Listening to Alice Cooper on the radio one evening. You know who he says Hendrix's favourite guitarist was? Billy S Gibbons of all people.
That Alice Cooper show is amazing, I go out of my way to listen to it many times and hate missing it.
However, I have heard many different names for Hendrix's favorite guitarists. He only agreed with Chas Chandler to go to Europe for the first time if he could jam with Clapton because he was his favorite guitarist, Chandler promised and delivered (by most accounts Hendrix wiped the floor with Clapton). This along with others like Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Robert Johnson are listed as Hendrix's favorites, I have even heard Bob Dylan mentioned... However I assumed it was a mistake and that it was mostly for Dylan's songwriting ability.
Billy Gibbons is one of my favorites though, I don't believe he gets enough credit for what he does.
Billy Gibbons is one of my favorites though, I don't believe he gets enough credit for what he does.
Yep, some great work on QOTSA's Lullabies to Paralyze. His playing on "Burn The Witch" is just nasty! Great stuff.
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What I mean is that, as most people agree and have noted, Hendrix was probably the best at pure experimentation... He is usually cited as the "greatest guitarist of all time" for this reason.. he pushed the instrument into new dimensions and areas of sound that were previously unimaginable. However in terms of song composition and overall quality of the song as a whole, I often find myself wanting more from Hendrix. For me at least, he never really was able to truly harness his immense skill and outrageous guitar sound into streamlined, accessible compositions that created a sense of a song or an album being more than the sum of all it's parts. I guess I just hear a Hendrix song and hear it as (most of the time) simply a showcase for his unreal playing ability, and to me a large part of a guitarist's reputation is earned through his ability to work his talent into something bigger, to create a song with other band members.
This is another area that I find Gilmour to be tremendously skilled, especially in a lot of the early Floyd stuff, the fact that he was able to seamlessly integrate all the different machinations of sounds created on his guitar into the overall contexts of the song to enhance the entire composition. Floyd songs are never just showcases for Gilmour's playing, or Waters' writing, Mason's drumming etc, they are songs that can only exist as a sum of each member's contribution... And in that way I find Gilmour's guitar work to be all the more interesting, as he is able to work in experimentation as well as more traditional styles while never really sacrificing anything in terms of songwriting quality. He'll move from crazy experimental segments into more concise rock playing, with a quick stopover into funk or jazz and back again, and as the listener you are never quite sure how he got from place to place, but all you know is that is works.
I agree completely with all of this...especially about being left wanting when listening to hendrix's music
David Gilmour
Iommi
Eric Clapton
Slash
Jimi Hendrix
Jimmy Paige
Neil Young
Kurt Cobain (not the most talented but he paved a road that many musicians have followed since without thanks to him)
Keith Richards
Carlos Santana
Pete Townshend
of those not sure who is my Favorite guitarist...its hard to say because guitar varies from band to band.
David Gilmour
Iommi
Eric Clapton
Slash
Jimi Hendrix
Jimmy Paige
Neil Young
Kurt Cobain (not the most talented but he paved a road that many musicians have followed since without thanks to him)
Keith Richards
Carlos Santana
Pete Townshend
of those not sure who is my Favorite guitarist...its hard to say because guitar varies from band to band.
Good point about Cobain. Plus, this thread isn't about who the best guitarist is ... it's about favourite guitarists, so that works. The two aren't necessarily the same thing. Neil Young for example, who you've also listed, is one of my faves, but I'd proabably not include him on a most skilled list.
Listening to Alice Cooper on the radio one evening. You know who he says Hendrix's favourite guitarist was? Billy S Gibbons of all people.
I have a picture somewhere around here, if I find it later maybe I'll scan it. It's of Gibbons and Hendrix and the look on Jimi's face is great... complete admiration for sure
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