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I wouldn't go that far even. Sure, influential player but there are many more who are at least at the same level influence-wise or higher.

6stringmerc 10y ago
Re: Electric guitar. It pretty much all starts with Les Paul. Not only an absolute genius on the guitar, tasteful and accomplished beyond what most will ever achieve, he also had a knack for electronics. That's putting it mildly. Numerous innovations and systems he created for looping, recording, editing, and manipulating sound laid the foundation for what modern music is today. Jimi was just about to start working in his personal studio and may have been able to continue to build sonic experiments with some of the emerging tech; sad that it didn't turn out like that, but it's life. Just figured I'd drop his name in this consideration, he certainly deserves the recognition in my opinion.
gnaritas 10y ago
Who? Everyone after Hendrix was heavily influenced by his electric guitar playing, before Hendrix, Cream was what electric guitar rock style sounded like. Hendrix was more than just influential, he changed how the instrument was played. Go listen to "Machine Gun" and then find anything in all of rock music before Hendrix that sounds remotely like anything more than an amplified acoustic with maybe a little distortion in comparison.
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  Distortion-wise Hendrix was reasonably up there for the time although I wouldn't be making blanket statements like 'Everyone after Hendrix was heavily influenced by his electric guitar playing' based on that fact. He wasn't the 'distortion pioneer' either (Jeff Beck was sorta the one who popularized it although he didn't 'invent' it per se). As far as other no-less-influential guitarists from that era there was the aforementioned Beck, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour (speaking of distortion - check out The Nile Song off of 'More' which came out in '68), Clapton (although I'm not a fan personally), Fripp (again see '21st Century Schizoid Man' for distortion and overall truly pioneering complexity), McLaughlin, Blackmore etc. 'Being influential' is of course subjective and hard to quantify but to call any one player from that (incomplete) list 'a father of modern guitar playing' would be taking that subjectivity to a whole another level :)
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    I think you misread me, never said he pioneered distortion, I'm saying distortion is about what guitar playing was before him. I'm sure you can find interviews with every one of his contemporaries and they'll all say he changed the game and they were all blown away by him. Clapton was considered king of guitar at that time and even he admits he couldn't believe how he played and it destroyed his confidence for a while. You really can't listen to rock music today and not hear Hendrix influence virtually everywhere. ‘The first shockwave was Jimi Hendrix… He came along and reset all of the rules in one evening,’ – Jeff Beck ‘In rock guitar, there are but two eras — before Hendrix and after Hendrix’, – Andy Aledort, musicologist ‘He did a few of his tricks, like playing with his teeth and behind his back, but it wasn’t in an upstaging sense at all, and that was it…. He walked off, and my life was never the same again,’ – Eric Clapton
    - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
      >>You really can't listen to rock music today and not hear Hendrix influence virtually everywhere. That's where I would actually disagree the most. The Beck-Clapton-Hendrix-Page styles were basically the pinnacle of bluesy 'hard' music. It did have it's influence obviously (if I had to pick one I'd go with Page) and is still represented in 'rock music' although some of the players there are old enough to go straight to Chuck Berry for their influences :) There were notable other players (like Fripp and Gilmour for example) at that same time kind of laying the foundation for the departure from the pentatonic based riffing and soloing which to me is a staple of what I would call a 'modern rock music' (which is also too wide of a blanket to make a concrete argument I suppose).
      - gnaritas 10y ago
        All good points, but I think overly focusing on things that weren't really unique to Hendrix; pentatonic based riffing and soloing is certainly a staple of rock, but it was Hendrix who popularized things like the wah and octavia pedals, heavy feedback being used as part of the overall atmosphere, theatrical stage presence, and his raw forever improvising-every recording you can find is unique-that sets him apart from the rest. And like I said, pick any of those guys you name and they'll all say the same thing about him.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  Jimi Hendrix had a lot of influences and that's part of why he sounds so unique, and ended up being so influential. However, he wasn't formed out of a vacuum. :) If I had to pick "most influential style", I'd pick the blues, not rock. In particular, to my ears, there's a lot of Muddy Waters and especially Buddy Guy in Jimi's style.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    Of course, but those things are only a part of Hendrix's style. No one is formed in a vacuum.

6stringmerc 10y ago

Re: Electric guitar. It pretty much all starts with Les Paul. Not only an absolute genius on the guitar, tasteful and accomplished beyond what most will ever achieve, he also had a knack for electronics. That's putting it mildly. Numerous innovations and systems he created for looping, recording, editing, and manipulating sound laid the foundation for what modern music is today. Jimi was just about to start working in his personal studio and may have been able to continue to build sonic experiments with some of the emerging tech; sad that it didn't turn out like that, but it's life. Just figured I'd drop his name in this consideration, he certainly deserves the recognition in my opinion.

gnaritas 10y ago

Who? Everyone after Hendrix was heavily influenced by his electric guitar playing, before Hendrix, Cream was what electric guitar rock style sounded like. Hendrix was more than just influential, he changed how the instrument was played. Go listen to "Machine Gun" and then find anything in all of rock music before Hendrix that sounds remotely like anything more than an amplified acoustic with maybe a little distortion in comparison.

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
Distortion-wise Hendrix was reasonably up there for the time although I wouldn't be making blanket statements like 'Everyone after Hendrix was heavily influenced by his electric guitar playing' based on that fact. He wasn't the 'distortion pioneer' either (Jeff Beck was sorta the one who popularized it although he didn't 'invent' it per se). As far as other no-less-influential guitarists from that era there was the aforementioned Beck, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour (speaking of distortion - check out The Nile Song off of 'More' which came out in '68), Clapton (although I'm not a fan personally), Fripp (again see '21st Century Schizoid Man' for distortion and overall truly pioneering complexity), McLaughlin, Blackmore etc. 'Being influential' is of course subjective and hard to quantify but to call any one player from that (incomplete) list 'a father of modern guitar playing' would be taking that subjectivity to a whole another level :)
- gnaritas 10y ago
  I think you misread me, never said he pioneered distortion, I'm saying distortion is about what guitar playing was before him. I'm sure you can find interviews with every one of his contemporaries and they'll all say he changed the game and they were all blown away by him. Clapton was considered king of guitar at that time and even he admits he couldn't believe how he played and it destroyed his confidence for a while. You really can't listen to rock music today and not hear Hendrix influence virtually everywhere. ‘The first shockwave was Jimi Hendrix… He came along and reset all of the rules in one evening,’ – Jeff Beck ‘In rock guitar, there are but two eras — before Hendrix and after Hendrix’, – Andy Aledort, musicologist ‘He did a few of his tricks, like playing with his teeth and behind his back, but it wasn’t in an upstaging sense at all, and that was it…. He walked off, and my life was never the same again,’ – Eric Clapton
  - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
    >>You really can't listen to rock music today and not hear Hendrix influence virtually everywhere. That's where I would actually disagree the most. The Beck-Clapton-Hendrix-Page styles were basically the pinnacle of bluesy 'hard' music. It did have it's influence obviously (if I had to pick one I'd go with Page) and is still represented in 'rock music' although some of the players there are old enough to go straight to Chuck Berry for their influences :) There were notable other players (like Fripp and Gilmour for example) at that same time kind of laying the foundation for the departure from the pentatonic based riffing and soloing which to me is a staple of what I would call a 'modern rock music' (which is also too wide of a blanket to make a concrete argument I suppose).
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      All good points, but I think overly focusing on things that weren't really unique to Hendrix; pentatonic based riffing and soloing is certainly a staple of rock, but it was Hendrix who popularized things like the wah and octavia pedals, heavy feedback being used as part of the overall atmosphere, theatrical stage presence, and his raw forever improvising-every recording you can find is unique-that sets him apart from the rest. And like I said, pick any of those guys you name and they'll all say the same thing about him.
soundwave106 10y ago
Jimi Hendrix had a lot of influences and that's part of why he sounds so unique, and ended up being so influential. However, he wasn't formed out of a vacuum. :) If I had to pick "most influential style", I'd pick the blues, not rock. In particular, to my ears, there's a lot of Muddy Waters and especially Buddy Guy in Jimi's style.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  Of course, but those things are only a part of Hendrix's style. No one is formed in a vacuum.