The guitarist Mick Jagger said “could play the ass off anyone”
It’s tough to imagine Mick Jagger being truly bowled over by another musician. Alongside his bandmate and lifelong collaborator Keith Richards, the duo sits at the top of the musical food chain. Since the 1960s, they’ve been a tried and true hit-making machine, managing to endure through the various changes in taste and tune with the decades. But they’re only human. Just like the rest of the world, they saw one guitarist in particular play and have bowed to him since.
A few moments in music are written into history as almost godlike showings of supreme talent. If you close your eyes and think about it, the image of Jimi Hendrix and his guitar shredding the national anthem as the sun came up over Woodstock quickly comes to mind. While he didn’t have the luxury of living long enough to see how his music would last through the years, Hendrix’s skill shot him to the top and burned bright enough to keep him there long after his death.
Anyone lucky enough to witness Hendrix can speak endlessly about his star power. Mick Jagger is more than happy to be a mouthpiece for it as well. “Jimi Hendrix could play the ass off anyone,” he said. To him, not even his lifelong blues heroes could hold a candle to the guitarist. He added, “I think he was as good a blues player as B.B. King is. I think he could do it standing on his head, you know what I mean?”.
Keith Richards echoed the same sentiment, holding Hendrix up as a total redefining figure. He saw the guitarist as the very best, somehow managing to reinvent the instrument that he thought he had a good grip on. “Unfortunately, he ruined the instrument,” Richards said, “Because after that, everybody growled through it.”
By all accounts, Hendrix’s talent was in your face and instantly notable. No one seemed to get out of one of his performances without being stunned. The Stones were no different when their paths crossed in 1967 at the taping of Top Of The Pops. “I loved Jimi Hendrix from the beginning. The moment I saw him, I thought he was fantastic. I was an instant convert,” Jagger recalled.
He added, “Mr. Jimi Hendrix is the best thing I’ve ever seen. It was exciting, sexy, interesting.”
He also called the figure a “sweet guy” as they struck up somewhat of a friendship in the brief period Jagger got to know him before his death in 1970. During the time, he remembered thinking that Hendrix was “a bit confused” and struggled to understand or handle his new success.
After coming up through the live circuit and trying out all these new things, fame felt stunting. “Suddenly he gets what he wants, then has to play ‘Purple Haze’ every night,” Jagger explained, suggesting that Hendrix was broken down by the lifestyle, leading to his fall into drug addiction to fill a kind of void.
But beyond his death, Hendrix has lived on in immortal glory through his talent with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as two vocal and enduring fans. In a concluding comment, Richards defined him in one word; “Incredible”.
