The guitarist who inspired Jimi Hendrix to become the greatest: “Just too much”
There are many moments in the annals of music history that feel like seismic changes in the cultural landscape. At the time, they might have seemed small, but like the ripples in a pond, the reverberations of a single action can affect everything we know today about music. One such moment was when Eric Clapton invited the brand new guitarist who had been working with his friend Chas Chandler up on stage to perform with. It is with this cordial meeting that Jimi Hendrix started his journey to becoming one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Clapton shared a wealth of history with Jimi Hendrix during their short time knowing one another before the latter’s untimely death. However, it is often overlooked how significantly the Cream guitarist influenced Hendrix, a musician now considered to be the greatest artist ever to pick up the guitar.
Hendrix was famously given a helping hand from ‘Slowhand’ during his early days in England following his move across the Atlantic in 1966 after catching the eye of Chas Chandler, who took the axeman under his tutelage. Chandler had asked Clapton if he would be happy to let his new signing take to the stage during his performance at the Regent Street Polytechnic, and what he saw blew him away. Reportedly, the Cream leader was left fuming by his rollicking display, which overshadowed the work of his group, and the guitarist allegedly despaired: “You didn’t tell me he was that fucking good!”.
This might seem like a somewhat small gesture, but to think that is to miss the point. Clapton was, by and large, considered almost godly at this time. His work with Cream, as well as the John Mayall Bluesbreakers, had made his name and his stage unattainable for most guitarists. To therefore offer up some jam space to an unknown was a big deal, and for him to then be simply blown out of the water by Hendrix’s talent was a surefire way to launch his career.
Over the next four years, the two became close friends and were part of the same tight-knit circle of musicians at the heart of the British blues scene. Hendrix never forgot that first show he played with Clapton, and the warm fondness he associated with that debut outing never dissipated.
“The first time I played guitar in England I sat in with Cream,” Hendrix once recalled. “I like the way Eric Clapton plays. His solos sound just like Albert King. Eric is just too much. And Ginger Baker, he’s like an octopus, man. He’s a real natural drummer”.
Meanwhile, Clapton later reminisced, “It was funny; in those days, anybody could get up with anybody if you were convincing enough that you could play. He got up and blew everyone’s mind. I just thought, ‘ahh, someone that plays the stuff I love in the flesh, on stage with me.’ 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”.
That famous night will forever be etched into the history books. However, that’s not the only time Clapton helped Hendrix. In the book Jimi Hendrix Gear, it’s stated that the Cream track ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’ blew his mind because this was the first time he’d heard somebody use the wah-wah pedal.
Hendrix then incorporated this into his own sound and first used the effect on ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’, which he recorded later in 1967. It soon became a signature technique intrinsically linked with the American thanks to him expertly putting it to good use on ‘Up from the Skies’, ‘Little Miss Lover’, and ‘Still Raining, Still Dreaming’.
Hendrix’s mercurial use of the pedal during the opening of ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’ has never been bettered. The footage below of Hendrix performing the track at Maui in 1970 is akin to watching a magician at work. Watching the footage and reflecting on the legacy of Hendrix, it is easy to forget how these few small moments, gifts of either time or equipment, could contribute to one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century finding their feet.
