Five legendary musicians who said Jimi Hendrix was the best live performer of all time
While $40 might seem like an inconsequential sum in the grand scheme of music, it was enough to cement Jimi Hendrix as one of the best musicians on the planet.
Why $40? Well, that’s how much it cost for Jimi Hendrix to hop on a flight and head over to the UK. Granted, the guitarist was already having some success in the States, but nothing was truly landing. His style was flamboyant and addictive, but he wasn’t getting signed because people felt like it would be hard to flip that style to the extent that it would become profitable.
“I couldn’t believe nobody had picked up on him before, because he’d obviously been around,” said Linda Keith, who was Keith Richards’ fiancée when she first watched Hendrix perform. “Jimi was astonishing – the moods he could bring to music, his charisma, his skill and stage presence.”
It wasn’t until he came to the UK and word got around about the Seattle-born shredder that the music industry truly began to take notice, and it was in no small part thanks to musical legends seeing him play and word getting around, and to this day, a lot of legendary artists still state that Hendrix was the greatest live performer they ever saw, as his animalistic style of playing was unlike anything they had ever seen.
Five legendary musicians who called Jimi Hendrix the best:
Paul McCartney
One of the first times that Paul McCartney saw Jimi Hendrix was a couple of days after The Beatles released their game-changing concept album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and listeners all over the world adored the record, including Jimi Hendrix, who decided to start his gig with the opening track from the album – Paul McCartney was obsessed with his rendition and felt having Hendrix cover the track was a great honour.
“It’s still obviously a shining memory for me because I admired him so much anyway; he was so accomplished. To think that that album had meant so much to him as to actually do it by the Sunday night, three days after the release,” he said. “I put that down as one of the great honours of my career. I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t have thought of it as an honour, I’m sure he thought it was the other way round, but to me, that was like a great boost.”
Jeff Beck
Before Jimi Hendrix arrived in the UK, one of the most flamboyant performers was Jeff Beck, who helped redefine how a guitarist could act with the way he took to The Yardbirds. Despite having such a great reputation in the UK, even Beck knew that the moment he saw Jimi Hendrix live, he was looking at the future of performance.
“He came on, and I went, ‘Oh, my God.’ He had the military outfit on and hair that stuck out all over the place,” recalled Beck. “They kicked off with (Bob Dylan’s) ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, and I thought, ‘Well, I used to be a guitarist’.”
Ritchie Blackmore
Blackmore was responsible for one of the most iconic guitar riffs in rock history and is widely considered one of the most innovative minds to pick up a six-string, and he was also always willing to give credit where it was due, as he would frequently refer to Hendrix as one of his biggest inspirations, both on stage but also in the studio.
“Hendrix came out in 1966, and he was probably 20 years ahead of his time,” said Blackmore. “What makes him a genius is his phrasing and his originality; his construction of songs, his very innovative riffs, like those of ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Manic Depression’; his presence on stage. But, oddly enough, one of the things that I think made him so special was his voice, since he never wanted to be a vocalist.”
Mick Jagger
While he’s an exceptional songwriter and vocalist, Mick Jagger is most commonly celebrated for his on-stage performance – there are very few people in the world who can hold a candle to the Rolling Stones frontman, as he owns every inch of a stage the moment he steps on it, but that being said, Jagger always thought that Hendrix was one of the best live artists on the planet, and attested that his guitar work spoke for itself.
“I loved Jimi Hendrix from the beginning,” he said. “The moment I saw him, I thought he was fantastic. I was an instant convert. Mr Jimi Hendrix is the best thing I’ve ever seen. It was exciting, sexy and interesting. He didn’t have a very good voice, but made up for it with his guitar.”
Eric Clapton
The first time that Eric Clapton ever saw Jimi Hendrix perform was during one of his own gigs – Clapton was playing on stage with Cream, and halfway through the set, Hendrix came on with them to play a Howlin’ Wolf cover, and after that moment, Clapton was never the same, as he had just shared the spotlight with one of the best guitarists he would ever witness live.
“He played just about every style you could think of, and not in a flashy way,” said Clapton. “I mean 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.”
He concluded, “I was actually privileged to be (on stage with him)… It’s something that no one is ever going to beat; that incident, that night, it’s historic in my mind, but only a few people are alive that would remember it.”
