Was he the best guitar player of the 1960s

[mihcmac]

Something Jimi always had was the raw edge of the early blues players like Howlin Wolf or Lead Belly or Lightnin Hopkins, it even shows up when he's playing a 12 string and bending strings. It must have been really hard to get the 12 string in tune with the fixed bridge going the wrong way for a lefty, no hope for intonation..

[Rabs]

20 hours ago, jaxson50 said:

The greatest what if question,  what would Hendrix have done had he lived? 

Man, he had so much more in him,  legal issues and drugs  did him in.  

 

If you have never heard this recording and are interested its well worth a listen.. Its the last interview Hendrix did not long before his death..  Makes for very interesting listening.

 

[jaxson50]

Aaron Thibeaux Walker AKA T-Bone Walker , the man who inspired BB King and Chuck Berry to play guitar is also the man from whom Hendrix learned the trick of picking with his teeth.

Edited June 29, 2020 by jaxson50

[Retired]

5 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

I can set mine on fire, but won't. Love Jimi. Axis is my fav.

I have a wide list of guitar favorites, Probably 40 or 50. I wish I could play as well as any of them. 

[Retired]

5 hours ago, ghost_of_fl said:

 

One trick I've seriously never seen duplicated - playing with your teeth.  Others have tried and some had a little success. But Jimi was the best teeth player ever hands down. 

Haha, I've seen people with no arms playing with their toes.  People can overcome there handicaps. 

[merciful-evans]

Some of us old enough to recall Hendrix when he was alive. He was one of many we listened to enthralled. But it was only after he passed that he became canonised & looked upon as 'more special' than contemporaries. I listened to him avidly at the time and for a few years after. But busting & burning his guitar, or flossing his teeth with it? Never appreciated any of that. Showmanship leaves me cold.

Of all of the 60s music I loved. I haven't listened to any of it for decades. I cant listen to the same recordings for 60 years.

Only stuff I listen to from then is stuff I missed at the time, such as some back catalogue of Paul Butterfields Blues Band (Mike Bloomfield), or the odd re-surface of Peter Green's live Mac or a Cold Blood concert etc.  Now I can include some George Benson in there as well, so thanks Jaxon50 👍. Very much appreciated. 

 

[Retired]

On 6/26/2020 at 12:42 PM, Sgt. Pepper said:

We all like what we like and can argue about it till the cows come home. Like I've said many times there is no best or greatest. What I would say is insert the word favorite for those two words and there you go. No one can dispute you if you say __________________ is my favorite guitarist.

I ran I by my wife. She was a big fan of George Benson.  She laughed and said, No Way. He was good but there were many who were better, George wasn't even close she said.  Then she said, You never saw his name on the best guitar players lists.  Yep, It's all a matter of opinion. 

[kidblast]

24 minutes ago, Retired said:

I ran I by my wife. She was a big fan of George Benson.  She laughed and said, No Way. He was good but there were many who were better, George wasn't even close she said.  Then she said, You never saw his name on the best guitar players lists.  Yep, It's all a matter of opinion. 

So yea,, watch that Joe Pass clip that's embedded in this thread.  That guy was pretty freaking amazing.  Barney Kessel was another monster of that era too. 

There's  a few other guys that come to mind from the 60s that didn't get much recognition, Howard Roberts, and until he got his own show, Glenn Campbell.

all of them, Very heady and smart players.

That all said  you have to give credit the the musicianship in that Benson clip tho.   There was some burning playing going on there.  The guy playing the Hammond was a beast, the drummer and sax player were great too.   Feeling it for the bass player tho,  that dude never got into the camera angle..  

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by kidblast

[Sgt. Pepper]

On 6/28/2020 at 11:15 AM, ghost_of_fl said:

Everyone knows Lil Wayne is the future of guitar.  Just cuz he wasn't around in the 60s doesn't mean he would have been any less than the best at that time. 🤥

 

That is everything that is wrong with music, but he did with his pants half falling off, and that one thumb plucking technique is better than Richard Thompson can do any day of the week.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Sgt. Pepper

[mihcmac]

There were quite a few really good guitarist in the sixties. I was really taken back by the Yardbirds with Clapton Beck and Page driving each other to new heights with different arrangements of the band. The last version of the Yardbirds with Page at the helm became Led Zeppelin. Three phenomenal guitarist that provided the UK with sonic enjoyment. Also the country players that have no equal like Chet and Roy, including Campbell who could play just about anything, not to forget that Les Paul was possibly the first shredder.

Edited June 29, 2020 by mihcmac

[kidblast]

I just watched that Lil Wyne clip!!!  Yow...  best laugh I had in days...

[Retired]

4 hours ago, kidblast said:

So yea,, watch that Joe Pass clip that's embedded in this thread.  That guy was pretty freaking amazing.  Barney Kessel was another monster of that era too. 

There's  a few other guys that come to mind from the 60s that didn't get much recognition, Howard Roberts, and until he got his own show, Glenn Campbell.

all of them, Very heady and smart players.

That all said  you have to give credit the the musicianship in that Benson clip tho.   There was some burning playing going on there.  The guy playing the Hammond was a beast, the drummer and sax player were great too.   Feeling it for the bass player tho,  that dude never got into the camera angle..  

 

Joe is a n awesome player, I also noticed he was ranked in the top 10 best guitar players in many polls. Seems to charge top prices to go see him too.  One concert was like $200.00 per ticket.  Deb asked me if I wanted to go and I told her, Nobody is worth that much to see. Benson is great, not saying he wasn't but my thinking is, Anyone, Even many or most here that can play better than me is a great guitar player. Lol

[zigzag]

On 6/28/2020 at 7:28 AM, sparquelito said:

Is Jimi Hendrix consistently rated #1 because he truly was the best, or is it because he was a ground-breaking innovator at a pivotal point in history?
More importantly perhaps, would he be consistently rated #1 over all these years if he had not died?
Bear in mind that, had he lived, he may well have gone on to innovate and wow audiences, and to make many, many hit records. 
But he might have also followed the Peter Frampton model, and, after having enormous success at one time in his career, gone on to have a normal, humble career, and slowly fallen out of the limelight. 
And in that normal flow of events, his mystique would have surely faded, and Jimi would always be thought of as one of the great guitar players, but not necessarily the greatest. 
 

 

Nice post Sparky,

As for Hendrix, toward the end he collaborated with Buddy Miles, and apparently, talk of a collaboration with Miles Davis. This should give you an idea of where their music was headed.

[MissouriPicker]

Too many variables to consider when picking the best/greatest guitar player of an era.  The 60s certainly had its share of great pickers.  Benson was one.  You also had guys like Roy Clark, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Page, and Tony Tadesco, among others.  These guys (and others) could play anything, anytime, anywhere.  I wasn't into George Benson's particular genre of music, but I was aware of who he was and of his skill as a guitar player.   Don't know if I could pick just one or two as "the greatest."  Chet, Roy, George, Glen, etc were all great and astouding players.  A lot of it boils-down to the kind of music the listener loves.  Some pickers are incredibly fast.  Others make the guitar literally speak to our souls.  I'm mainly listening for something I can identify with, something that soothes me when I'm worried or reves-me-up when I'm down.

[kelly campbell]

I agree MP..there are so many good ones from the era..I still think Wes Montgomery is to be considered amoung the best and Terry Kath of Chicago are great ones from that era..they may not be the best but are amoung them.  Terry Kath was incredible..

[jaxson50]

Terry Kath is a good comparison to Hendrix as both so much talent and more potential,   I like many of my generation were close in age to the artist that emerged during the 60s and since. ,it is looking at a black and white snapshot from a time long removed from the present.  And the artist that died young are frozen in time.  Cut down and therefore locked into that level of artistry they had reached. 

Think of Prince, had he joined the 27 club, (died at age 27) look what we would have missed. And he would have been one of those black and white snapshots forever frozen in time.

Hank Garland, perfect example,  he was on top of the world,  no question one of the hottest players, in demand by all the biggest stars of the time a car accident leaves him crippled with a severe brain injury.  He lives in obscurity and fades away. Had it not been for that crash, the sky was the limit,. 

It's just the way it is, guys like Hendrix are so much more rare , not because they played well, it was an entire package, The Experience.  He changed the way other artist approached music. Technically he still had room for growth,  that was part of the intrigue of Jimi, we all knew he was going to blow our mind with his next release. 

Till he couldn't,  so now he is the bell bottom wearing whah whah  guy with stacks of Marshall amp and flaming strats 

Showmanship was his power, sadly  his snapshot will  always be what is in the four records he released.

Same with Kath. Garland,  Morrison,  and others

Edited June 30, 2020 by jaxson50

[MissouriPicker]

Nicely said, Jaxson!  The "snapshot" analogy is very accurate.  For all of us, our lives are a snapshot or if we're lucky, a newsreel.

[Sgt. Pepper]

17 minutes ago, MissouriPicker said:

Nicely said, Jaxson!  The "snapshot" analogy is very accurate.  For all of us, our lives are a snapshot or if we're lucky, a newsreel.

Look at a guy like Richard Thompson. How many know who he is? Us guitarists do, but almost every swinging d-ick has heard of Eddie Van Halen.  RT can play 5 different parts at once and get his nails done at the same time.  I loaned my best friend Shoot Out The Lights and he was blown away and  had never heard of him. When he returned it he told me he could not stop listening to it. I said "I know".

But is he the best? He doesn't suck thats for sure.

Now Lil Wayne he is first ballot Rock and Roll Hall of Fame material for certain.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Sgt. Pepper

[Rabs]

12 hours ago, jaxson50 said:

Terry Kath is a good comparison to Hendrix as both so much talent and more potential,   I like many of my generation were close in age to the artist that emerged during the 60s and since. ,it is looking at a black and white snapshot from a time long removed from the present.  And the artist that died young are frozen in time.  Cut down and therefore locked into that level of artistry they had reached. 

Think of Prince, had he joined the 27 club, (died at age 27) look what we would have missed. And he would have been one of those black and white snapshots forever frozen in time.

Hank Garland, perfect example,  he was on top of the world,  no question one of the hottest players, in demand by all the biggest stars of the time a car accident leaves him crippled with a severe brain injury.  He lives in obscurity and fades away. Had it not been for that crash, the sky was the limit,. 

It's just the way it is, guys like Hendrix are so much more rare , not because they played well, it was an entire package, The Experience.  He changed the way other artist approached music. Technically he still had room for growth,  that was part of the intrigue of Jimi, we all knew he was going to blow our mind with his next release. 

Till he couldn't,  so now he is the bell bottom wearing whah whah  guy with stacks of Marshall amp and flaming strats 

Showmanship was his power, sadly  his snapshot will  always be what is in the four records he released.

Same with Kath. Garland,  Morrison,  and others

Yup, totally agree..

No one knows what would have happened with Hendrix.. All we have is what he did in just those few short years (well as a band leader anyway)...   Theres stuff about him playing with people like Miles Davis... In that interview I posted he wanted to do it all.. He wanted to be in the Experience again, wanted to be just a guitarist in a band and  talks about doing some big band music...

Who the hell knows..  

I have heard people say about Hendrix, things like, ohh he wasnt that great, just one of the first to put it all together like that and get noticed for it  But thats the point. He was the one who showed the world what can be done on an electric guitar, and he was still just starting.. We never got to see what more he could have been capable of. 

Could he like a lot of 60s & 70s artists just have turned crap by the 80s? Possibly.   I would like to think not. As you mentioned. In my eyes he had it all. The playing, the song writing, the experimentation (with pedals and effects), the look, the showmanship.. And he just seemed like such a cool guy too.

I see Jack White in a similar vain to Hendrix in a way. Not in his playing but in his attitude to the industry and  his general work attitude. And like Hendrix talks about he kind of does it all.. White Stipes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather (where he drums). And along with that does loads of work with the music community like when he saved and catalogued all those old blues recordings...

Anyway.. Its just one of those things isnt it..  We wont ever know.

[mihcmac]

The 60's music was highly effected by the development of the technology the bands were using. How to deal with playing in s stadium, small amps and house speaker systems couldn't cut it for a large roaring crowd. The first time I saw Blue Cheer, I couldn't. believe my eyes, a wall of Dual Showman's going from one side of the stage to the other. Not being used for just guitars but voice and everything else. Imagine walking up to wall of amps as guitar player for the first time and and hitting the on switch, then trying to control it. Ground shaking and vibration going right through you. A couple of power cords and  you are in awe from the sustain and power at your fingertips. By the end of the 60's we were getting large venue sound under control, but for the musicians that were introduced to the sound of a large system, there was no going back. Now we can simulate the sound with our 15 watt tube amps in our living room. The point is the the evolution of sound in the 60's and the players that were using it, will possibly never be repeated. 

Edited June 30, 2020 by mihcmac

[rct]

Dual Showman was a fukkin amp it was yessirree Bob's yer uncle.  Took three pedals to put a dent in that headroom.  Took three guys to carry each.  Controlling that mess was what made guitar players, it's how many of us still around learned to play.  Nothing beats stupid volume and 4 LPBs.

rct

[jdgm]

I still have a 70s silver face MV Dual Showman. 

Think I better get it out and use it - when gigging returns.  Social distancing = need  extra volume!

[Lord Summerisle]

Interesting that the thread began with George Benson. I'd have said the best guitarist of the 1960s was Wes, but then I wasn't born until the mid-70s by which time Wes Montgomery was long since in his grave. Do old records and grainy footage uploaded to Youtube provide enough evidence to make a judgment?

London in the 1990s (the place and time where I was young) had a greying, pot-bellied middle-aged geezer in every boozer with a pint of London Pride in his hand telling you about how Davey Graham was the greatest to ever pick up a guitar. Nowadays he's mostly remembered because he was roughly one half of where Jimmy Page nicked it all from - the other 50% being Bert Jansch.

I'd like to say these old geezers were right, but all that's left are old records and grainy uploads to Youtube. Besides, I doubt they saw him anyway. Davey Graham is like Nick Drake - long after the event it turns out he'd actually had live audiences of millions, all squeezed into the snug of a folkie pub one wet Wednesday evening.

[jdgm]

23 hours ago, ghost_of_fl said:

And I thought I was nuts lugging around a '69 Super Reverb. 

 

Until about a decade ago I had two Twin Mk IIs.

It was my dream to have them both running in stereo onstage, though this only happened in my living room for short periods at low volume.

About 2008 or 09 I was loading for a gig and picked up my main Twin a different way for once.  I am tall and usually would just bend at the waist, grab both sides where the back was open and manhandle it up to my chest. Heavy and supposedly not the right way to do it but I never had a problem.  This particular time I decided to follow the H&S advice I'd been given at work for heavy lifts, and went down on one knee first.  As I stood up with it, ALL my chest/rib muscles down my right side strained or ripped with a horrible crackling noise.  Whoah! - serious intense pain which took at least 3 months to initially recover from and I still got pain for years after when lifting anything or twisting from the waist.  No more Twins for me.  Now I have a red-knob 1x12 Super 60 - and that's not light. I finally got a wheeled trolley a few years back.

The previous owner of my Dual Showman installed flight case-type sprung handles on the sides.  I never used tilt-back legs anyway and it's much lighter than a Twin II so I can still heft it.  It's a 2x12 combo; unusual as it's also UK 240v.  I think it may have been a special order.   One of the local guitar heroes, Kevin Smith from Unicorn,  always used a Dual Showman head with a massive Fender cab, probably the 2x15".   And a Tele of course - a very fine guitarist indeed.

The connection to this thread is that George Benson's current signature amp is a Twin Reverb!

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GBTwin--fender-gb-george-benson-twin-reverb-85-watt-2x12-inch-tube-combo-amp

Edited July 1, 2020 by jdgm

['Scales]

Lord S - well put.

jdgm/rct - I popped into the local music store the other day and they had both the new Tonemasters on the floor. I picked them up and chuckled.