First of all, if you think he was so "overrated", why even make a thread?
Secondly...He played a bit more than three chord blues. If you can't play it, then you have no business criticizing it. So to say that Jimi was overrated is to say that Stevie Ray Vaughn was just a copycat of an overrated guitarist?
He was playing basic blues licks through distortion. Hooker, Waters, King etc did it years before with barely any notice
That's because at the time, they were not promoted to white audiences as widespread as Jimi was. That's a record industry problem, not Jimi's. They were also doing that decades before Jimi. Big difference in eras and what was acceptable to mass (primarily white) audiences. And if you think that those guys weren't ripping EACH OTHER off, you're deaf. Hell, those guys wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for being able to rip off Robert Johnson and not get sued for it. Contracts for the artists didn't exist back then as far as copyright, so they ripped each other off like nobody's business.
As gvac pointed out, it isn't so much about technical ability as much as it is about how it makes you feel and the emotion it pulls.
Sure, Steve Vai, Buckethead, Joe Satriani, Malmsteen etc... are all technical virtuosos. But they're also unlistenable. Not to mention, most of today's shredders, do not sing either. Jimi played til his fingers bled and sang at the same time.
He was also very honoring to his influences and heroes and never failed to mention them. Very humbling.
You're also forgetting him being an innovator. Did anyone use feedback like that before him? No. Was anyone else using a double stack at full volume and only using the volume knob on the guitar itself to control it? No. He tried to put a fucking speaker underwater to see how it would sound, and since it couldn't be done, Leslie invented a rotating speaker cabinet FOR him.
One of the things about Hendrix that annoys me is that the record company basically forced the white guys(noel redding/mitch mitchell)on him to make him more "palatable" to the "masses".
He accepted the situation and as soon as he got the chance, he dumped their asses.
Can you back that up with proof? As far as I've ever read, he did not have a bad relationship with Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding. One of the finest rhythm sections ever. There were directions they all wanted to go and they didn't coincide.
Remember...You didn't just listen to Jimi Hendrix...
You had The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
I respect your right to have your opinion, I just disagree with it.
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This message was edited by skidmark on 9-18-02 @ 8:58 PM