The moment Paul McCartney knew Jimi Hendrix was the greatest of all time: “I admired him so much”
Why has Paul McCartney’s music and legacy remained so timeless? He was in The Beatles, the biggest band in the world, sure, but they broke up towards the end of the 1960s. Now, over five decades later, McCartney is still celebrated as one of the greatest musicians in the world, so what’s his secret? There’s a lot to it, but one of the main things is that before anything else, he cares the most about great music.
You can hear this in his work with The Beatles, Wings, and as a solo artist. He has persistently made great music because he holds great music close to his chest. He has a natural sense of rhythm, melody and lyricism that has allowed him to conjure up some of the greatest songs of all time in a moment’s notice. For instance, ‘Yesterday’, arguably one of the best songs ever written, famously came to McCartney in a dream.
Whenever he discusses the song, he talks about how easily it came to him, despite the fact that it is revered as one of the most beautiful tracks ever committed to sound. “I did the tune easily,” he said, “And then the words took about two weeks.”
This persistent love for great music and an unbiased affinity towards it can be seen in not only what Paul McCartney wrote, but also in what he listened to. For instance, in playing with The Beatles, McCartney was able to share the stage alongside George Harrison, who is commonly referred to as one of the best guitarists ever to pick up a six-string. McCartney has always admired Harrison; however, he doesn’t label him the best guitarist of all time.
While there is no escaping the fact that Harrison is an exceptional guitar player, and while debates about who the greatest is can rage on, The Beatles are better celebrated more as a collective rather than on individual levels. It’s hard to call Harrison the best guitarist in the world because many of his famous guitar lines come from being prompted by other band members. While his genius is non-negotiable, if you are going to talk about the guitarist as a singular being, it’s hard to move away from calling Jimi Hendrix one of the best in the world.
When Jimi Hendrix first came over to London, anybody who had an ear for music was keen on going to see him, including Paul McCartney. Any speculation in his mind about who the best guitar player in the world was was put to right that evening, as Hendrix stormed the stage performing a cover of ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, only a couple of days after it had been released.
“It’s still obviously a shining memory for me because I admired him so much anyway; he was so accomplished. To think that that album had meant so much to him as to actually do it by the Sunday night, three days after the release,” said McCartney reflecting on the evening, “He must have been so into it because normally it might take a day for rehearsal, and then you might wonder whether you’d put it in, but he just opened with it.”
McCartney has since said on multiple occasions that he believes Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitarist of all time, despite his music being far removed from that which McCartney made. This is the perfect example of how, before anything else, he is a fan of great music, unbiased and unrelenting.
