The guitarist Mick Jagger called “the best thing I’ve ever seen”
When you’ve enjoyed a career spanning six decades, with millions of ticket and record sales that dwarf those of almost every other band, it takes a lot to be impressed. Mick Jagger is one such beneficiary of this kind of career. As the lead singer of The Rolling Stones, he hasn’t just reached the top of the pile—he has resided there for the vast majority of his impressive career.
As one half of the songwriting team known as The Glimmer Twins, Jagger knows what it means to be a rock and roll star. Sharing his partnership with none other than Keith Richards, Jagger also knows what it takes to be considered a true guitarist. Having worked with the notorious six-string maestro for such a long time, Jagger has even found himself picking up the guitar every once in a while.
However, while Richards undoubtedly possesses a unique skill with the axe—capable of crafting a riff out of pure marble and rolling it down the hill of essential vibes until it gathers enough momentum to captivate thousands—he himself would admit to not being the most technically gifted. Instead, Richards relies on feel to create the right sounds for The Rolling Stones’ songs.
Over the years, there have been many technical guitarists to counterbalance Richards. Whether it be the Stones’ own Mick Taylor or Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, technical guitar playing is an equally virtuosic skill to possess. However, perhaps only one performer has ever been able to marry these two opposing concepts into one fully loaded and unstoppable machine: Jimi Hendrix.
In 1971, Jagger was clear in his assessment of the recently passed Hendrix: “Jimi Hendrix could play the ass off anyone. 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?”
For Jagger, witnessing Hendrix’s sheer talent was like nothing he had experienced before. “I loved Jimi Hendrix from the beginning,” Jagger told Rolling Stone in 1995. “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 an accolade often laid at the feet of Hendrix. Eric Clapton once claimed he “blew them away” when talking about the fabled night Hendrix took to his first UK stage. Likewise, The Who’s Pete Townshend was so enamoured by his presence that he wanted to get into a fistfight with the man. David Gilmour, another man frequenting the blues scene of London at the time, has also regularly noted Hendrix as the greatest guitarist of all time.
For Jagger, Hendrix represented everything all at once: “It was exciting, sexy, interesting”. While Richards would later determine Hendrix’s style had “ruined” guitar, the truth is, there has never been another player quite like Jimi Hendrix. And that means, with almost complete certainty, we can assume, Jagger has never seen a better performer in his entire, storied, life.
