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Distortion-wise Hendrix was reasonably up there for the time although I wouldn't be making blanket statements like 'Everyone after Hendrix was heavily influence

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.

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.