Hendrix is overrated - NOT!

Hendrix is often called "the best guitarist ever", and I find it easy to see why people would disagree with this. What makes "the best"? I can't even decide on which guitarist I personally find the best, let alone one can be chosen in general. I think it was on this forum where someone stated that just because we have new music it doesn't mean that Beethoven has been upgraded, or the exact opposite either.

Hendrix is to many people a great deal more than just his music. Even something entirely different. It's a story people like to hear and believe in, and after a while the music doesn't even really matter anymore. This last part is something I find rather saddening, because you don't honor him by saying it: you're honoring an image that wasn't him. Taking his positive side and his faults is what makes him special, not covering them up.

Music is so personal that making statements like "music was better then", or "faster is always better" are dangerous because you close yourself off. I'm sure many people can play better than he could, and that doesn't mean a thing. He used what he had in such a way that inspired people, and people like Malmsteen or Vai try to do the same thing in their own way. Finding these great messages and finding the one that means the most to you is probably what being the best is to me. Colours can be different in every way, difficult and easy to create, and yet we have never found one that surpasses all others.

Liontable that pretty much sums it up.

Would you say he was overrated though? I mean I am complete fan boy and guitar playing doesn't get much better to me than Castles made of sand and I don't even know how you would create something like that, it's something that was at the time completely new (unless you can show me a record the precedes it that sounds like that, not a Hendrix one).

For me, Hendrix' playing was musical -- there was substance and feeling. Same for Clapton. Yngwie & Satch & Vai play lots of notes, but I haven't noticed a lot of music in them. (Granted, I haven't studied their music in depth. There never seemed any reason to bother.)

This is all so subjective. Hendrix came up with "Little Wing," and that is all I need to know. Whatever else he did, he did that, and for that he sits forever at the right hand of God as far as I'm concerned. (God's right hand is large, of course, and there are a lot of musicians sitting there.)

I actually think Vai and Satriani have a lot more to them than just - lots of notes - try "Hand on heart" by Vai, or "Littleworth Lane" by Satriani.

However like you said the creation of little wing is just incredible, it wasn't a one off either, bold as love, castles made of sand and angel are all just as amazing.

People often look at All along the watchtower or Voodo chile (slight return) and don't see the best part of Hendrix, which was this beautiful chordal playing.

Well oringinly i had made a good post unfortunatly i lost it from trying to see if the linky worked so il say what i wanted in a shorter term.

The reason why people would say jimi hendrix was overated is because frankly solo's in music are not what they are today people have this idea that a solo have to be impressive and the guitarist becomes a machine working metal is something that particulary suffers from this problem and people who see a man shredding 500 notes a second look and jimi and say what it's all about as generally generation are appreciation different aspects as i heard a fact once that modern scary movies have so much blood and horrify crap in it that isn't really scary because a majority of todays generation have such short attention spans that they can't wait something amazing has to happen so movies which are scary like the hole which has a plot that is to far running people will find boring.

Jimi hendrix is like that he plays solo in such an eccentric with so much passion and thought to complement the song he plays with people don't find that impressive the last solo i ever saw played with passion was Daron malakian at Rock am ring 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk8jo2rdODk 2:55 watch it isn't an impressive solo but he's having so much fan and he's old and the song he is playing was written quite a few years ago and thats what jimi did but on such a higher level.

The thing I really hate hearing people say about Hendrix is that he is a blues guitarist, he is not a blues guitarist, not exclusively. He can play blues very well - like redhouse or the first voodoo chile on the electric ladyland album, but he is not a blues guitarist he is rock! I think that shows you how rock music has changed because it has veered towards heavier and heavier (metal for example) music. It's gone so far that people can't recognise a rock song anymore! Maybe in 20 years time when death metal is the only genre still in existence and we are watching Saw XXIII people will start calling Tom Morello blues too.

Can't say I am a big SOAD fan though I am afraid, it has been a long time since I liked any metal, tool were always the special band for me though, but I liked Metallica (Reload mainly, which most fans hate!!!).

You are right though, every solo has to be super flashy and peoople are now saying Slash is overrated too because he isn't as technical as the guitar players (that have only learnt of through playing guitar) are.

I kind of think if you can only get into a guitarist who is technical BECAUSE you play guitar then there's something a bit wrong with that. I mean...... if you can't see the music in it and the only thing that has given you a new found respect is that they are better on guitar than you then you might as well go back to listening to the guitarist you now believe is crappy because at least you liked them just because of how their music sounded to you as a non-musician.

I am kind of losing the plot so I will stop here.

he is not a blues guitarist he is rock!

Umm he is blues i have his albums and 3 hour documentary on him his influences were blues and his guitar style is on a blues scale aswell as using chords that originated from blues.

Infact when watching the DVD he apparently enjoyed playing the blues alot more significantly then his otheir genre but granted hard rock and psychedilic and acid rock where his genre too.But his routes where blues he even sang in a style of blues music and generally it's not surprising from his culture.

But this is matter of a opinion and to hate something for recognising anothr aspect of him is abit silly ratheir surprising Angus young guitar style is also blues and he played like one two as he has no guitar rig

It's quite an opinion thing, but to me he is not blues or at least not "just" a blues player. Dolly Dagger is soul, Freedom is funk! Little wing, Bold as love, castles made of sand are pure Hendrix and nothing to do with blues to me. Voodo chile is blues, vodoo slight return is rock. I wouldn't have been surprised if Hendrix had lived if he had ended up even making some very jazzy numbers (he was going to be doing a record with Miles Davis, had he lived, that record exists but with a different guitarist who plays in a similar way to Hendrix).

I know Hendrix is influenced by the blues, his heroes being people like Buddy Guy and Albert King but I still don't class him as blues. For the most part he is a rocker with many different influences, some of which are blues players - but listen to Spanish Castle Magic and Crosstown traffic, it doesn't sound like blues to me. Towards the end of his career with band of gypsys and many of the songs on what would have been his last album, he was heading towards soul which I am aware used to be called R&B but no that doesn't make that genre blues either.

Anyway if you think he is blues, that is your opinion and I'm not here to change anyones opinions. If somone had said here, "I DO think he is overrated" I wouldn't try and change their opinion either.

One more thing, do you know who Hendrix's vocal influence was? Bob Dylan and Bob Dylan is not out and out blues either, he is really a folk guy, though he does a few blues numbers. You can hear the Dylan in the way Hendrix sings. As for Angus Young you were almost there but his favourite player is Chuck Berry (rock n roll not blues). I love blues though, I have seen BB King live and if I had the money I would go see every living blues gutiarist because the old school are dying and that is really upsetting.

I don't even hate the people, I just don't agree with it and most people use it as a negative thing that he is "just a blues guitarist" when he can do so much more, if he had continued to live I think he could have played any style and sitted in on whatever session he wanted. I have heard people who knew him say things like that, that he could play ANYTHING!

I do think he is blues influenced and I don't think there is any denying that, is he strictly a blues player though, probably not.

As for whether or not he is overrated I'm not sure...says who? And who rated him in the first place?

I think they guy was definitely ahead of his time and I respect his talent but his music never did much for me and I'm not really sure why.

There is some underlying irritation I get when I listen to some of his music and I'm not even sure how to describe it but it just doesn't do it for me.

Part of it I know has to do with his voice which I don't particulary like but that's just me and my opinion means less than anything.

But I do not like the blues in general so maybe it's not suprising that he doesn't do much for me even though he's more than a blues player.

But I shouldn't single out Hendrix because there are alot of guitarists that don't do it for me but then again I don't really look at guitarist per se on their own unless they are a solo act and I think my opinion comes from the band or artists body of work, which is their song catalog etc. not just the technical ability of the guitar player.

I like Slash and I like Brian May and several others but then I liked the music the bands they were in made so I think that skews my opinion a bit.

Put it this way if I hated every song a band came up with yet the guitar player was the "best" in the world I most likely would not rank that guitar player very high, but like I said opinions don't mean much.

If you like it listen to it if you don't don't. Different strokes for different folks as they say.

Cnev quote;
Part of it I know has to do with his voice which I don't particulary like but that's just me and my opinion means less than anything.

The voice puts many people off, for some reason though I have always loved his voice (and everything about him really) he just is my main man. He is the reason I play guitar besides Kurt Cobain, who pushed me towards getting a guitar too (funny, because he really isn't such a great player). Edit; but I loved his music so what the **** does it matter?

Anyway, why do you think so little of your own opinion?

Just to sort of pass back to the Angus Young thing, I am sure that AC DC/angus young do have blues influences too like John Lee Hooker. There is this one JLH song which sounds so much like an AC DC style riff (Boom boom JLH + ACDC Have a drink on me).

I do have to add I think Hendrix exemplifies true rock n roll to me and least one of the founding fathers so you have to respect that.

He definitely was one bad mutha.

I really don't know why I don't like his music more than I do and I play several of his songs.

There's a lot of fusion going on too in Hendrix's record, fusion of different styles together because Hendrix could jump from different genres if he wanted, like the guy said earlier he has big blues influences but Mitch Mitchell has huge Jazz Influences so you quite often get songs that have very jazzy drumming, and I don't really know where Noel Reddings influences are. By the end of Jimi's career he was playing with guys who really dug soul such as Billy Cox so Jimi is hard to classify and his music is too because he mixes with all sorts of people.