I suppose EVH was my generations Hendrix
It's funny, I never felt that way about any guitarist. I first heard Van Halen at the end of 1980, out in Nigeria. It was the "Women & Children First" album, an album I still love to this day. The songs are brilliant, the playing is brilliant, the singing is brilliant, it's great melodic heavy rock that packs a serious punch and is wildly inventive. But by that stage, I was 13 months into my heavy rock odyssey and had absorbed the likes of Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Jimi Hendrix, John Fogerty, James Young, Tommy Shaw, Mick Box, Martin Barre, Syd Barrett, Ace Frehley, Tommy Bolin, Mel Galley, Buck Dharma, Tony Iommi, Francis Rossi, Eric Clapton {in his Cream days}, Rick Nielsen, Billy Gibbons, Rik Emmett, Micky Moody, Bernie Marsden, Alex Lifeson, Brian Robertson, Scott Gorham, Ted Nugent, Mark Farner, Kerry Livgren, Michael Schenker, Paul Kossoff, Barry Goodreau, Andy Powell, Ted Turner, Tonka Chapman, Manny Charlton and Brian May so Eddie was just another heavy guitarist to me. In those days none of the guitarists were shit, they all added their own bit of something new to the music of their respective bands and I didn't elevate guitarists beyond their overall contribution to a song.