What Really Made Jimi Hendrix Magic?
Jimi Hendrix – King of Tone – Still Famous 40 Years on!
Jimi Hendrix was arguably by today’s standards (where you have many many more ways to learn about techniques and playing styles easily and quickly) sometimes quite a ‘inconsistent’ player in terms of lead technique. Of course at other times – when he was playing his trademark and still very unique and beautiful rhythm/lead style – he was floorless – just listen to The Wind Cries Mary or Axis Bold as Love. Beyond perfect in tone and technique!
Of course at the time of Jimi (he’s my favorite all round player of all time) electric guitar was still in its infancy so no-one noticed these ‘mistakes’ in his lead playing as the perfectionist brigade might today. But the reason the Jimi Hendrix industry is still a $100,000,000 business is no mystery. It lies precisely in this ‘sloppy’ technique.
When Jimi played – not only was a creative genius on terms of melody and musical ideas and lyrical story-telling – he was totally abandoned to freely improvising without fear or comparison of criticism because there was simply no one to compare him with – so therefore he would experiment on the fly and crucially had no cares about making mistakes. THIS – is where the mystery about why he is still revered as one of the greatest and most innovative and different sounding guitarists ever lies. He played totally fearlessly and confidently where as todays players are often more anal – terrified of making mistakes and so limited in their willingness to experiment on the fly.
Why is this? – It’s simple – when you try to copy Clapton or Green – all you do is get the notes from a note chart and listed to the track and its done. With Hendrix you can have the notes but to reenact his unusual string bends, weird sounds and and strange happy accidents and mistakes he made with each solo – it’s a whole different ball game. This is the difference between good and genius. He had it and the rest didn’t – so he was totally unafraid to make mistakes to the point where he becomes very difficult to emulate – even Clapton and Townsend admin he left them standing in 67! Though Townsend was also a great player that would experiment and produce his own unique sound.
Sure if you play to his music over and over you sound like him in the end – like a parrot – but who wants to hear Jimi Hendrix MKII! Then we have Eddie Van Halen – in exactly the same mould as Hendrix – a total innovator – a genius and STILL people are trying to sound like him. If he dies – it’s be nearly the same as Hendrix in terms of how people come to see him as one of the greats – the difference being he wasn’t a front man so loses some of the glory before he’s even started. Now if Eddie could sing – Ill bet he would pip Jimi in the guitarists hall of fame as technically this guy can do anything he wants – just like Malmsteen – only Eddies been there and done it and now has nothing to prove so as with Hendrix – the younger guys get take his technique and move it on further. But what the kids really need to understand is sure – learn everything you can from the greats – but then do something completely different if you really want to be noticed!
Then you need to add to this his charisma – very small offstage but when doing what came naturally – he was massive. You can see HE knows how different he was. Then dress it up with some spangly stage gear and he’s unstoppable!
Jimi Hendrix’s Gear
What equipment did Jimi actually use then? Well since there was so little electronic stuff about – very little – but to huge affect. Indeed his simplicity was part of his precise understanding of his tone and sound – again – just like our Eddie Van Halen – whose gear was even more simple 10 years later when he hit the scene!
You can see Jimi Hendrix’s rig here >>