Again - all great entries. BBVLou, as you already know, you and I have similar tastes, at least in terms of guitarists we respect. Steve Morse is pretty much up there.
For me, one criteria I use as part of rating who is great in my mind is how much they crossed over into the mainstream. Why? I think it relates to how much of a cultural impact they had - if your average square tries to drop their name, clearly an act has crossed over.
That is why I didn’t mention Steve Morse - absolutely no crossover. Same thing with my personal fave, Jeff Beck - sure, some average citizens may know enough to be able to answer Rock Trivia Question #27 (i.e., which Brit Invasion band spawned three of rocks greatest guitarists and who were they?), but beyond that he has little or no crossover appeal.
Hendrix, on the other hand, does. His songs are 69’s psychedelia, and are used as touchstones to evoke the era. Show mod London dudes and play Purple Haze or All Along the Watchtower and you have a shorthand code to the late 60’s.
Add to that the absolute groundbreaking innovation of what his playing was. NOBODY fused blues and rock they way he did. His playing was the equivalent of introducing Jackie Robinson to major league baseball in '47 - sure, it was fundamentally groundbreaking from a racial integration standpoint, but I am talking about showmanship - Robinson was the most aggressive basestealer major league baseball had ever seen. He had style - he scared the crap out of staid white pitchers who assumed the runner would steal in a mannered way. Hendrix was the equivalent of Julius Erving (aka Dr. J) in basketball - nobody had his style, his look, his gravity-defying-balletic moves. He knew the fundamentals of the game and was so much better than that that he transcended. Other players had to stop and watch. He single-handedly re-invented the sport - the NBA merged with the ABA basically to bring Dr. J into the NBA.
Hendrix was the same way - nobody in rock had Hendrix’ blues showmanship. Who played behind their back? With their teeth? Walking out into the audience? The first true guitarist showman of the electric era was T-Bone Walker out of Texas, who made his name in Los Angeles. Played doin’ the splits with the guitar behind his back.
Hendrix had fundamental technique, but like Robinson and Erving, was so solid that he transcended fundamentals and blew open a whole new approach to guitar. And he brought an African-American style - what rock player before him was wearing velvet with sashes tied around their thighs?
Okay, Jonathan Chance - you say that later generations of guitarists you talk to say “yeah he is good, but so and so is better”. Frankly, that’s fine, but it says more about the naivete of the speaker. Are there “better” painters than Monet? I am sure they are, but he, along with a number of others, CREATED Impressionism - the CREATING part counts for a whole lot. Is Chuck Berry a good guitarist? Frankly, no - he is constantly out of tune and sloppy as hell - but is he Chuck Berry? Oh, hell yes - he single handedly fused the story-telling songwriting of country with the beat of rockabilly and INVENTED the use of double-stop guitar to replicate the sound of a horn section from Louis Jordan’s jump blues orchestra arrangements. He CREATED rock and roll in terms of the sound vocabulary we know. That matters. One Chuck Berry is exponentially more important than scores of the other guitarists mentioned on this list because he OPENED THE DOOR. Period.
Well, so did Hendrix. In terms of fusing blues and rock. In terms of (along with the Beatles and a few others) expanding the possibilities of what rock lyrics and songs could be about. In terms of bringing a brash, blues-based African American showmanship to staid rock - Hendrix brought risk and fear and brinksmanship to rock in a way no one came close to at the time. Writing right now, two equivalents come to mind - when Elvis first scared the bejeezus out of whitebread America in the ‘50’s, and when Guns n’ Roses reclaimed rock from synthy bands and harmless hair metal in the late '80’s. GnR don’t stand the test of time the way Elvis and Jimi do, but at least they were scary. Oh, also the Sex Pistols - again, they brought back the genuine risky rebellion.
So if the question is just “who has good hands” then players like Morse win hands down, deservedly so. But if you want to include “who opened the door to a new way of thinking - about guitar, about music, about style, about life and its possibilities” then players like Hendrix are the ones that matter.
I hope this helps - again, these lists are just for fun and only help if they result in productive dialogue. I know Hendrix is the “standard answer” one is supposed to give, but y’know, sometimes there is a reason the “standard answer” has become standard. There is a reason Mozart and Beethoven are considered the greatest Classical Composers and Bach the greatest Baroque composer. And Einstein the most influential scientist of the 20th century. If you don’t understand why, it is worth exploring to learn more. Hendrix is that good. You have to understand - I am not even a particularly big fan of his - his stuff was never squarely in my gunsites. But as I played more, I took the time to learn more about him and have come to appreciate why he is where he is - at the top. If you don’t invest the time and recognize that for yourself, you are really missing out.
Thanks for reading.
