Jimi Hendrix tops Rolling Stone’s list of best guitarists

The Calgary Herald ^ | November 23, 2011

[djf]

I have a bunch of Yes, saw them on the Fragile tour many, many, many, many, many you get the idea many years ago.

Still think Close to the Edge is the best.

Steve Howe used to be a FReeper, he might still be.

[djf]

Blewwwwsssss?

Wanna hear?

Can’t ya hear?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5TD3QwOfQw

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“Steve Howe used to be a FReeper, he might still be.”

Really? That's very cool.

[Notary Sojac]

Jorma Kaukonen
Leo Kottke
Ry Cooder
Kelly Joe Phelps
Jerry Douglas

[pieceofthepuzzle]

Another great one.

[djf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuBHk1VrWic

[djf]

Try this one on for size...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pzeYdkSr8s

Happy Thanksgiving! I gotta get sum zzzzzzzssssss....

(Note that Neil is playing most of the guitar, Danny Whitten I think is playing rhythm, he died a few months later from am OD and that was why Neil wrote “A Needle and the damage done”

[Windflier]

...truly deserves mention - Terry Kath of Chicago. He had a lot of jazz and blues in him, and Hendrix thought Kath was great.

I loved Terry's Kath's work with Chicago. He may not have been a virtuoso of Jimi's caliber, but he was definitely a hot player. He was one of the few guitarists I knew by name who didn't front a band back then. He really was good.

[magritte]

http://youtu.be/FzZUyTpmy3g

[Forgotten Amendments]

Jimi actually had perfect pitch, but his constant note bending, string stretching, and heavy use of the whammy bar pulled his guitar out of tune. They didn't have the locking tremolo mechanism in his day.

Jimmy Thackery does a note-for-note version of Jimi's STAR SPANGLED BANNER. While he was dive bombing away, I saw that there was no spare guitar, so I figured it was his last song. But he broke into the next one without even stopping and was perfectly in tune! He uses a Floyd Rose.

[Windflier]

Jimmy Thackery does a note-for-note version of Jimi's STAR SPANGLED BANNER.

I remember hanging out at a friend's band rehearsal in the early 70s. During a break, the guitarist, the bass player, and the drummer stayed behind and broke into Hendrix' "Power of Soul". I was a huge Jimi fan, and knew that record like the back of my hand. The three of them played that song note for note, exactly like the original.

It was the closest I ever got to seeing the man himself perform, and it moved me like nothing I've heard since.

[who knows what evil?]

Gamma/Rainbow in a small theatre back in the late 70's...second row seats enabled me to watch both Ronnie Montrose and Ritchie Blackmore play guitar from roughly twenty feet away.

OMG.

[Forgotten Amendments]

Hope you didn't think my original post implied that I didn't love him. Just that, some of his live shows weren't the masterpieces we imagined.

A lot of FReepers would probably be shocked that he was a “hawk”. At least for awhile.

[Windflier]

A lot of FReepers would probably be shocked that he was a “hawk”. At least for awhile.

The Jimi Hendrix that most people know was a media/record company creation. The man himself was much more three dimensional than the hype surrounding his life and career. Toward the end of his life, he'd pretty much abandoned street drugs, and was quietly turning in a completely new and much more mature direction.

Most folks aren't even aware that Jimi was a former Army paratrooper. Here are a couple of snaps from that period of his life.

Jimi on left

Jimi's dog tags.