There are two stories about Jimi Hendrix being fired. The first was when he was fired from a band he joined in high school. Hendrix was too wild for them. That just wasn’t the sound the band was going for, so they fired him. Hendrix was later hired by Little Richard to be in his backing band. Hendrix continued to play his style and dress his own way. He frequently showed up late to rehearsals and gigs. So, he got fired. Neither story makes Hendrix look very good.
However, Jimi Hendrix is widely known as the greatest guitarist ever. He’s not, but many, many people believe he is. There are plenty of guitarists, both his contemporaries and people who have come after, who can play everything he could play and then some. He was wildly influential, but still not as influential as BB King or Chuck Berry. My brother calls him a one trick pony (see the above stories). It’s a very cool trick, but I’m inclined to agree with my brother. This isn’t my hot take, though.
My take is about how Hendrix got and kept the reputation as the world’s greatest guitar player. Hendrix was a very light-skinned black man. The other American players who were doing similar things at the time, guys like Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Magic Sam, were much darker. Colorism has always been a thing and it played a part in Hendrix’s success.
He also tried for many years to make it on the American R&B circuit. And he failed. Even though he is essentially a blues player, he either couldn’t or wouldn’t play what those audiences wanted and expected. It wasn’t until Hendrix went to Greenwich Village and white people saw him that he began to get noticed.
Then Chas Chandler brought him to England. In England, Hendrix completely repackaged himself. His flamboyance paid off. He dressed like a hippie/love child. He put together a band with two white Brits. When he came back to America, he was no longer a black man from Seattle. He was part of the British Invasion. He was a hippie. In other words, he was safe for white audiences to embrace.
Once they did embrace Hendrix, they anointed him. Even though there were other guys who played that way, this new, white audience had never heard them. In their ears, Hendrix was the first, a total original. That made him the best.
That’s how Jimi Hendrix gained the reputation as the world’s greatest guitar player. How did he keep the title? First, there were just a lot, a whole lot, of people in their teens and early twenties during the mid-sixties when Hendrix broke through. A lot of that lot are still around. We all know that for most people, musical tastes tend to solidify in their teens and early twenties. Once Hendrix was anointed, in their minds, no one was going to come along to replace him.
Second, that very large group of people who came of age in the sixties have controlled most of the media since the sixties. Since Hendrix is solidified in their minds as the greatest, whenever Rolling Stone or Guitar World or any other outlet lists the best, Hendrix comes out on top. (It’s kind of like Bob Dylan for songwriters and Sgt. Pepper for albums). That means that all the younger people have been fed the “fact” that Hendrix is the best guitar player from a young age, and they have come to believe it, too.
So, who is the all-time best guitar player? I have no idea. Do you?
