone from another planet who decided to do their own version of a psychedelic blues album, lol. That's how damn weird, deep, and spaced the hell out it is, lol😄😄😄.
it's really not that uncommon. think of how many people just have a knack for drawing, writing, singing, or comedy. when you combine natural gifts with a strong work ethic you get humans like Jimi. My older brother could draw his as off since the age of 5.
More and more you are seeing self taught musicians that never took any sort of classes or lessons, and making it big for example Elton John or Kurt Cobain were both self taught, but I don't believe that it is just something you have. Music is a passion, and the ones who truly enjoy it rather than being forced to go to classes or lessons excel because memorizing something that you want to do is so much easier than memorizing something that you were forced to. I call it skill and not talent because in the end, Jimi Hendrix was practicing 8-12 hours in a day, busting his ass to learn guitar but he kept at it more and more consistently than most guitarist today. As Jimi said, “You have to stick with it. Sometimes, you are going to be so frustrated you want to give up the guitar - you’ll hate the guitar. But all of this is just a part of learning because if you stick with it, you’re going to be rewarded”.
As a trumpet player, I feel the same way about miles davis. His music was completely unique, his style is easily recognizable, and his playing matches his outward persona of coolness with the suits (and his later fashion) and the raspy voice, and the way he would never introduce his band, or a tune, and would turn his back to the audience while he played, and would just walk off stage when he was done. Miles was friends with hendrix and really liked his music, and even wanted to do some collaborations with him, although it never happened. A lot of his guitar players in the 70s were very hendrix esque with their sound, especially Pete Cosey.
Miles admitted that he wasn't even close to being the best of the best trumpet players in his bio. You're correct. To Miles is was all about a recognizably unique tone and a "round sound". That's why bebop died, because Miles figured out how to play 3-4 notes to replace 25 and it would give audiences the same excitement. Oh, one thing Miles was that he never admitted: the best talent scout in jazz.
Hendrix isn't only an innovator of guitar he was drawing influence from many different sources. He is a musical alchemist but also he put so much of his own heart and expression into what he had learnt and he played guitar with a freedom that abandoned technique in favour of exploring raw emotion
Absolutely, Hendrix didn't build songs on technique, rather expressing what he felt at the moment as he puts it. He was a gifted musician song writer and performer but he never sat down to make his music sound that way, he was just playing what was in his head as best as he could, many greats did that back then.
You can hear in his music that Jimi loved the blues but he played It with a psychedelic style that took on a whole new sound and I think that’s one reason why guitarists love him. He transcended the norm. There are many, many great guitarists through history.. but as a guitar player, when I hear Jimi’s music It almost sounds spiritual.. sounds corny but you really get a feel that this guy was using that instrument to paint the most colorful pictures.
He would really appreciate that. He heard music in his head on a continuous basis. I talked with Billy Cox and he would tell stories of how he would be in the middle of a conversation then just go blank. Something would hit him and he would run and find a guitar. To call it an obsession could be fitting but he viewed music as spiritual for sure. He would tell Billy he went to church for a min when he blanked out and would smile because he knew Billy had to repeat what he was saying because he knew Jimi did not hear a thing he was saying. billy also spoke on the zz top experience when they were booked to do shows with him. They were not nice to him but after his death started saying how Jimi said things about their music that were not true at all. Things like that never bothered him but he was not tuned in to saying anything about it. I think he wanted his playing to be spiritual and would play extended versions when in concert.
@@chizorama Really recommend the Biography of Jimi "Cross Town Traffic" by Charles Shaar Murray. CSM makes a strong case that Jimi was the last of the line of Delta Bluesmen.
What makes a guitarist the GOAT is having a combination of technical skills x songwriting (commercial success) x stage presence x innovation. Jimi had it all.
Not really. First of all, first chord and teach how it breathes. When does this teacher breathe? Between chords. Secondly, remind the students to move their fingers according to what they hear. Thirdly,. This comment will be ignored.
Fantastic rhythm player, composer, songwriter, huge imagination, fantastic stage presence beautiful singing voice, and he ALWAYS looked and sounded cool. That’s why they’ll never be another Jimi. A true ‘one off’
I think what makes Hendrix great was he wasn't looking at music in an analytical mindset. He was going on feeling and timing. It was always about experimenting. Trying new sounds all the time. So many people break music down to a science and yet the best of us rely on feeling. There's always a tone and time to do it.
Thank you for saying it. I’m just a listener of music but this video made me feel like “why that man is doing maths on music for speaking of Hendrix” 111 likes on you comment now haha
Well based on his lack of quality and clarity, and that he came off more like a drunk Slash than a sober Jeff Beck, then ya i'd call that "experimenting"
I think you just have very poor perception of music altogether lol. Your description of Hendrix isn’t accurate for shit. And all those who knew him would tell you the same.
In the early 60's I was privileged to see bands like John Mayall,Clapton, The Who,Faces, but when I saw Jimi play it was something completely different and since that time not heard anything that comes close. If only he had lived longer we would have seen so much more.😢
The very first Rock concert I went to was the Jimi Hendrix Experience. After that nothing came close. And Jimi Hendrix seemed like a genuine good man. I wept at his passing, and still miss him.
In the context of his time, Jimi was like no other. He took the instrument far beyond the boundaries of what guitarist of the day could of never imagined. He didn't just play the guitar, he played into it with incredible imagination and fearlessness.
I don’t think Hendrix spent that much time practicing. He was high as balls and didn’t care to learn anything about the instrument. Just lit it on fire and fucked it so white people wouldn’t feel racist. It’s an act. There’s multitudes of better guitarists.
One thing that people tend not to mention with Hendrix is. He is considered one of the most influential guitarists and is known as a guitarist. But there are many guitarists that make albums, but the songs a merely backing tracks for their guitar playing, unmemorable songs. But all of Jimi's studio albums, are full of memorable and often iconic songs. I don't think of him as his stage presence so much. He had it, but he didn't need it.
Really, all that matters is the song. The art of songwriting. And yes, Jimi was a top tier songwriter. Little Wing, or Castles Made of Sand, or Wind Cries Mary. Waterfall. And so many others. Spanish Castle Magic. He even turns a straight jam (Rainy Day) in to a great song. And he used his guitar to sound out the song that already existed in perfect form in his mind. One can admire the technique of Jeff Beck or Steve Vai or SRV. One can rock out to Page's or Blackmore's memorable riffs and great solos, although I'd say Eddie Van Halen was the only comparably unique talent as an overall song composer. It helped that Eddie was a classically trained pianist (Jump is no accident). But Hendrix was the total package - singer, songwriter, arranger, performer. It's impossible to separate out any one element.
I'm not a guitar player. I never really played an instrument, but as a choral singer, I spent a lot of time around the music of MANY genres, making music indispensable in my life. I say all that to say - I watch your videos not to "learn" so much as to watch a person who truly loves music and your process of learning. I appreciate you man. Thanks for this, because it warms my old heart.
First concert I ever saw. Got two feet from Jimi onstage on press row when I was 15 years old. Watched his foot close up rocking the wah wah on Voodoo Child. Spanish Castle Magic and Red House too. May 9, 1969. Still the greatest I've ever witnessed and I've heard all the greats. His writing skills were unmatched. He influenced me to learn to really play and work hard at my playing and writing and ultimately spend my career as a serious musician!
i too saw Jimi play live twice and was also in the press row and got to meet him in Toronto when he was busted on May 3, 1969 My girlfriend Linda and I went to see him at the Four Seasons Hotel on Jarvis Street. He was relieved to see somebody and we didnt know hed gotten busted. We talked to him all night, we wanted to leave earlier but he didnt want us to leave him alone. He was so sweet, a gentleman, soft voiced, told us about growing up in Seattle. He asked for our phone numbers and he actually called me when I was out and my mom said someone named Jimi called you. My girlfriend Linda was invited to join him backstage at Woodstock. I was devestated when he passed away. He was very spiritual. A wonderful Sagittarius too.
@@taragreenetarotastro THAT is some story! I was lucky to have seen him 3 times in the late 60s when I was in college at Berkeley, CA. You topped that by a 1000 fold.
My first as well. My recollection is spring of '68, but I'll leave that for other interested parties to Google. RPI Fieldhouse in Troy, NY. Sly Stone (I think) cancelled, so it was a short notice panic to get my mom to drive us. I would have just turned 13. Tix were $3. Opener was The Soft Machine, so I saw Andy Summers as too. Who knew . . . ?
One shouldn't forget Hendrix's lyrics. The lyrics for Little Wing are beautiful, as are the lyrics for many of his other songs. He was a complete musician. A composer, an instrumentalist, a lyricist, a vocalist, and a performer. One of the greatest of all time.
One shouldn't forget that virtually everything he put out, was written by his white band mates - who by the way were actually better musicians than he was
Mike excellent breakdown. I think a lot of people who think Jimi is overrated don't look at the "big picture" if you will. It's his rhythm playing that has moved me so much. I so much dig his version of "Like a Rolling Stone' from the Monterry Pop festival. My favorite solo from him is "Message to Love" from Band of Gypsies. He just kills it both rhythmically and the way he just blends the solo in is the stuff of legends.
For reasons I do not understand there was a Toronto TV station that aired Monterey Pop Festival in the middle of the day. It was the mid 70s and I had hurried home to eat lunch. I turned on the TV and watched the whole thing. I was in 7th Grade and very late for school but I couldn't stop watching. I told my teacher that my brothers guppies had given birth and I had to put them in a separate aquarium because they were being eaten by other guppies. She said I was lying in front of the class. She insisted that fish lay eggs and I was to go to the principals office. Then another kid in my class, God bless her, told the teacher that guppies, like sharks, do indeed give live birth. She had some guppies of her own. The teacher was humbled and just grunted then told me to take my seat. I was off the hook.
The one thing my father told me about Hendrix was that he played with folks who taught him alot about structure and melody as he often had to fill in for a missing member of the King Curtis band or who ever he was playing for. He adopted well and mastered that pentatonic scale (slave scale) as it was called back when certain people rejected our music. He also played all day long and often woke up in the middle of the night and played until the morning. Gifted and talented, yes but a true lover of music and the drive to figure it out.
There's no "over-analyzing". He did things that we can understand and build on them. The latter can't take place without the former. Emotion doesn't just "come through", it takes work and skill to know how to do it, and he put in a lot of work doing exactly that sort of listening to both those that came before him and his contemporaries. If you think that's taking away from either listening to or playing the music, then you don't know the first thing about being a musician.
My favorite part of Hendrix, even as an enthusiast of the technical shredding, was his ability to develop a mood. Songs like Castles Made of Sand still resonate to this day because he ties every aspect of song writing and performance together into a piece that creates the same feeling for me now as it did the very first time I heard it 30 years ago. He even accomplished that with covers, which is extremely difficult when the song is already known. Best line about Hendrix was from Dylan. After watching Jimi perform All Along the Watchtower for the first time, he was asked what he felt about seeing his song performed by Hendrix. His answer? "It's not my song anymore..."
For me it's about the guitar in Voodoo Child. It's insane. It's out of this world. And somehow, unlike any musician I've heard before or since, he actually, somehow succeeded in encoding his existence into that song and he truly lives again every time it is played out loud. I haven't been able to get over it since the first time I heard it, can you tell lol
On THAT song in particular, the guitar could not be any more perfect...He says EVERYTHING that needs to be said with his axe...Genius is a fair estimation of the monstrous talent on display in Voodoo Child...It's a type of music that reaches deeper than anybody else will ever be able to...I really love that song too, is it slightly obvious? lol
Had a student complain to me that he could not follow along with JH when trying to play along with Voodoo Chile because he was "out of tune." we hadn't reached the level of alternate tunings yet so I had to point out a majority of his songs, like the blue legends that influenced him, were not in E standard tuning, but in E flat standard. And VC slight return was in D standard. I could see the light bulb come on.
@@BonesyTucson It is THAT very bend which is my favourite in the entire track because that is the note he bends to bring the whole solo back to reality when it was lost in outer space forever lol Only Jimi can play that bend in that exact place at that exact time and bring everything back together again. Can we acknowledge that the track would not be the same without Mitch Mitchell also???
You're probably referencing Mike Douglas show or something like that where Jimmy Hendrix definitely showed his humbleness when said that he was the best guitarist around. His answer was telling of who he really was. He was an excellent fellow.
The Dick Cavett show. When Dick eluded to the fact people considered him to be one of the greatest guitarists ever you could tell it made Jimi uncomfortable and he replied something like, "I don't know about that maybe the greatest sitting in this chair at the moment." While many musicians seem to be driven by ego Hendrix exuded humility.
When I was learning to play guitar as a young teen in the mid-80's, I did what seemed the sensible thing to me: I got every Hendrix album I could find, and got reeeaaally good at moving the needle back one or two grooves at a time, so as to hear a couple seconds of some brilliant passage over and over, deciphering how to play it as best I could. Using this method I learned everything on his 3 major studio releases (Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland), then started on oddballs like 'Midnight Lightning' and 'War Heroes', then on to live albums like 'Live at The Fillmore East' and the Woodstock recording... Now to be sure, I got a LOT of it wrong, there was no tab, no youtube, no great guitarists I could go sit and watch and pester with questions; but over the years I eventually learned them a LOT better, my playing improved. So I often say "Jimi Hendrix taught me how to play guitar'....but of course this is totally wrong, because then I did the same thing with Jimmy Page & Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton & Cream, and David Gilmore & Pink Floyd, with a sprinkling of Alvin Lee, of Ten Years After, Ulrich Roth of early Scorpions (SUPER underrated guitarist, check out 'Sails of Charon' or anything off of 'Virgin Killers' and yes, controversial album name, but still a good album) along with some Rory Gallagher and Alex Lifeson of RUSH... I'm SUPER envious of guitarists starting out nowadays with the absolute deluge of available free tools to help you learn, it's almost crazy, but I feel like I was in good stead with my approach... Lately, being no longer particularly active playing in bands, I've been going through Yngwie Malmsteen's first album 'Rising Force'; this is a monstrous tutorial on neo-classical playing, and mad technique! Been a lot of fun. As for why was Hendrix the GOAT? He had it all; rhythm, technique, dexterity, showmanship, compositional skill and songwriting, he even had a great look: the crazy clothes, the 'fro, the upside down Strat, plus, and perhaps most, ORIGINALITY...Before or since, NO ONE can touch him for originality, although EVH and Yngwie come close, though only in playing, not the rest. Jimi truly WAS the GOAT....
The thing i find so amazing about music is that it can create an existential anchor for countless people. When i was 15, probably before you were born, my only goal as a new guitar player was learning Purple Haze note for note. It took me at least a year. After that, virtually every mainstream rock song was easy to figure out. Now over 30 yeats later you taught me something new about why Hendrix was so good, and he died before either of us were born. I don't know many other art forms that operate that way.
Jimi was one of the best concerts that I ever saw. And I was close. He just wailed, screaming guitar then stops on a dime and tunes. he says "for your listening pleasure" as he is adjusting the tuning. He was unique. and he is still influencing guitar players 50 years later.
The word HATE is clickbait.. Hendrix was pure fantasy.. its not something someone can learn.. you either have it nor not.. and he was brave and bold.. There are many downsides to Hendrix.. his sloppiness, bad roadies, bad management, bad lifestyle.. but on a good night he was pure Light, colours.. Hendrix was a psychedelic experience.. it had nothing to do with drugs.. it was FANTASY..
@@albertopalma1663 If love is so powerful why have ordinary people been shit on by powerful people for centuries. I think anger is more politically effective.
Ofcourse, little wing such a memorable tune covered by many. The intro is gold. You can jam to this tune in an easy pentatonic way but much complexer if you want using arpeggio's. Tip: when you go to the Bb try Bb lydian dominant ( tri-tone substitute for E7) and resolve to A dorian, actually that's a jazz influenced change. Hendrix was a maestro👍
Hey Mike. I just subscribed to your channel. I am 72 now and I've been a singer/songwriter most of my life. There are some things you should know about Hendrix. Even though he was left-handed, he always played a righty guitar. The reason for this is not as important as the fact that he somehow turned that into an advantage. One of my favorite things about Hendrix and what makes me a life-long fan is Jimi's creativity. I think this is what makes him great. Many of the live recordings out there don't do him justice since they were usually not recorded well. Jimi always struggled with the problems of the Fender synchronized tremolo bar on his Stratocaster, a problem that has since been cleared up on modern day guitars.. Using this vibrato bar extensively as Jimi did often put the guitar out of tune. I always prefer to listen to his studio recordings since they really showcase his creative talents in the studio. The best way to discover Jimi is to listen to his first album "Are You Experienced" in full. At the time it came out it was so different from everything else and had an almost other-worldly vibe. So many guitarists owe a great debt to Jimi and at least some of them acknowledge this. He gave us all so much in his relatively short career. I'm glad there are young people like yourself who still acknowledge him and continue to enjoy his music. Peace.
I always thought a left handed guitar player. Turning a right handed guitar upside down was crazy. I heard this at some point. Don't know if it's true. His first electric guitar was right handed and had no money to buy a left handed guitar. So he turned it upside down. Apparently when he went to London many people said why don't you try a left handed guitar. Jimi said he would have to learn all over again. You are a musician I work think flipping a guitar upside down would create a little difference in tone. I'm a a musician just wondering.
I myself always wondered this same question too. Until recently, I read the answer. Jimi continued to use a Right handed guitar flipped upside down for several reasons. He could have ordered a Left handed model from Fender anytime he wanted, they more than likely would have given him one free of charge. One reason he continued to use a right handed model was the distance from the Picks up to the Strings. Jimi restrung his guitar using a mismatch of different string Thicknesses / Gauges. Combined, the two, gave him a Unique Sound & Tone. On a different subject, I also listened to Ronnie Wood of the Stones talking in an interview, about when Jimi was his room mate for a short while in London, Ronnie was quite impressed / Dismayed to watch Jimi grab a Right Handed Guitar & play Right Handed with no issue. Another of Jimi's Amazing Talents..!!
@@ScottSMITH-lf2in he’s left handed and plays a right handed guitar but his guitar is still stringed the same way. As the low e string is on top. Unlike someone like Eric Gale who legit plays the guitar upside down so the high e string is on the top. Now that’s what actually trips me.
@@Shredberry ok so his guitar was upside down. But he strung it in reverse did I get that right? If so would that not get a different tone? Again I'm not a musician I'm just interested in how he got that sound out of that guitar.
@@ScottSMITH-lf2in Yes that is correct! It's mentioned in his wiki article under Equipment > Guitars. By restringing his guitar he was able to keep all of the conventional guitar knowledge. In a player like Eric Gale where he legitimately plays the guitar upside down, every conventional guitar knowledge is thrown out the window because everything is reversed. When you hold a guitar in the conventional way, the thickest string, the low E string is on top and the tuning from top to bottom is EADGBE (with the thinest, higher pitch E string on the bottom). However, if you turn it to the other orientation, the lowest string goes to the bottom and your tuning from top to bottom will be EBGDAE, with the thinest higher pitch E string sitting on top. It's a very small technical detail but some people carry this misconception thinking that's why you can't learn Jimi's style but you totally can! :) And of course it does not in any shape of form lessen Jimi's play style and unique sound etc.
This touched my heart deeply. Thank you. I love the attention to details and rare footage we see here. I grew up with Hendrix's music. Love his beautiful soul and I love how you explained this!
Just played some Little Wing today and it is timeless. Hendrix only lived to be 27. Imagine what his beautiful mind could have conjured up, had he lived on. We can only be thankful for the blessings he gave us and pay tribute as you have done.
In short, Hendrix was more than a musician. Back in the day people called him a magic man. That sums it up. I've just felt the greatest since of loss since I heard of his passing back in high school.
I was walking with friends in Bristol, England when Pete Brandt told us. It equaled the shock of hearing JFK was killed. Pete is a guitarist and professional musician now.
: a sound engineer, that happened to play guitar: as a minister of music perhaps..., projecting electric sermons of thought & vibration in the virtuousity of his playing...," Blues baby born to rock & roll! "
I use to have this discussion with Mike Abdullah our guitar player with the Stylistics, we both knew that Hendrix was so much more then a lead player. His chordal work on ballads like little Wing and Angel were a work of art , in many respects like Mozart passages and his chord work on basic rock/funk groves were laced with riffs and rhythm patterns that made the song special snd his studio overdubbing of lines over lines was frightening. The man was in a class of his own. Even his work with the Isley brothers and little Richard made their music move better.
Ed Kramer and Jimi were incredible mixers, they knew how to play with that sound board, and I love the mixing Kramer did on "Axis", just incredible!!!!!!
@@kwik2hear915 you are so correct Axis Bold As Love is a masterpiece . And this was early in the mixing game. The concept that Jimi had in his head was Way out from the crowd. Ahead of his time
The INSANE thing is that we probably never even saw the BEST VERSION of Jimi Hendrix. When he died his music (imo) was actually getting BETTER and more original and more effusive in my opinion. He was JUST getting started. In that sense he's a bit like Ramanujan and Mozart, an incredible prodigal talent who died FAR too soon but was so brilliant at a young age that they became legends in spite of there short lives. He's the greatest talent in rock & roll history and I don't think it's even close. He wasn't even taught professionally. He didn't OWN a proper guitar for two years after he started. His musical prime was very short due to his early death (just 27) and yet he's STILL regarded as (by far) the greatest guitarist to ever live (according to Rolling Stones). Genius. Genius. GENIUS. Rest in perfect peace, there will never be another Jimi Hendrix...the greatest rock and roll talent to ever live.
The thing about Hendrix I HATE personally was his best music was turning into a Rock Jazz fusion near his death. You listen to Band of Gypsies and the way he did rolls and calls of Message of Love, Changes, Who Knows. And the actual melodies were getting more jazzy. More evoking of a construct versus a walking blues or part. Now saying that still some of my favorite songs are still his earlier stuff like Castles Made of Sand, Little Wing, and Wing Cries Marry. But he was always evolving and My God if he was alive even a few more years the stuff he could do. If you ever doubt Hendrix get some good live recordings of him. He was kind of hit or miss due to drugs and drinking. But when he was on, OMG, no one better in the world. He was the like the equivalent to Guitar that Bruce Lee was to Kung Fu. He was out of this world. Even people in the 1960's that thought they were near the top heard him and bowed down to him.
Late to the party but I liked the direction he was going in right before he passed away too. Band of Gypsys was an epic performance from Jimi, what a groove Miles and Cox laid down at that show. We know the otherworldly guitar that is all over that. I like that jazz/rock jam he did with Larry Young/Khalid Yasin on organ-it showed some nice possibilities. I love his studio work too, can't go wrong with the songs you mentioned. My favorite version of "LIttle Wing", however, is off of the old "Hendrix in the West" album, just gorgeous! And it doesn't have the annoying glockenspiel that almost ruins the studio version. Too many overdubs can spoil the stew sometimes. It's still good but those bells aren't my cup of tea.
Jimi had incredible hands, his thumb was extra long and he used it like a 5th digit, that was his secret sauce, he had incredible hands.He would occasionally hit notes on the G string with his thumb and he always used his thumb for F shaped chords, this allowed him to use five and 6 note chords aka Purple Haze. He had huge hands just like the jazz players of his time. He also used octaves ala Wes Montgomery, Jimi was an innovator and possibly the most important electric guitarist of all time right next to Les Paul and Edward Van Halen.
The stuff he was working on when he died was closer to rock/funk than jazz. Funnily enough, the songs that you listed that you like, the guitar playing on those is firmly rooted in R&B. Have you ever been to electric Ladyland could have been written by curtis mayfield. Hendrix was even trying to sing like Curtis mayfield on that. Anyway, that's what jimi was, an R&B player with a jazz drummer, and presented in a rock context.
@@toddnilsson5664 Paul and Van Halen were greats, but Jimi was preternatural, a wunderkind, sui generis...THE GOAT. There's Hendrix and everybody else...and I'm not even sure we saw his very best! Died FAR too young. Some artists don't produce their best work until their 30s. He was dead by 27 just as the revolution he had started was "modernizing" music.
As a guy in his 40s, I really appreciated the opening story. It is great that people are allowed to discover Hendrix and that he is no longer just accepted dogma for anyone with a guitar. Discovering Hendrix is one of the great joys.
Hendrix was playing with Little Richard on tour in Europe in the late 50's I believe. He wasn't someone that was an 'overnight' success. He'd put in his time. Absolutely brilliant.
It was my 17th birthday party in 1967. A friend races in, stops the record that was playing, tells everyone to shut up and listen and plays Stone Free. We’d never heard anything like it. He then flipped the disc and played Hey Joe. He then played it again, and again, and again. Nobody complained, we couldn’t get enough of it. A couple of days later he came over with Are You Experienced, which I could barely comprehend. I started playing guitar a year later and my appreciation of Hendrix has only increases obverse the last 57 (!!!!) years. I’m 73 and still play a bit of Hendrix or similar on my Strat nearly every day.
Not only a great guitar player, but also a great teacher and a good person as well! It would be an honour to jam with this guy! These long form videos are very informative! :) Rock on, mate! \m/
Theres ONE key factor that makes Hendrix amazing. He was in his early 20s during his whole career. He was a kid and changed everything. Hands down. Nothing more to say.
Let's just say "he was young". Twenty-three when he made the trip to England, after his formative years with the Isleys, Little Richard and more. He released Are You Experienced at twenty-four, both Axis at Electric Lady Land at twenty-five and played Woodstock at twenty-six, dying just over a year later.
@@HypnoticHollywood A top notch innovator on the guitar, Not. An ego saturated copy-cat, Yes. Part James Brown, part Tiny Tim, and a whole Lotta I Wish I Was Hendrix. Clown comes to mind. He treated people Badly , and is not missed.
Little Wing is one of my favourite songs ever, a true masterpiece. Can reduce me to tears when the solo hits. Hendrix, as lauded as he is, is still underrated in terms of vocals, songwriting and production.
even the srv version makes me emotional when it plays at the right/wrong time. such an amazing song but so sad that both artists never got to make more music
According to Eddie Kramer, he said that Jimi would overlap and keep laying down different guitar tracks on different songs. Not only that, but Jimi wrote, produced, and played many different instruments on the Electric Ladyland album. It's sad that Jimi was here for such a short time.
Artists like Hendrix and Prince just have a 'WOW' factor. They're wired different than the average human. After all these years I listen to their records and watch their concert footage and it never ceased to amaze me.
I don’t know who this guy is given the guitar lesson but he astonished me with one sentence. He said 15 hour a day practice. It is no wonder he is brilliant. I’m impressed.
So I started playing guitar back when I was 10 or 11 and my parents had no clue that I was left handed because my grandmother beat it out of me. Naturally they got me a right handed guitar and wondered why I’d always turn it upside down. It took about 5 years for my buddy’s brother to hand me a left handed guitar and say “that’s your problem dude” 😂 I still like to play upside down every now and then, but man the realization hit so hard!
Jimmy Hendrix was from a another dimension. we have never experienced anything like this in music history and our live. His virtuosoity and guitar playing is unparalleled.🎹🇱🇷🔥🔥🔥
You are so right S . The first time i heard "The wind cries Mary " it shocked me to the core , so beautifully haunting . I thought this guy`s so special , from a forever grateful Brit .
I was a Jamaican at the university of Texas, in 1988, having been introduced to Hendrix by my tennis teamate in high school at Gonzales, Texas. I LOVED Hendrix. He was my salvation, from him I branched off into a lot of others, like Ronnie Montrose, and the guys in King Crimson, and Santana, Robert Johnson....the list goes on and on. But when I hear Little Wing, I still cry, or Castles made of Sand. Give thanks and praises for the OG.
I never saw Hendrix play live, a handful of friends skipped school to go to his funeral. We ate acid, shrouds and mescaline on the boat to Seattle and got lost I did see Buddy Miles band and Ginger Baker band play a battle of the bands show at Orlando. Thanks for the memory lane
There are few songs that give me goosebumps and Little Wing does it every time I hear it. My dad made sure I listened to a ton of Hendrix growing up and I never tire of listening to his studio album over and over.
As a 13 year old when Jimi first appeared in the U.K. with ‘Hey Joe’ I liked his sound, and then when ‘Purple Haze’ was released, that just made me really sit up and take notice. There was a new programme starting called ‘Dee Time’, a play on ‘Tea Time’, where former pirate DJ Simon Dee interviewed a whole variety of famous people and there were musical acts on as well. I think the very first programme had Jimi on when Purple Haze had been released and I was at family friends home for a visit and asked if I could watch the programme as there was a musician on I wanted to see. When he appeared playing his guitar behind his head and with his teeth, someone asked me in a bit of a horrified way, “This isn’t who you wanted to see is it”? 😂 They weren’t expecting Jimi or my reaction to him. He was so exhilarating and exciting to watch and listen to. I actually also saw his last performance on the BBC, when he stopped playing his own music and became playing ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ as a tribute to Cream, who had recently disbanded, against the wishes of the TV show’s (Lulu at the BBC, or some other title with the Scottish singer’s name in the title) producer, and as a result the BBC banned Jimi from appearing again. I also recall being very sad when my mother gave me the news of his death.
First and foremost to me, Hendrix was a grounbreaking original in EVERYTHING he did. He may be (questionably) surpassed by now (which I seriously doubt), but remember there's a world before and a world after Hendrix. Not many people can make a similar claim (Hendrix never did, though... he was extremely modest off stage)
As someone who has a post-secondary degree in music, I find your comment curious. Music theory isn't like a set of rules or limitations. Not even close. Vai, Gilbert, and Satriani are quite well versed in music theory and I don't think their creativity is "limited".
@@UnboundOdysseusI agree! although it does depend on who the person is. I think some could box themselves into a ‘right’ way of playing and others would use the theory knowledge to really explore and create
@@UnboundOdysseusThey're all amazing guitarists but they plan their solos out, and they don't have a lot of soul for me. Music theory does carry the danger of subconscious structural knowledge limiting the ability to think outside the box like Hendrix did
@@murdoturner3191 You can find plenty of videos of Gilbert, Vai, Satch, Andy Timmons, Joe Pass, etc. improvising. They’re actually quite good at it because they’ve built a great “tone vocabulary” and they can “say” what they want, musically. Listen to something like Paul Gilbert’s “Argument About Pie” and you’ll notice he has a great sense of melody. As far as “no soul” that’s a personal and subjective judgment. You don’t like their playing? That’s fine. But unless you personally know Gilbert, Guthrie Govan, Vai, etc. you don’t know if they “feel” what they’re playing. David Gilmour plans his solos out and plays them almost identically live most of the time. Does he lack “soul”? Or is that criticism strictly reserved for players who play quickly at times?
Not to diminish the genius of Jimi as all the greats have mentors and idols, but whispers of Curtis Mayfield & T-Bone Walker resonate in his style. Both of these geniuses would also be worthy of a deep dive - especially the criminally underrated Mayfield.
Great point. T bone Walker is still deservedly in heavy rotation on the Sirius XM blues Channel, but Curtis Mayfield is criminally under rated today. Give a close listen to Superfly to see the full range of his skills, not the least of which is his songwriting. People get Ready is another of his inspirational compositions which reveals his ground breaking work with the Impressions. His beautiful guitar work is so subtle that it is often overlooked.
My first concert was seeing Hendrix in 1968. That's when I decided to play guitar and of course back in those days Hey Joe was the first song we all "learned". We got the basic chord structure down and could somewhat fake the lead but could never correctly figure out his rhythm playing on that song. The thing though is very few could really learn to play it properly. His rhythm playing on that song and many others including Little Wing was from another planet. Really listen to it and see if you can emulate it. In my book, that is what makes him the GOAT of blues based rock. He is definitely the most sophisticated rhythm guitarists ever. I must say, SRVs version of Little Wing still gives me goose bumps. He was able to capture the essence of the song like no other. Great review!
Hendrix live at Monterey. Intro to 'Like a Rolling Stone' He says This is a song by Bob Dylan. Then he adds 'and that's his Grandma over there'. Took me a few years to get the joke, until I saw the video, when it cuts to Noel Redding.
After watching so many documentaries about Jimi Hendrix over the years, playing his music(trying to)on guitar i got the impression he was looking to continue to be creative in his efforts to find whatever kind of meaning out of life he could find. Which i also got the impression that this would eventually lead him away from the guitar. Into different kinds or modes or forms of art and or literature. He seemed to be on a mission of finding a way to express himself.
Hendrix was my moment of making peace with the dates, with the time. When I was a kid, I thought that old music is old, something outdated, but then it all made sense when I started listening to him and other bands too from old eras. I realized that music is just "a feelings & world perception of people written in sound". In 2010 was the 1st time I asked my dad (electric guitar player) to give me some DVD'S to watch & he gave me Hendrix DVD, I asked, who dat? He replied - just watch & listen. I did, I hated it, it was a 90% live performances and guitar smashing, it was my first time seeing anyone smashing a guitar, before that I only heard about Cobain smashing a guitar, but never seen it. Some things are pretty good, like his 12 string acoustic performance of Hear my train & some studio songs, and I hated his live performances with guitar smashings, but I still watched it again anyway. Then I looked more into his music (without googling about him at all or hearing about who he is, was, or is he alive) and I realized that he has so much absolutely different and full of energy songs, I started liking him. Then after a year or so after army, I googled him and found an articles and stories and all that stuff of who he was and what he've done. I was even amazed that somebody put him on the greatest musicians of all time, I was like - wow, my Jimi? Then I found out about stories with Beatles liking him and Eric Clapton stories, damn. I was not ready to find out he died, but still, to this day, I don't feel like that. I remember in 2013 the new album of his just came out and it felt like it's a recent thing, that it's a 1969 or something, lol.
YES!! Mate, this is changing how I listen to Hendrix. You basically put words to how I've always felt. And when you starting talking about his sense of rhythm, I could hear the back of my head cheering in agreement. I play drums so that's the stuff I love, most guitar solos have me quickly wondering when they're gonna end! Great vid
Great points about why Jimi is truly an icon and not just a great electric player. There was so much more to his genius that was a God given gift and a product of the times he lived through. Also he was a ultra hip black artist thrown into the world of white rock which in itself was an epic paradigm shift of the highest order! Younger folk cannot comprehend the mind bending impact of what it was like to hear Purple Haze come through their radios in 67' ! It was TECTONIC!!!
Acid and the that open creative era. I was there as the momentum grew among artists & musicians creating their new world in NYs West and East Village. Met Hendrix a few times at Cafe Wha on McDougal St... just as Chas Chandler would come and took him to London.
Purple Haze.... Fire... Foxy Lady ... played at FULL volumn, full blast, in my cousins covertible, as 6 young guys in 1967 (and 1968) sped down from the Bronx on NYs East Side Drive towards the Electric Circus club on St. Marks Place .... to hear more of the same music among a few thousand stoned dancers... till 3 am!!! Who is ever going to forget that? Years of psychedelia becomes ingrained in your DNA!
Hendrix jammed with a ton of musical talent. Dave Mason, Steven Stills, Jon Lord, Johnny Winter, Cream. His start in the Little Richard Band see a clip of him on the Night Train 1965 doing "Shot Gun" Buddy and Stacy singing. Crafting his blues in Memphis as an apprentice fresh out of the Army. There is a lot about Hendrix in his short time here.
Apparently he jammed with miles davis as well, although it was never recorded. Imagine how awesome and innovative a album with those two together would have been.
Guitar hero Johnny James has an excellent story of young Jimi visiting the club he played in and picking up some Delta blues recipes. Then later he returned one night with his buddy some gear and his guitar. Well there was a show down that night. This is out there on RU-vid. Look it up! Enjoy first hand eyewitness stories shared by people fortunate enough to live through it.
The reason Hendrix was one of a kind is he was able to do something most people can't do. It wasn't just his technique that set him apart, it was mostly the fact that he played completely from the depths of his soul and spirit. That is something that you can't teach, you are born with it and what happens to you in life helps you to dig deep enough into yourself to bring it out
Nah. After they killed him they had to promote him into godhood to make money off his death because that's the business. More money for them while he was sacrificed.
Mike ... you are a special human being. You play beautifully. Even when you're just strumming a chord. But are also so intelligent and articulate. Obviously people find you charming and feel instant reverence for you. While it feels absolutely crazy to call "music" niche ... deep music analysis is to this culture, today. Yet even still ... without spamming with a great song's title, you got 1.3M views discussing music analysis. You're just gifted with charisma. It'll probably feel impossible to imagine, but don't resist other opportunities that stray from your core interest and obvious talents. You can hold an audience's attention. And speak in a way that's convincing. So whatever it is ... so long as you don't resist it, you'll be offered many paths to whatever you define success as. I'm sure you know that joke where a flood comes and while many are being evacuated, a guy is waiting on his roof for god to save him. At first, a row boat comes by and says, 'dude, this floods bad! get in so we can get out of here together." Yet he rebuffs and says _god will save me._ Then another guy in a fan-boat speeds by and offers him a ride. And still he says, _god will save me._ Finally, a helicopter comes and offers him a ride, and still, he says _god will save me._ So after he dies, he finally gets to heaven and asks why god betrayed his faith..? To which god says _I didn't; I sent you a rowboat, a fan-boat and a helicopter._ Don't be to committed to the mechanism. I believe there will be many, many vehicles that offer you an incredible ride. In fact, congratulations; bc it's just a matter of time.
The man had everything when it came to music: style, swag, rythm, melody, he just knew how to conjure a musical landscape of his own, if you listen to any hendrix album there is something uniquely hendrix to all of them.
Im here because of a current post of greatest guitarist of all time. Almost everyone is bashing Hendrix and im here wondering why🤷♂️ supposedly these days the average metal playing teenager can out play Hendrix? This is crazy new for me to hear and by several people? I guess times are changing.
Hendrix played even when the notes didn't align perfectly, he was sporadic, and played what he felt, that's why he is so hard to replicate and still a pioneer today, he was a master at improvising
Jimi Hendrix was a musical innovator who used sustain and an overdriven tone to reshape and redefine the sound of rock guitar which is probably his greatest contribution and covers a scope so wide across the spectrum that his influence is present in genres outside of rock guitar, which really sets him apart from the rest of his 60's era contemporaries, just my opinion!
He certainly did, although often overlooked is the very creative way he used a tasteful, beautiful and complex accompaniment style. When I saw Jimi live at The Albert Hall in 1969 it was that that blew me away even more than his incredible lead playing.
You may be an accomplished guitar player, but your sense of humor is THE BOMB! You had me chuckling and interested throughout! I'm not sure how I got lucky enough to happen upon your channel, but I'M THANKFUL I DID! 👍🙂
Love the cuts. Helped my weak music theory memory keep up with what you were relating. Totally agree - Hendrix challenged the status quo. Thanks for this video and please keep 'em coming.
