Happy Birthday Jimi Hendrix!
James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix was born November 27, 1942.
To say that Jimi Hendrix was a guitarist, singer and songwriter is like saying Michael Jordon was a basketball player.
To many people, Jimi is considered to be the greatest electric guitar player in the history of rock-n-roll music… and don’t expect GuitarDaddy to dispute that!
Certainly he was one of the most important and influential musicians of his era across a wide variety of genres.
He said often that his playing style was influenced by blues artists such as B. B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King and Elmore James.
After his initial success playing in Europe, he achieved “rock-star” fame in the United States with his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. He went on to headline the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.
Hendrix favored raw overdrive and amplifiers with high gain and treble. It was that combination that helped him fine-tune the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Simple stated, Hendrix turned the undesireable into the desirable.
One of my favorite Hendrix quotes was: ““Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.”
He was rewarded, and so were we — every time we heard him play.
