by Wade Silvia

Created on: August 05, 2009   Last Updated: August 06, 2009

One name, one man and one right handed Fender guitar strung upside down comes to mind when asked, "Who is the greatest guitar player of all time?". Jimi Hendrix. Without a doubt, there are others who are worthy but, none has come close to being the innovator that was Hendrix. Steve Vai, B.B. King, Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani and the list goes on and on yet, one man still stands tall above them all.

Jimi Hendrix started out as and always remained a blues man. He played along side some of the greatest names in the world of blues until being discovered and told by "Little" Richard, that he had bigger and better things waiting for him. Telling him once the world got a taste of "Jimi" Hendrix, He'd leave a taste in their mouths that would only make them want more. Man, let me tell you, truer words could not have been spoken.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience made only three studio albums. All of which took the world by storm. Hendrix was the father of feedback. No one had ever harnessed reverb and used it in their music until he came along. No one knew what a Wa-wa bar was before seeing Hendrix befuddle audiences with its wicked cries. No one had ever played a right handed guitar strung upside down before either, not in front of thousands of people anyway. Nothing sounded like it either.

Hendrix searched for sound that no one else was using. He would try playing through different types of amplifiers, including bass amplifiers. He realized there was a new sound to be harnessed and used in live performance by standing really close to the front of the amp he was playing through. He found a totally new and unheard of sound by picking the guitar strings with his teeth. Who would have ever thought of that had not the mighty guitar machine, the driving force, that was Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix, the most extremely talented musician, was all about his music. He was so into his music that he was not only the money behind one of the greatest recording studios ever built, he was the idea behind the design of what is still one of the top five recording studios in the world, Electric Ladyland in New York. The music he recorded there has been compiled into so much more after his untimely death. The Blues album, one of my top three favorite albums of all time, puts the man behind the music in great perspective. You hear Jimi Hendrix at his core.

Hendrix was a man beyond his time, before his time and taken away from a world that loved his sound way too early. I cannot begin to imagine where the electric guitar would be now if he were still alive today, no one can. Bob Dylan said it best after hearing Hendrix cover "All Along the Watchtower." "It's your song." Fly on our sweet angel, fly on.

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