Jimi Hendrix regularly tops polls to find the best guitarist of all time. For generations of musicians, he is the cornerstone of the electric guitar – an innovator, and a technically gifted artist who was able to raise the bar at practically every single show.
Yet offstage, Jimi Hendrix was shy, humble. As a kid, he used to tape Buddy Guy live shows, soaking up the blues guitarist’s incredible style, and blending it with his own. A youthful veteran of the chitlin circuit, he played with the Isley Brothers and Little Richard, encountering a host of inspiration with rhythm ‘n’ blues in full swing.
Landing in London in 1966, he immediately asked to jam with Cream – and famously blew Eric Clapton offstage within seconds, performing his radical take on Howlin Wolf’s blues staple ‘Killing Floor’.
A few days after his epochal performance at Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix sat down on the Dick Cavett Show for a high profile coast-to-coast interview. Praised by the host as the greatest guitarist on the planet, the humble musician smiled and joked “the greatest sitting in this chair, maybe”.
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In another interview on the Mike Douglas Show, Jimi Hendrix was asked “what’s it was like to be the best rock guitarist in the world?” Jimi then responded: “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Rory Gallagher”.
Indeed, the Northern Irish musician was a perennial touchstone – his group Taste took the power trio to fresh heights, and his incredible skills gave Jimi a run for his money.
One guitarist in particular took Jimi’s attention – ZZ Top axeman Billy Gibbons. Jimi Hendrix regularly cited the guitarist as the best around, and the flattery helped propel Gibbons’ reputation.
“He was a real technical wizard. He was inventing things to do with the Stratocaster guitar,” said Gibbons in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I am confident the designers had no clue would unfold in later years. Jimi had the talent to make that work for him. His technique was very peculiar in that he was playing a right-handed guitar in a left-handed style, upside down. To look at it and try to figure out what he was doing was very daunting”.
“We were good friends,” he continues, “very good friends. I still got fond memories of our time together and hope that someday we can ring it out”.
