Was Jimi overrated??

  • Thread starter Thread starter King Elvis
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Is Jimi overrated?

  • Yes he is overrated

    Votes: 11 29.7%

  • No, give me more Jimi

    Votes: 26 70.3%
  • Total voters
    37
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All things considered Jimi is great. Clever, creative, inovative the whole deal. As a guitar player I can totally respect the mans gift as a player and master of effects that didnt even exist.
I think what urks me about the mans repor is when it comes from idiots. What I mean by that is from people who say "hey how about Jimi..... now theres a god" when I know they are saying it because they want to talk to me about guitars and probably only know 5 tunes by the dude. You know the dopes, the 20 year old kids at work who think 80's rock is considered "oldies". These same kids who blink at you stupidly, when you fall for the conversation bait and mention other greats like Steve Morse, Allen Holdsworth, Jake Lee.
 
Are you talking about Jake E Lee from Ozzy's band in the 80s??
 
I love psychadelic lyrics too. They sound funny at first, but really they do a better job of portraying emotion than most of the "ooh baby" fluff we hear everywhere.

"You see loneliness staggering on down the street,
Footprints dressed in red...

The Broom is drearily sweeping
Up the pieces of yesterday's life...

...Will the wind ever remember
All the names it has blown in the past?
With the crush of old age and it's wisdom
It whispers 'No, this will be the last'. "

Pretty heady stuff.

But then there's always:

"Click - BANG, what a hang. Your Daddy just shot poor me!"

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
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Jake Lee, Born Jake Lou Williams.
Guitar on Ozzy's Bark at the moon and later The Ultimate Sin.
Split and formed the group "The Badlands"
 
I think that by today's standards of guitar playing he is not "the greatest" But no one played guitar like him in his day. Some people may consider him overated because most decent guitar players can play his songs. But, he's such a pioneer. Jimi ROCKS!!!
 
Went through the old Guitar Player mags from '69 on. Didn't find much (didn't have every issue either) till a special edition for Sep. '75 devoted to Hendrix. Lots of good stuff there and he had the respect of John McLaughilin, Larry Coryell, Johnny Winter, Les Paul and on and on.

There's even a little 33 1/3 recording of something previously unreleased in there too.

The earlier issues sent me down memory lane, especially the amp ads. Anybody remember;
Baldwin Exterminators?
Acoustic?
Gretsch?
Kustom?
Ovation 'Amplicards'?
Standel?
Jordan?
1000 watt Corals?
Sunn?
 
Before Hendrix everybody basically copied what was done on an acoustic and then played it on an electric. Hendrix came along and said wait a minute boys, this is how an electric guitar is supposed to be played. Yes there are players who can technically run Jimi into the ground, but all technique and no soul makes Johnny a lousy player. You can run scales and riffs at lightning speeds and Impress a lot of people, but all your doing is running scales and playing alot of notes fast. Listen and copy "Waterfall" then come back and tell me Hendrix was not a great guitar player.
 
Jimi was great.

Elvis was just an overrated lounge singer. Jerry Lee Lewis had more Talent in his little finger than Elvis had in his whole body.

(actually, that last bit was stated by Elvis himself).
 
THERE IS NO DISPUTING THAT JIMI WAS A GREAT PLAYER!!!!
I HAVE ALREADY SAID THAT!!!
 
King Elvis said:
Since this garnered so much response in one of my other threads it was suggested that I start a poll so here it is...

Do you think that Hendrix is overrated. I am not asking if Hendrix was a great player or whatever, but, are you tired of seeing him everywhere and are others either just as deserving or even more so of the glory??
Click to expand...
seeing him everywhere?i wanna know where, so i can go see him.
 
Not a chance. I think the opposite, that few people actually recognize the talent that was there. I heard or read a comment from Sting talking about Little Wing when he covered it. He was going on about how surprized he was that there were interesting undertones and progressions in the song. That pretty much sums up popular misconceptions.

As far as guitar playing goes from an pure ability point of view I think he rates right up there. He had good phrasing, was well schooled in the blues, could make a single note sing and was incredably fast when he wanted to be.

Anyhow I'm a big Hendrix fan so go figure...

On a side note, I used to think Elvis was a social phenominon untill I saw this movie of him just sitting there playing the accoustic guitar in a small theatre with about 30 people sitting around and a couple jamming.
 
JIMI WAS GOD!!!

I saw an interview with Paul McCartney. He was telling about he and George going to see Jimi preform. Earlier that day Sgt. Pepper's was released and Jimi opened his show with the title track! In only a few hours he had learned the song well enough to preform it for the guys that wrote it. Masterful.
 
64Firebird said:
JIMI WAS GOD!!!

I saw an interview with Paul McCartney. He was telling about he and George going to see Jimi preform. Earlier that day Sgt. Pepper's was released and Jimi opened his show with the title track! In only a few hours he had learned the song well enough to preform it for the guys that wrote it. Masterful.
Click to expand...

Yeah Jimi was great...King elvis keeps saying he hates him, and that he's a horrible puppy killing overrated hack, but I dont buy it.
 
Doug H said:

On a side note, I used to think Elvis was a social phenominon untill I saw this movie of him just sitting there playing the accoustic guitar in a small theatre with about 30 people sitting around and a couple jamming.
Click to expand...


Jerry Lee Lewis could still kick his ass, especially cuz Elvis is dead.
 
i bet the old rockstars (mccartney, clapton, townsend, etc.) would still pick jimi over any guitarist who has come along since. they know who da bomb was.

malmsteen was a blackmore freak. blackmore, good player, but god, a legend in his own mind.....ahhh (scratches chin)....that's why yngwie likes him so much.
 
See King Elvis, You might wanna rethink your Jimi suck stance....
 
I was watching a Hendrix video and a friend who does not play guitar came in and said "how does he do that?". The funny thing was all he was doing was playing a rhythm part - not any of his crazy stuff. Just watch his hands. No one has ever had complete control of the guitar like Jimi.
His rythm parts are amazing. His riffs are never played the same way twice. My guess is that he never woodsheded on a particular riff or scales- he seemed to only play what came naturally. I think if most of us only played what came naturally we'd sound like Neil Young or Tom Petty. Imagine Jimi sitting with a guitar exercise on alternate picking ("always follow a downstrum with an upstrum"). It never happened, and look what he produced.

I put Jimi not only at the top of the list of electric guitartists, but also he'd top the list of 20th century musicians.
 
"I'll bet every swingin' dick guitarist that EVER picked it up in earnest since 1967 has tried to learn at least one of Hendrix's licks. Even you guys that think he is over-rated know a couple licks. Admit it. "

when i started getting serious about guitar (about 1973). the hendrix influence was still HUGE.... to the point that the general attitude among guitarists was "if you can't play hendrix...you ain't shit"

i don't think jimi is overrated as a guitarist. his "godlike" status was fueled by the who's who of rock guitar. clapton said "little wing was the most beautiful guitar composition i've ever heard". pete townsend said "i got together with eric (clapton) and we discussed jimi hendrix..we both agreed that we liked his playing very much. i believe we felt threatened by jimi because he was so good" neil young said "i've never heard anybody play electric guitar like that...to this day" paul mccarney said "to me jimi hendrix was IT as far as electric guitar players go" steve via said "hendrix played melodic rythem guitar to die for" mick fleetwood said "me and my bandmates went to see jimi, a wanted to see what all the fuss was about...when we got there i saw the beatles and the stones, jeff beck was there and i think eric...jimi came out and blew everyones mind" slash said (deja vu) "when i was learning to play guitar if you coulnd't play hendrix you weren't shit"

i could go on and on. you would be hard pressed to find to find a really great guitarist that dosen't revere jimi hendrix.

i think jimi hendrix is under-rated on "musical vision. he had a musical vision that trancended what was going on up to that point. who else could have went onstage at the woodstock music fest and did "the star spangled banner" like that. to this day everytime a documentary on the 60's or the veit nam war comes out there is ALWAYS at least a snippet of jimis "star spangled banner" performance. he totally changed the face of rock music in the much too short career of his.

the fender jaguar was the top of the line guitar offering in the mid 60's....jimi hendrix single handedly changed that. fender ought to give his estate a cut every time the sell a strat.

i believe jimi hendrix's desription of the sound in his head and eddie kramers expertise lead to the 1st use of "phase shifting" as a deliberate effect on the "axis-bold as love" album. he was a pioneer thats influence will live on.

i have read that a conversation with SRV would eventually turn to jimi hendrix if you talked to him long enough.

as far as other guitarists being able to play his stuff...sure i agree with that..i can play his stuff. but i will say one last thing.

being the "next" jimi hendrix is not nearly as hard as being the "first" jimi hendrix.
 
Simply put...............

Jimi was the "MICHAEL JORDAN" of his time!!!



Elvis was a straight-up thief !!
 
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