It is really strange how a lot of people just don't get Hendrix - even some people who are otherwise capable and credibly good musicians. I can remember listening to Hendrix for the first time (at 16) after after a diet of Eric Burton, Stones, Kinks and Beatles - it sounded like a din - at first! Then as the ear and brain tuned in to it I started listening more and more - and then found I could listen to little else.

My cousin, a few years younger laughed at me for being hooked on it - then at the age of 25 sheepishly admitted that I was right.

No other musician I am aware can achieve that vibe - what seems like an almost perfect translation of brain to instrument (then to ear to pleasure centres of the brain). If you don't get it - you aren't listening right! And it still works for me nearly 40 years later.

only heard of him before?

The best ever to touch a guitar

I'm a little young to know him, but he sure knew how to wow the crowd and play a guitar in strange manner.

now c'mon people--the most amazing things about this guy--he was black, he strung his guitar backwards to play it left handed, and he did enough drugs that he didnt get bothered by the flaming guitar as he played--he was ok, but honestly , not a guitar god

Amazing guitarist

An amazing guitarist comming from nowhere, expressing the soul of his mind, the soul of his music. Always authentic, always 100% of him. His talent, underestimate by some suposely narrow experts, fly over the mediocrity of the today music. Hendrix you was then you remain the best !

So glad to see Jimi Hendrix, despite his premature death as far back as 1973, as the best guitarist of all time, I am so pleased to be old enough to have seen JH play live, truly awesome, yet unsurpassed talent! Philippe

I do think he was good. I liked the music. I didn't buy his album. I think there was talent there. It brings memories back. It's like nothing else. My other friend liked him. His music is used in Withnail and I and it really makes the movie good. It stands for the generation.

jimi hendrixx roxxx my soxxx off he is a great guitarists i love his song the wind cries mary i played it on guitar hero but i sucked

... imagine him with today's recording technology. ... chills down the spine.

The reason that anyone on this Earth knows about him is because of his so called "stage presence", where he acted like some crackhead looking for his next fix and somehow this excited people. This is the only reason we even know who he is today, because it sure as hell was not his playing ability, that is for certain. Some guitar players have "limited range" if this is true then Hendrix had absolutely NO range and the only evidence that one needs to prove this theory is to have the ability of hearing.

People that like Hendrix are incapable of original or intelligent thought. They remind me of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", they are just like the rats in that story, they follow blindly because they believe the word of some drugged out stoner from the sixties who pretends he/she saw him back in the day and had some kind of revelation. So keep on being a rat and follow the word of some aging hippie, because that seems to make you happy!

Criteria to be the Greatest Guitar Player of All-Time according to the positive reviews of Jimi Hendrix on this web-site: 1. Must be able to play a guitar with your teeth, behind your back or any other non-traditional way 2. Be able to play a right handed guitar left handed (even though it is strung for a left handed player) 3. Flailing around the stage, this includes dry-humping your guitar and amplifiers and sometimes setting your guitar on fire(see picture above) 4. This part is crucial, you must be able to tweek your face so much that you appear to be playing your guitar with your "Soul", because this step will show your greatness. 5. You must be able to bend your strings, this is an un-natural act for a guitar player, because it is not a basic technique for a guitarist and this would make you unique amongst other guitar players 6. Absolutely do not play with skill and dexterity, just play sloppy and with lots of distortion 7. Appeal to the drug culture and die young to further your legend before your auidence can get bored with your abilities.

sweet guitar playin

Well count me as being incapable of original or intelligent thought, but I don't think I have ever read a rock and roll biography, or interview where some legend doesn't mention the first time they heard Jimi Hendrix and that they were totally turned upside down by what they heard. He's remembered as a guitar hero but was also developing into a great songwriter during his short career. Songs like Little Wing and Wind Cries Mary hinted at a future far beyond the bluesy sonic blast that caught every one's attention at first. Of all of the rock legends of the era who died too soon, I think his was the greatest loss. He probablly would have done much more interesting work as he progressed.

never heard of him

another one of the natural prodigys , a must for any collector

A legend. Foolishly ended his music career at a young age and at his prime.

Jimi was indeed a guitar god a legend that will be remembered for ever.

OMG this guy is fantastic on the guitar....... he can make it cry it is sooo amazing!

Hendrix at Woodstock. That was a daze.

Brilliant. Magic. As a kid, I never related to his music in a personal way because he always seemed to be singing about Unicorns and Sand Castles in the sky and other topics I couldn't really relate to (Black Sabbath singing "Snowblind" or the NY Dolls singing "Pills"-- now, that I could relate to!), but watching him perform when he was at the top of his musical game was like watching a shamanic witch-doctor wizard casting a spell. I never get tired of watching him at Monterrey, or Woodstock; blows my mind every single time. Impossible not to contemplate what more he might have been able to accomplish had he lived.

I'm on the watch tower with you man

There is no one, single "best guitar player of all time", but Jimi Hendrix certainly belongs listed with those less famous others who should also be at the top, like Hubert Sumlin (for his magnificent work with Howlin' Wolf, who by the way was no slouch on guitar himself), Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Lightning Hopkins, John Hurt, John Fahey and Leo Kottke, just to name a few off the top of my head.

Naturally, with everyone allowed to participate regardless of qualifications or lack thereof, this list is really nothing but a popularity contest. If it wasn't, Jeff Beck would be way higher on the list than his fellow Yardbirds, Page and Clapton.

UPDATE:

How can anyone give Andres Segovia less than five stars?

Seems that this guitar-rating thing has come down to Hendrix vs. Van Halen, live on Pay Per View. I was a big Van Halen fan, but....sorry....gotta go with Hendrix here. He was an innovator who inspired a whole new sub-genre of music. The same cannot be said for Ed.

Update: Welcome back Chris. That said, once and for all...Eddie Van Halen, while a decent guitar player, is not fit to wash out the headband of Jimmy Hendrix.
Funny that Hendrix has been called perhaps the best of all time by the likes of Prince, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck (to name just three)
Anyway, glad we are back to something important here.

BEST!!!!!!
BEST WAS, IS, and will always BE!

I bought my first hendrix album in 1971...Rainbow Bridge

The greatest guitarist in rock history.

I don't go out of my way for it, but not bad.

awsome

hell the awesomest guy ever in rock n roll

rockin

no

who is he?

no

not really my type

love them<3>

Very creative guitarist. At times I think he may get too much credit. Playing a right handed guitar and being left handed deserves much credit. Hey Joe...Where you goin' with that lsd in your hand???

Is it love or just confusion???????

fuck hendrix every one thinks hes god becuase he can set his gutar on fire and play it eeeerrrrr im cool hendrix was a stoner fag

Incredible ability to play and perform

The best guitarist ever. Only a few musicians did what he did, by combineding rock with the blues.

for the reason he is categorized in.

Jimi's the man - too bad we lost him ealry so he didn't have a larger catalog..... give me his All Along The Watchtower over Dylan's any day...

3

Hells yea

Jimi Hendix will reign as the most stellar guitar player of all time.

I dont know how anyone cut even dare to discuss that!!

hummmm, cant say im a huge fan of this either

I think there are some better guitarist than he is...

he was great for his time... but hero's change