Yeah he was, thats my point he went out on top form. Would he have been as good in 1985. Some would say clapton has declined in latter years. Certainly there are more technically proficient guitarists around now than hendrix. Ok their compositions are no where near as good.
Would hendrix have faired as well in 84 as he did in 67? I dont know and i wouldnt want to chance it. I'm just glad he left us with the good stuff and we didnt have to watch him whither into some grandad rocking chair kind of player.

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No no and no

It's a popular idea among Hendrix fans that his short career represented a continual expansion of guitar possibilty, and expansion that was cut short by untimely death.

Not only is it not really true that his skill grew ceaselessly, but he was clearly at the edges of his limits at the time he died. He was already repeating himself in the studio and putting on lame, drugged-out, audience alienating shows... most biographers agree that he was becoming depressed under the pressure of topping himself, a feat he knew he could not pull off.

He knew only one scale, and while he certainly wrung everything out of that scale he could find, he didn't seem likely to expand into wider harmonic concepts. Adherents to the faith like to point out that he might have moved into something like jazz, citing that Miles Davis was interested in working with him. It's true that Davis called him, but keep three things in mind: 1) Miles was hoping to jump start an increasingly marginalized career; 2) he liked guitar players who made crazy noises with the instrument (Sonny Sharrock, for example); and 3) he never actually worked with him, so we don't know how that would have gone. (For my best guess, watch poor, overrated Trey Anastasio try to keep up with Herbie Hancock in the documentary film Possibilities: he looks as confused and panicky as someone with a year's worth of lessons trying to sit in with Weather Report.)

Yes, Jimi was inspiring. But there's an old adage about the student surpassing the teacher, and Hendrix was surpassed by most of the players he inspired. Seriously: put on a Hendrix album. Now listen to anything by Robben Ford or Eric Johnson... can you actually imagine Jimi playing at that level, ever? Not a chance: he was too undisciplined, and didn't posses the ear (everyone loves that story about Hednrix playing "Sgt. Pepper" at a show the very day the album came out, but if you've heard the recording, you know he didn't even play the right chords, a progression that any moderately skilled musician could have nailed in 5 minutes of noodling.)

The idea that Jimi Hendrix would have embarked on a career of endless, continual expansion of the guitar's vocabulary just doesn't hold water. There's too much evidence in his work that he was already as good as he was gonna get.

Song purchase riles Hendrix heirs

October 28, 2006


A private bidder paid $15 million for the rights to hit songs by U.S. rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix at an auction in New York, but a company owned by the musician's family said it will sue to prove it owns the songs.
The rights, title and interest to songs including "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," "Voodoo Child" and "Foxy Lady" were sold over the telephone in New York on Thursday by the estate of Michael Frank Jeffrey, Hendrix's onetime manager.

"Whoever bought this bought themselves the right to be a litigant," said Bob Merlis, a spokesman for Experience Hendrix. The Seattle-based company is owned by members of Hendrix's family.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I had heard that Jimi would sign anything put in front of him without reading it. I have a feeling that Jeffrey's had Jimi sign everything over to him.

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

Dunno about hendrix only knowing one scale. I didnt think he knew any and relied on his ear. Which if you watch a few of his live shows you can see when he determines a string has gone flat and consequently bends every note on that string to compensate. Also he's cited by classical great Nigel Kenedy (among others) as being a composer on a par with Motzart. Also note he worked quite a bit with the newly formed Mahavishnu Orchestra and was a cornerstone influence on John Mclauglin.

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No no and no

Influence, fine... but surpassed by those he influences by a million miles.

As for a composer (spare me) on a par with Mozart? Nigel Kennedy was either A) high, B) BS'ing for fun C) disparaging Mozart (as those classical types are wont to do, D) Misquoted or E) indulging in a frame of mind that often besets critics, in which they focus on some chunk of popular culture (TV, for example) and heap praise on its creator not because they aren't pop culture whores, but because the critic knows they are whores, and as such, finds them becoming.

Because Jimi Hendrix wasn't a "composer" of ANY stripe, and certainly not one on a par with Mozart. I submit that you listen to the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, and then listen to "Crosstown Traffic," which I will assume would convince you to never say such a silly thing again.

The Emperor (and the Lunch, for that matter), as always, is naked.

Well everyone has good and valid points made here.My take and from what I know from hearing or reading from people who knew him is at the time Hendrix was way ahead of the pact period,and Slapchop it would be unfair to compair him to todays players.The fact being in the late 60s till the day of his death he was the top gun of rock guitar and until Vanhalen came along to rewrite that book every top player was measured against Hendrix,and if Hendrix would of lived I think today he would sound pretty much the same.The same with Vanhalen,if god forbid Eddie would of died 4 years after he broke people would be saying( Wow what would he sound like today)well he sounds like Eddie.If you look at just about every great guitar player there first few albums is usualy where there at there fasteset and craziest,then they tend to lose the gunslinger mentality and play more for the song.I mean I am using an almost direct quote from Eddie there where he said he dropped the gunslinger mentality beacause it is about the song.Hendrix did not know scales per say in a technical sense as Nicki pointed out but you hear a melding of minor pentatonic,the blues scale ,dorian,natural minor,and a big usage of major pentatonic,and the greatness shows as his scale usage followed the chords of his songs and is not just mindless noodleing.I also see a lot of Eddie bashing going on these days and it is a sin that he has kind of waisted the last 10 years and there are guys that are faster than him today but the bottom line is they will never be ahead of him in my book because in the second testiment of rock playing Eddie wrote it.KEEP ON ROCKIN

dunno mate as far as eric johnson goes i think he's the blandest of bland and in no way comes close to hendrix even at his lows. technique is useless if you cant pen a good tune. Johnson in my opinion cant. I've never been able to tolerate more than 45 seconds of his elevator music.
Kennedy was entirely serious btw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Kennedy
http://www.djnoble.demon.co.uk/ints/NIGELKE.NN0.html

Simply listening to rainbow bridge or cry of love will prove hendrixs compositional skills (drifting, Angel). Why else would he and eddie kramer pioneer multitracking if it wasnt for those grandiose compositions.

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No no and no

Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Kramer did not pioneer multitracking. The real pioneering work was done by Les Paul, and later by Tom Dowd.

Even if they had, a need for multitracking does not indicate that one become a "composer."

You're welcome to your opinion mate, but in my eyes, Hendrix will always be the Most Naked Emperor of Them All, the one that receives heaps of autopraise for having done nothing more remarkable than aspirating his stomach contents right around the time he reached his peak. As you alluded to yourself, if he had lived guitar players would heaping Clapton-style derision on him for losing his "edge" or his "mojo" or whatever his playing was supposedly infused with.

Van Halen? Are you serious?

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

Van Halen wrote what book? Eidde is a great player but that bands popularity is owed a lot to two others as well David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar

_________________
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Well, I have a much higher opinion of Hendrix than SlapChop does, and it has little to do with his technical ability or composing.

But, SlapChop, I wholeheartedly agree with you as far as Nigel Kennedy is concerned. Kennedy also said he couldn't tell the difference between Mozart and Weather Report. Even talking figuratively - come off it, Nige!

(On Mozart piano concertos, there is an all time great coupling of 23 and 24 by Clifford Curzon that beats into a cocked hat anything Kennedy will ever do in his life...)

Cheers - C

Aha! So it WAS Letter "C": Nigel Kennedy is disparaging Mozart, as classical types are wont to do! It's not that he thinks Hendrix is a great composer, he's just letting you know how little he thinks of ol' Amadeus.

Ceri, have you ever heard Glenn Gould's recording of 24? It's the only Mozart Gould ever recorded, and it makes you feel like you're trying to breathe at high altitude. I'll check out the Curzon one o' these days.

No, actually I haven't heard Gould doing Mozart. But I have a good friend who has every recording by everyone of everything - which isn't much of an exaggeration! I'll try and check it out; thanks.

Regarding Kennedy: that fella had a very odd hothouse musical upbringing which he's been railing against ever since. Street type clothes, haircuts and mannerisms on stage are part of it. Affecting to rate different types of music "non-judgementally" is another.

Must admit, his Elgar Concerto is pretty good. For the rest, he's just a medium grade soloist who had an unexpected runaway commercial success with his Four Seasons and has been getting too much attention ever since, which he doesn't quite know how to handle.

He seems a nice enough stick underneath it all: I just wouldn't waste too much time on his pronouncements... (To which he could fairly reasonably reply: and who the heck are you? )

Cheers - C

Okay, I get it. A Google search revealed some pictures of Nigel Kennedy (I remember hearing about this guy), and a long, long string of interviews that revealed nothing about the man so much as his propensity for talking trash.

As I understand it, nobody before him ever tried to make classical music popular.