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Originally Posted by Boozinbloozin
Lets not forget here that Jimi only made it to the age of 27. Im not taking anything away from Townshend here, but the determination Hendrix had for advancing his progress was unparalled imo. As far as being aware of his technical short comings im not sure that he had any really. His capabilities for matching ideas in his head, and translating them through his strat, and lyrics to this day remains superior to me. Not to mention just the overall experimentation of sound barriers he broke recording wise and his fusion of psychadelic rock and blues. Not just that, but then he really made popular the unique style of which he played. By that I mean the grip he used, and invertion of chords and melodic play(Little Wing) was unlike anything people had ever heard or seen. I mean the guys got chords named after him..(the Hendrix chord)..which if you were in the key of E would be something like a E7 sharp 9 I think. Its like a B7 with your pinky placed a 1/2 step back. Anyway point being all of these things combined were part of the mystique that added to the genius of imo..the greatest all around musician to have ever graced us with his presence. All hail Jimi Hendrix
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I wasn't talking down Hendrix, mind you. From a purely technical point of view he's probably topping my list as well. His shortcomings were more of an architectural nature, in that he didn't really write very good songs, something which he shares with just about every subsequent guitar hero (all of the ones in the threadstart included). I mean, he's got a few deserved classics like "Little wing", "Purple haze" and so on, but he was more of a performer than anything else. Isn't it common knowledge that his take on "Watchtower" is superior to the Dylan original, for instance?
And while we're on the subject, let's not forget that Hendrix also surrounded himself (ok, maybe it was thanks to Chas Chandler, but let's not split hairs) with a - for his playing style - top-notch backing, especially the dextrous chops of Mitch Mitchell. The whole band added to the extraordinary sound of the three classic records, and if not for them along with Hendrix's performing shenanigans, a lot of the songs would probably - yes, I'm gonna say it - stink.