The Jimi Effect Pt 2

When Hendrix emerged on the scene in 1966 he made an instant and massive impact on music and on guitarists in particular. Therefore, Question 2 is: What do you think Hendrix brought to the guitar?

JAN AKKERMAN

His style was very expressive to say the least. It is difficult to describe his technique because he didn’t care for that. I liked his tone on the Strat. I like the sound of single-coils like Fender or my Gretsch White Falcon. One of the reasons I couldn’t play a Fender is because the controls are always in the way. Jimi didn’t have that problem because he played upside-down so the volume pot was on the other side of the guitar.

JENNIFER BATTEN

He brought a renewed creativity as to what was possible with guitar effects, harmonic composition, tremolo bar use, and manhandling the instrument for a totally new level of entertaining engagement.

JOE BONAMASSA

Jimi brought fire... He used his guitar as a weapon. Up until that point only Buddy Guy had weaponised the electric guitar. It was visceral and almost terrifying to listen to and watch as a young kid in his formative years. Beautiful tone, phrasing and use of chords. Game changer.

KIRK FLETCHER

I feel he brought a whole new language to the guitar. His command of playing and blending so many styles and influences. There are so many branches to the Hendrix tree. For rock guitarists you have his use of the whammy bar and overdrive. I feel that the great funk movement of the 70s, with groups like Funkadelic, were definitely inspired by Hendrix. I feel he wrote the book on funk-rock guitar soloing. His use of doublestops and rhythm guitar is a whole language. His melodic phrasing on ballads. It would be difficult for me to think of a music world without Jimi Hendrix’s contributions.

MARTY FRIEDMAN

He brought so many great things to the guitar. Fashion, charisma, beautiful noise, aggressive blues playing like never before, wonderful angelic clean chord voicings, wild showmanship, and was an early innovator in experimentation with guitar sounds. You have to respect these things. He was a pioneer and was the first to do a lot of guitar things that are taken for granted 50 years later.

ERIC GALES

He brought things to the guitar that even still today leaves great minds puzzled.

BRETT GARSED

The obvious things are the authentic R&B influences and his experimentation with effects which he pretty much set the standard for. The level of musicality that he achieved using the simplest of tools is still a high bar that most players strive for. But, the thing that astounded me was the way he intertwined his voice with his guitar playing, almost creating a third instrument. He had total independence between what he was playing and what he was singing, and the two would weave in and out of each other, sometimes in harmony, unison or total counterpoint. It’s an incredibly difficult skill to develop and, once again, Jimi had it mastered.

PAUL GILBERT

He brought a voice to guitar. He used enough volume and distortion to make the guitar sustain in the way that a human voice can. And he brought the elements of expression that a voice has; sliding, bending, contrasts of volume, texture, and length, and the best vibrato anyone had heard in 1966. Traditional guitar was NOT built to do this. The guitar is designed more like a lute, where chords are fretted, and the strings are plucked. It’s sort of a portable harpsichord, and the great fingerpickers from Segovia to Chet Atkins, played it masterfully like that. BB King, Otis Rush, Freddie King, and other early electric blues players certainly opened the door for what Jimi did. But Jimi’s songs, live performances, and use of sustain, took the guitar ‘as a voice’ into sounds that made everything before him seem outdated. Jimi says, “And you’ll never hear surf music again.” And when you hear the guitar intro of The Beach Boys’ Surfin’ USA, it sounds pretty stiff, compared to the world that Jimi created. I still love The Beach Boys, and I don’t mind when guitar players play guitar like a guitar. But I must admit that a good portion of my time is spent trying to get my guitar to sing, like Jimi did.

DAVID GRISSOM

I think he changed electric guitar playing the same way Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker changed jazz. He drew from a very deep well. Not only was his playing mind blowing, he wrote really great innovative songs that covered a huge range of styles, tones, and dynamics.

ALLEN HINDS

He brought a Marshall amp and psychedelic sensibility to the blues and R&B. I suspect even to him the acceleration of volume and feedback with amplification was overwhelming. I think he was just holding on for dear life, in a great way. No one had heard anything like that before!

GREG KOCH

Of course the way he manipulated the whammy bar, or Mr Wiggles as I like to say, along with feedback and his creative use of effects from the Octavia to the Univibe greatly expanded the emotive range of the electric guitar. His greasy blues phrasing and extraordinary rhythm playing really has left an indelible mark on everyone since.

RONNIE LE TEKRO

Jimi revolutionised the electric guitar. Still I haven’t heard another guitar player with such rhythmical feeling. His solos and playing are so incorporated into his compositions. It’s reaching a higher dimension when you play, sing and compose like that. He was driving the band to magical heights. My favourite line-up must be with Mitchell and Redding. Those guys certainly knew how to play freely on the highest level. It sounds like it’s out of control. I love that Jimi also gave all guitar players a warning about what could happen to you if you indulge in chemical drugs. Some didn’t take the warning, unfortunately. They sensed that drugs where the driving force in Jimi’s music, but like Jimi they couldn’t handle it. His image and live performances inspired and inspires most of us. That being said, I have always been trying to create my own sound and way of playing the guitar.

STEVE LUKATHER

A total reinvention of the possibilities. He could make a statement with his use of feedback and amazing use of chords and R&B stylings which he made his own. Very loudly! It’s like nothing else. I’m not sure anyone could make an impact like that afterwards. EVH did but he was not on a cultural level because Jimi was part of the 60s antiestablishment scene. Black man with a white band accepted by everyone but I never saw colour, just the sound. It was a colossal sound; the anger and intensity of Machine Gun

through to the softness of The Wind Cries Mary. Goodness knows what he could have gone on to have done!

HANK MARVIN

I’m not aware of anyone before Jimi using feedback in the way he did, or using the whammy bar to create effects so extreme that it probably contributed to global warming. He also showed the music world that the electric guitar could be played with the teeth, used as a fireplace and in the right hands be a wonderfully expressive instrument.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN

By renewing the influences of the great Mississippi blues players, Jimi brought history up to date with a concept that was not only contemporary, but remains contemporary today. There are great musicians who have a powerful impact on other musicians, but to create a new concept of playing is even more significant. I think it’s safe to say that the concept Jimi introduced, changed the way of playing the guitar for all time.

STEVE MORSE

All the previously mentioned sounds (backwards solos, echo effects, Rotovibe, wah-wah, octave box, slide effects, whammy bar, etc), but also strong phrasing, soulful, powerful bends, and melodic rhythm playing.

OZ NOY

He opened the doors to electric guitar in such a huge way, that I don’t think anybody has more influence on the instrument than he did. The tone of both his rhythm and lead guitar is still untouchable. His soloing was obviously amazing, the depth of his blues roots mixed with this new-age rock feel using very loud amps that created a lot of sustain. I don’t think any of that existed before him, and if it did it wasn’t on such an extreme level. He was also a very special rhythm guitar player. The use of wah-wah, fuzz and Univibe set the bar for those sounds to this day, really. Hendrix didn’t only change music, he changed our culture!

THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING DEEPER, SOMETHING MORE MEANINGFUL, SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS BEHIND THE NOTES. HE WAS ONE OF THE GREAT INSPIRED ARTISTS OF ALL TIME Uli Jon Roth

ORIANTHI

He opened people’s minds. He was an innovator and was constantly searching. He made the guitar sound like no other. He changed the way people heard it.

ULI JON ROTH

He brought a completely new approach, both in terms of playing as well as forging a sound which had never been heard before. His playing was always so much more than ‘just’ guitar playing, though. There was always something deeper, something more meaningful, something mysterious behind the notes. He was one of the great inspired artists of all time, and because of that he will be remembered forever.

KIM SIMMONS (Savoy Brown)

Jimi’s guitar playing was Arabesque. It was a mixture of rock, blues, gospel and jazz. He brought a sensuality to the instrument that we hadn’t seen before.

ANDY TIMMONS

I think we largely take for granted much of Hendrix’s innovation in technique and tone today. You have to consider what he did, when he did it. Think about the other music that was happening in late 1966 and early 1967! His masterful command of chordal embellishment, his incredibly soulful bending, his array of tones, his control of feedback, his use of the vibrato bar, his ferocious and charismatic live performances. All of these elements were certainly beginning to be implemented by other performers and players, but nobody had put it all together in such a highly developed fashion like Jimi.

CARL VERHEYEN

Jimi was a pivotal musician in the 20th century. Besides his R&B training with Little Richard’s Upsetters, he draws on the Delta blues players’ deeply moving tradition of acoustic blues. That tradition migrates up the river to Chicago where players like Muddy Waters electrify it, and one-chord Delta blues songs become Catfish Blues and Two Trains Running in Muddy’s band. When Hendrix arrives on the scene mid-century, he turns them into psychedelic rave-ups like Voodoo Chile and Machine Gun, thus carrying the tradition into mainstream rock. Obviously his use of distortion, effects and recording techniques were huge breakthroughs for the electric guitar, but I believe his contribution to popular music will be remembered equally for its deep roots in American blues.