I agree with one poster who said Chet Atkins is the greatest guitar player ever. He is absolutely flawless and a complete master of his instrument.
Now, as to the greatest ROCK guitar player ever, I would have to say Eric Clapton. He has everything going for him: longevity, influence, plus he has proven he can play other styles besides just rock. And in my book, it is not enough just to be influential. Yes, Hendrix was influential, but that alone is not enough to make him the greatest. Top 20, yes. But he did not have the same mastery of his instrument as others before and since. There are several guitarists who I would say are much better players technically than Hendrix, including Stevie Ray, Eddie, Carlos, and Joe Walsh. No doubt they were all influenced by Jimi, but again, they are better technically, which I think elevates them above him.
In fact, in terms of influence I would argue that both Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly had as much or more influence than Jimi did, and had at least as much guitar skill as he did.
Now, if Jimi had LIVED and continued to improve skillwise I might be saying he was the greatest ever. But based on what he did in his short life, that qualifies him for top 20, but not #1.
I love rhetorical discussions!
I stand by my choice. Show of hands: Who here has actually seen more than a handful of the aforementioned guitarists live? I have seen: Santana, Hendrix, Vaughn, King, Hooker, Van Halen, Clapton, Beck, Page, Richards, Garcia, Thompson, Burton, Stills, Dale, McLaughlin. That’s just out of the Top 50 or so from the Rolling Stone list. If I had to pick one and only one to see again, it would be Carlos.
I’m far from any sort of music expert. I always felt Hendrix was a great technical guitarist, but his music never moved me the way some others did (Page, Vaughn, even Townsend.) If you were listening to someone solo it would be one thing, but rock and roll is about the whole band, and I think many others produced better rock and roll. Just my opinion of course.
I don’t know how this is supposed to contradict. He still had an excellent ear and he DID know how to play jazz. The fact that he made a few “mistakes” while fiddling with classical runs is neither here nor there with regards to his innate ability and being accomplished at classical music is not a criterion for greatness as a ROCK musician anyway.
Well, I’ve been playing for over 25 years, I’ve played professionally, I taught the instrument and I’ve had some formal classical training (I was a classical guitar major in my first try at college). The fact that you would list Roy Clark and Paul Gilbert in the same sentence as Hendrix tells me that you probably do not have as much knowledge of the instrument (or of its history) as you imagine you do. That’s not a slur on the guitarists you mention, they’re fine, very skilled musicians, but they are not the virtuosos that Hendrix was.
I have to vote Hendricks, as he was the best at what he did. As far as for what I’d call 'electric blues, that’d be Stevie Ray. Even Clapton himself averred to him. Stills was/is oustanding at ‘countryfied rock finger pickin’. Eddie V has taken fingerboard hammering to new heights, but my vote for overall best is still Jimi.
I think he did more to create the vocabulary or the palette of the electric guitar, defining it as a seperate instrument from the acoustic, than anybody else. But if you don’t like his playing the most than he’s not the best. Some people played louder, some other more complex music or a greater variety, and obviously a lot of people had much longer careers. But the nice thing about this debate is that you can make up your own criteria for greatness.
I think Hendrix was a paradigm shift from what was to what was to come. I saw an interview with some of the heavy hitting gun slingers of the era, and the consensus seemed to be that they’d never seen anything like him before. Technically lacking, not versed in all styles, whatever; he was like nothing they’d seen before.
The first at anything is likely not going to be the best. Just the first.
If you weren’t there, you can’t ever really judge. I didn’t get to see Jimi, but I know that many charismatic performers simply cannot be truly appreciated unless you see them in person. On a good night, Hendrix was the ultimate rock showman. The legend simply would not exist if he didn’t deliver. If you base your judgment on videos or CD’s, you’re at least once removed from the experience, so to speak. If he had never performed live, people might still talk about his virtuosity, but I doubt that he would be so highly rated.
Saying Hendrix isn’t the best rock guitarist because he couldn’t play jazz strikes me as making as much sense as saying Shakespeare isn’t the greatest English author because he couldn’t write in Anglo-Saxon.
“He has been voted by Rolling Stone, Guitar World, and a number of other magazines and polls as the best electric guitarist of all time.”
If you’re a lifelong guitar player, then you’ve undoubtedly seen countless magazines devoted to the art of guitar playing which, on the cover, feature the face of one James Marshall Hendrix. It’s no coincidence that the Wikipedia article for Guitar Player Magazine depicts an issue sporting the ubiquitous visage of Jimi: if you could tally up the number of pictures of each rock guitarist that have appeared in the various guitar magazines over the last, say, ten years, Jimi’s total would dwarf the numbers of the runners up.
There’s a reason for this, and that reason is that dedicated guitar players tend to appreciate Jimi’s talents far more fervently than does the general public.
Obviously, as others have stated, he was a visionary - possessing arguably the most original musical vocabulary ever heard in rock music. Moreover, his technical ability, which has taken a beating in this thread, surpassed the state-of-the-art for rock guitar in the 1960’s - he was the best of his day in his idiom.
But what really made him special was his gift for improvisation - the immediate effortlessness with which he extemporaneously expressed musical ideas which would never in a million years have occurred to anyone else - the endless melodic invention - that, more than anything else, is why he was a genius.
Enter the Flagon said it all very well - for me Hendrix is all that plus the fact that he knew when to keep it simple, he played with great, great emotion and a tone so distinctive he should have been able to copyright it.
His “Band of Gypsys” album, even 40 odd years on, always sounds fresh and amazing and full of new wonders, to my ears.
Personally I prefer Clapton musically to Hendrix and always have but a few years ago I heard an interview with Richard Tognetti that demonstrates how influential Hendrix is. Tognetti is head of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and is its violin soloist. He plays a $10 million Del Gesu violin known as the Carrodus. He did the music for Master and Commander and taught Russell Crowe violin for his role. Near the end of the interview he was asked who his greatest influences where and he answered, “Well Jimi Hendrix for fingering technique of course…” in a manner that made it seem obvious. I can’t imagine any other guitarist being cited in that manner.
santana - check. 3 or 4 times. Well Alright tour in the sac memorial was the only awesome show
Hendrix - before my time
Vaughn - check. both of em. Stevie (boring) and Jimmie (much better music IMHO)
King - semi check. Only BB and not Freddie. BB was fine but not my preferred style. Would love to have seen Freddie, but again before my time
Hooker - check. couple of times, including in the UC Davis coffee house, holding about 60 people. He was old but rocked. Unfortunately he only has one song
Van Halen - check. pretty early in his career at a day on the green with Aerosmith. Flashy but not hendrix
Clapton - check. In the 80’s so past his prime
Page - check. My first rock concert ever. What can I say. Will never forget that one.
Richards - check. IMHO one of the best rock guitarists out there.
Garcia - check. Much prefered the Bob Weir band both times I saw them.
the rest I haven’t seen.
Carlos would be far down my personal list to see again.
That’s pretty much what I came in to post. I don’t think he was the “greatist rock guitarist evar”, although he’s got to be in the top 5 or so. However, for sheer paradigm smashing, he was number 1 with a bullet, no question.
Don’t have much to add, but just to say I think Silenus makes a good point. I’d much rather defer to someone who has seen each of these guys playing live. Not that there can ever be a definitive answer, but I certainly envy Silenus’s list and I think it must lead to a pretty well-formed opinion.
A pretty fun debate in a rhetorical sense - I am inclined to hang back and watch the fireworks, but I kinda can’t resist - a few points:
Hendrix - depends on how you define Greatest. “redefining the vocabulary” for guitar as suggested by other posters makes a lot of sense. I would expand that to say he “fixed the definition” of rock guitarist. Other folks brought key pieces of the puzzle to the equation - technique, ground-breaking approaches, songs, flash, danger, etc. - but nobody brought them all together. Is Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player? Babe Ruth in baseball? Lots of fun debates to be had, but the fact that these folks’ names have become the definition of their specialty is not up for debate.
Technique - he was in the same school as Page - so innovative and in the moment that he was more than willing to let a little slop happen. I love that.
Santana - okay, he had his moment(s). But isn’t he a bit more of the Kenny G of rock guitar than we are all comfortable with?
Clapton - hugely innovative with the Blues Breakers, Cream and D&the Dominos. Beyond that? A guy who runs from his Guitar Hero status and really presents himself as a brilliant mimic of other blues guitarists. Noone can do Freddie King, Albert King and Robert Johnson on electric the way Slowhand can. And truly perfect vibrato - his defining technique. But he’s no Hendrix - and his own knowledge of that became a defining moment in his career. Why the heck do you think he plays a Strat?
Clark and Gilbert - technically brilliant guitarists. To dismiss their skills is short-sighted, even though they never received the pop-music-world’s acclaim
My $.02 - for now…
I’ve never seen Santana, but his recordings & your judgment are enough to convince me that your regard is on target. But I’m not a monotheist–I think there are several Guitar Gods, numerous Demi-Gods & even more Saints.
When I heard Hendrix, on his first US tour, “Blue House” blew me away more than his pyrotechnics. I heard John Lee Hooker–but Jimmie Reed’s “style” impressed me, too; the guitar just supported his memorable sound. (Johnny Winter opened him–both artists had just gotten out of their separate rehabs.) As a Houstonian, Lightnin’ Hopkins was the blues–his guitar “responded” to his vocals, rather than being the show. Mance Lipscomb, from up in Nacogdoches, represented an even older style–but he amazed this little folkie with his slide guitar on “Motherless Children.”
I heard Stevie Ray many times–so much that his stuff became a bit predictable; perhaps just a few shows would have been enough. When I heard several others from your impressive list, alas, I wasn’t always in a critical mood.
Richard Thompson kills as a solo–but loots & plunders as leader of an electric band. (And I can’t divorce his songwriting from my respect.)
I deeply regret missing The Allmans before Duane died. But at least I saw Little Feat many times when Lowell George was in his prime.
Jimi was a paradigm breaker, for sure. But I know quite a few guitarists who still worship Django. Quite a Band of Gypsies…
Saw Clapton being interviewed once. He talked about running into Jeff Beck at one of the early London Hendrix concerts before he was ‘known’. First time both had seen him.
At the end of the set Beck turned to Clapton (or maybe the other way round) and said:
Something like that - I thought it was with Townshend?
One other thing: Keith Richards is without question in the upper reaches of the Pantheon of Guitar Gods. His definitive style focuses on rhythm guitar, but that in no way diminishes his innovation, technique and all the cool required to be one of the toppermost of the poppermost. Being part of a debate on that would be fun, but do your homework first…
He was innovative, but his technical skill wasn’t that great. Most people who are serious about learning to play rock guitar can play faster and more accurately than him within a year or so, but that’s because there has been a lot of time for teachers to learn the techniques he invented and refine them.
