Warren wrote:
I agree with Squonk.
I don't understand why people can't place guitarists in the proper context (in terms of their impact during their prominent years).
We don't scoff at Newton now because, oh, calculus is all rather ho-hum isn't it? We learn it in high-school now. And the laws of motion...all a bit seventeeth century now isn't it, with our particle accelerators and general relativity whatnots...
Newton is a very good example. Happily for him he received substantial acclaim whilst he was alive, but he understood better than most what had happened and what his place in the scheme of things was and said "I could see so far because I stood on the shoulders of the giants who came before me." He was referring to Aristotle, Copernicus, Descartes and others. In time Einstein stood on Newton's shoulders. Hawking now stands on Einstein's shoulders.
This is definitely the way to see Hendrix. He fundamentally changed and raised the game in his time.
Things don't happen in isolation. Neil Young refers to Bert Jansch as the Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar, and Jansch was certainly very influential at one time. But Jansch had his influences too, most notably Davy Graham. Jansch built on what Graham had done and some would argue that he eclipsed Graham, but Jansch could only do what he did because of what Graham did. He took Graham's ideas and techniques and then raised the bar another notch.
Guys like Vai don't just pop out of nowhere, they build on and are inspired by what came before them. They stand on the shoulders of the previous generation of giants. The advances come incrementally. If you think the connection from Vai and Satch back to Hendrix is a bit too tenuous you might want to consider Eddie van Halen who also represented a big step forward when he burst onto the scene. He too has been surpassed, but by guys who built on what he did.
Also, to say "it would have happened" eventually is besides the point. Eventually we would have figured out that the Earth is nog flat, but does that mean we don't give the visionary who first postulated the idea his credit where it's due?
I think that without, say, Hendrix, things would still have happened but maybe on a slightly different time scale and in a different direction or sequence. Several somebody's would have made several small steps or somebody would have worked out a magic tuning (as Graham did with DADGAD) or a two handed technique or discovered some magical effect or introduced (I'm really guessing/improvising now) Balkan melodies into rock or something and things would have moved along again. So if Jimi didn't do what he did somebody else would have done something else at some stage, but the guitaring world might have turned out very differently. It would have progressed, but maybe not in the same way. So the Eddies and the Jimis get surpassed, but they make such a mark that you can hear the echoes of what they did for generations.
I'm not sure, actually, that Hawking is smarter than Copernicus. I think it's the case that he just starts with more already done and accepted, and more available to him that he didn't have to figure out in the first place. He starts from a better position because he stands on the shoulders of the giants who came before him. They did what they did and now nobody has to concern themselves with doing that again (unless we have another dark age and have to go through another renaissance). Same with Eddie van Halen, and Steve Vai, and whoever you think is the bees knees. Because of what's already been done they can start their climb from a base camp further up the mountain.
The guys who picked up the electric guitar post-Jimi couldn't help but stand on his shoulders or to start building from what he'd already done. They didn't have to make a decision to do it. It was there, it was part of the landscape of rock guitar, and they had to fashion the next steps.
