The guitarist Lindsey Buckingham never wanted to be: “I don’t have that level of proficiency”
Every guitarist is going to try to make something that’s miles ahead of anything they’ve ever heard. They may have their bag of tricks, but the studio is the moment where they get to let loose and try to make something that can stand alongside the giants of the world decades after their release.
Lindsey Buckingham wasn’t different when making Fleetwood Mac records, but even he had to admit that he didn’t want to be like Jimi Hendrix.
Although both musicians approached the guitar differently from most of their peers, Buckingham’s ambitions were rooted in structure and songwriting rather than pure experimentation. His playing was always designed to serve the emotional core of a song rather than dominate it entirely.
When looking at both guitarists’ playing styles, they had always played the guitar in an unorthodox way. For all of the great melodies he put together, Buckingham was notorious for never playing with a pick, usually letting his fingernails do the work for him as he hammered out his pop gems.
For Hendrix, the guitar was a bit of a different beast. He had already begun working on songs with a backwards right-handed guitar that he restrung, but he was one of the few who combined the fuzzed-out tone of psychedelic rock with the improvisational side of music.
Listening to songs on Axis Bold As Love or Electric Ladyland, Hendrix wanted to build sonic skyscrapers every time he went into the studio, using every sonic avenue available to him to create something amazing. Whereas Hendrix used it as an excuse to jam, Buckingham was still looking to keep everything compact.
He may have a lot of ideas that annoyed everyone to no end when making Tusk, but he still knew how to wrap things up within the span of three or four minutes. Even though Buckingham may have the potential to spread out as Hendrix did, he had no interest in trying to make a progressive pop epic with his guitar.
Hendrix may have been able to improvise, but Buckingham never understood the idea of working off the top of his head, telling Rolling Stone, “I’m no Jimi Hendrix. I don’t have the level of proficiency to just let myself go off into something completely different every night. Nor do I think I would want to. I am someone who values musical themes. Someone who feels there should be a consistency from night to night with something.”
His comments reveal how differently he viewed live performance compared to many classic rock guitar heroes. Rather than reinventing songs every night, Buckingham preferred consistency and carefully crafted arrangements that audiences could recognise instantly.
That’s not to say that Buckingham didn’t have his difficult moments. They may have been heavily orchestrated in the studio, but ‘Never Going Back Again’ is nearly impossible to get through in one sitting on the first try. When he did solo, Buckingham made sure to make every note count as well, taking only a handful of musical themes and turning them into ‘Go Your Own Way’.
Even though the idea of playing the same solo every night on tour sounds like it would get boring, it’s actually its own challenge. Since you don’t have a security blanket of relying on other licks, memorising exactly what you played in the studio and translating it live is like trying to capture the same refined magic every time you play in front of a crowd.
That level of precision became part of Buckingham’s identity as a performer. While Hendrix thrived on unpredictability, Buckingham’s brilliance often came from his ability to recreate emotionally charged moments with remarkable consistency night after night.
Buckingham may have still respected what Hendrix could do, but they were operating from different worlds. Hendrix wanted to transcend, but Buckingham had his finger on the pulse of what pop radio wanted.
