The greatest showman Mick Jagger ever saw: “I was an instant convert”
Any rock frontman looking to shock the audience when they play is bound to take a few cues from Mick Jagger.
Throughout every iteration of The Rolling Stones, Jagger’s way of strolling across the stage has become the stuff of legend, prowling across like a panther before exploding with energy whenever the song kicked in. Though Jagger has created a live image all his own, he admits that one performer left him knocked out the first time he caught his act.
For a performer as influential as Mick Jagger, it takes a special kind of artist to inspire genuine awe. Yet when Jimi Hendrix arrived in Britain in 1966, he didn’t just impress fellow musicians: he fundamentally altered their understanding of what a rock performer could be.
When describing the origins of Jagger’s looks, though, it usually goes back to the days of delta blues. Being raised on the same kind of hard-edged blues music that Keith Richards was drawn to, much of Jagger’s vocal inflexions have become a foundational part of his sound, taking the basis of an artist like Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters and channelling it into a rock lens on tracks like ‘Satisfaction’.
Though blues was an inherent part of the 1960s music scene, things were about to become more colourful during the Summer of Love. In the wake of The Beatles making Sgt Pepper, fans were springing to life with new ideas on what music could mean, expanding their mind with drugs and extending their songs into massive jams that could last for 20 minutes on end.
Although The Rolling Stones were more than up to the challenge of the new school, The Jimi Hendrix Experience threw everyone for a loop the first time they played on UK soil. Taking the basis of standard rock guitar playing, Hendrix created different textures of sound that no one could have imagined, playing with his teeth whenever he took to the stage and looking like someone possessed by music as he drove his hand across the strings.
When watching Hendrix play for the first time, Jagger knew that he had some massive competition on the live stage, telling Classic Rock, “I loved Jimi Hendrix from the beginning. 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.”
Although there may have been a few blemishes in how Hendrix approached his vocals, it was never at the expense of the song. While Hendrix was known to be self-deprecating about his voice, no one else could have delivered songs like ‘Fire’ or ‘Foxy Lady’ entirely like he could, almost as if he was in communion with his instrument whenever he opened his mouth.
Hendrix’s way of having a symbiotic relationship with the guitar also came into play whenever he went on extended solos. Rather than sound like a guitarist improvising, most of his time playing felt like a human voice trying to speak for the first time, featuring wild whammy bar dives and layers of feedback that made the instrument sound like it was crying out in pain.
These innovations would become hugely influential in the years that followed, helping to redefine the possibilities of electric guitar music. Countless players borrowed aspects of Hendrix’s style, but few were able to replicate the emotional intensity that made his performances so captivating.
The rest of the music scene was also in awe when seeing Hendrix for the first time, with guitarists like Eric Clapton being mortified when they first saw him take the stage in the London club scene. Although Hendrix may not have lasted for too long after his debut, the amount of spellbinding music that he left behind paled in comparison to what he was like as a live entity.
For Mick Jagger, seeing Hendrix for the first time was a reminder that rock music never stands still for long. No matter how successful an artist becomes, there is always someone capable of rewriting the rulebook. Hendrix did exactly that, leaving behind a legacy that impressed not only fans but also some of the greatest performers the genre has ever produced.
