Jimi Hendrix Guitar Quotes

those times i burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. we all burn things we love. i love my guitar

I wish they'd had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would've been straightened out.

We sat side by side on the swings. The creaking sound they made seemed sexier to me than a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo.

Sometimes you'll want to give up the guitar. You'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded.

Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel

My own thing is in my head. I hear sounds and if I don’t get them together nobody else will. —Jimi Hendrix

I felt every part of that animal music, felt it eat me up and spit me out, and what emerged was a me a thousand times more powerful than Piper Vaughan. I was Piper Vaughan, guitar hero - spiritual descendant of Jimi Hendrix and proponent of pure anarchy. And I ROCKED.

Vincent van Gogh was a “tormented genius” the way Jimi Hendrix was a “guitar player.” I

JIMI HENDRIX LEAD GUITAR JOHN LENNON RHYTHM GUITAR PHIL LINOTT BASS GUITAR KEITH MOON DRUMS

Page took the record that was playing on the turntable off without asking anybody and put on Jimi Hendrix: long tense organic guitar line that made him shiver like frantic electric ecstasy was shooting up from the carpet through his spine straight to the old pleasure center in his cream-cheese brain, shaking his head so that his hair waved all around him, Have You Ever Been Experienced?

Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It’s all in Jimi’s absurd and delirious guitar riffs.

Personally, I like my gods old, grizzled and *here*. I'll take Dylan; the pirate raiding party of the Stones; the hope-I-get-very-old-before-I-die, present live power of the Who; a fat, still-mesmerizing-until-his-death Brando—they all suit me over the alternative. I would've liked to have seen that last Michael Jackson show, a seventy-year-old Elvis reinventing and relishing in his talents, where Jimi Hendrix might've next taken the electric guitar, Keith Moon, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and all the others whose untimely deaths and lost talents stole something from the music I love, living on, enjoying the blessings of their gifts and their audience's regard. Aging is scary but fascinating, and great talent morphs in strange and often enlightening ways.

Translating how that latter fact came to life in the studio, engineer Chuck Zwicky explained from his own observations during the recording of the album that “the way that Prince’s music comes together has everything to do with how he views the individual instruments, and for example, when he’s sitting down at the drums, he’s derivatively thinking about Dave Gerbaldi, the drummer from Tower of Power, and that’s a real fascile and funky drummer; and when he plays keyboards, he’s thinking about James Brown’s horn player, on one aspect; and when he’s playing guitar, other elements creep in, because he loves Carlos Santana, and Jimi Hendrix, and this other guitar player named Bill Nelson, a rock guitar player from the 70s. And so these aspects all come together to make this unique sound that is Prince, and it’s not rock, it’s not funk, it’s not jazz, it’s not blues—it’s just his own kind of music. I remember there was one particular moment when he started playing this keyboard line, and I’m thinking ‘He can’t play that, that’s Gary Newman.’ And at that moment, he stops the tape, and turns and looks at me and asks ‘Do you like Gary Newman?’ And I said ‘You know, the album Replica never left my turntable in Jr. High School after my sister bought it for me. I listened to it until it wore out.’ And he said ‘There are people still trying to figure out what a genius he is.

The heart of rock will always remain a primal world of action. The music revives itself over and over again in that form, primitive rockabilly, punk, hard soul and early rap. Integrating the world of thought and reflection with the world of primitive action is *not* a necessary skill for making great rock 'n' roll. Many of the music's most glorious moments feel as though they were birthed in an explosion of raw talent and creative instinct (some of them even were!). But ... if you want to burn bright, hard *and* long, you will need to depend on more than your initial instincts. You will need to develop some craft and a creative intelligence that will lead you *farther* when things get dicey. That's what'll help you make crucial sense and powerful music as time passes, giving you the skills that may also keep you alive, creatively and physically. The failure of so many of rock's artists to outlive their expiration date of a few years, make more than a few great albums and avoid treading water, or worse, I felt was due to the misfit nature of those drawn to the profession. These were strong, addictive personalities, fired by compulsion, narcissism, license, passion and an inbred entitlement, all slammed over a world of fear, hunger and insecurity. That's a Molotov cocktail of confusion that can leave you unable to make, or resistant to making, the lead of consciousness a life in the field demands. After first contact knocks you on your ass, you'd better have a plan, for some preparedness and personal development will be required if you expect to hang around any longer than your fifteen minutes. Now, some guys' five minutes are worth other guys' fifty years, and while burning out in one brilliant supernova will send record sales through the roof, leave you living fast, dying young, leaving a beautiful corpse, there *is* something to be said for living. Personally, I like my gods old, grizzled and *here*. I'll take Dylan; the pirate raiding party of the Stones; the hope-I-get-very-old-before-I-die, present live power of the Who; a fat, still-mesmerizing-until-his-death Brando—they all suit me over the alternative. I would've liked to have seen that last Michael Jackson show, a seventy-year-old Elvis reinventing and relishing in his talents, where Jimi Hendrix might've next taken the electric guitar, Keith Moon, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and all the others whose untimely deaths and lost talents stole something from the music I love, living on, enjoying the blessings of their gifts and their audience's regard. Aging is scary but fascinating, and great talent morphs in strange and often enlightening ways. Plus, to those you've received so much from, so much joy, knowledge and inspiration, you wish life, happiness and peace. These aren't easy to come by.

I knocked on his door, received no reply and opened it to a fetid smell of old socks and unwashed adolescence. Carefully bottled and distilled, it would do sterling work as a shark repellent, but I didn’t say so. Teenage sons react badly to sarcasm. The room was liberally covered with posters of Jimi Hendrix, Che Guevara and Wayne Skunk, lead guitar and vocals of Strontium Goat. The floor was covered with discarded clothes, deadline-expired schoolwork and side plates with hardened toast crusts on them. I think the room had once been carpeted, but I couldn’t be sure anymore.

Jimi Hendrix is the Greatest, Jeff Beck is the Best, but I prefer to listen to Jimmy Page

Look over yonder, here come the blues, The thirteenth of anytime, just like a fool. A double-breasted green-and-red polka dot coat, Playin' the violin, Hittin' wrong notes. Wow! Look over yonder, he's coming my way, When he's around, I never have a happy day. He give me bad luck by rubbin' his ring, See that? I just broke a guitar string. Look over yonder, he's smiling at my babe, Now she says, she's gonna leave me here today. I don't need bad luck like him hangin' around, He's knockin' at my door, now my house is burning down. (Crackle, crackle…pop, pop.) Look over yonder, this is the end, He just now said he wants to be my friend. When he's around, I can't do nothing right, He's got me wearing shades in the middle of the night. Look over yonder, yeah. Look over yonder, baby. Got to get away, get away from here. Oh! Look over yonder, yeah. (Where's my shotgun so I can blow this fool away? Get away, brother!) Look over yonder, baby…

Hendrix was twenty-one and unknown. He sought an audience with B.B., who told him “about entirely new approaches to the guitar, and the powerful effect the Hawaiian and country and western pedal-steel guitars had had on him,” and how he had “achieved a cry that sounded human, that had emotion, that sang,” David Henderson writes in his Hendrix biography. B.B. pointed to his fat hands, and he explained how Jimi could use his long, supple fingers to make his guitar sound “like a woman singer’s vibrato,” like Lucille. That little chat “put enough in Jimmy’s ears to keep him occupied for months, years.

Technically, I'm not even a guitar player. All I play is truth and emotion.

Talking about talents, Jimi Hendrix had talents. Rated the best guitarist that ever lived, he talked to his guitar like a father to a child, reeling off rhythms upon rhythms that continue to haunt his early death.

Vincent van Gogh was a “tormented genius” the way Jimi Hendrix was a “guitar player.” I remember, reading Stephen King’s On Writing, when he said something about how “your art needs to be a function of your life, not the other way around.” Van Gogh’s art had moved beyond being a “function” of his life and had metastasized into a tumor that was keeping him alive only to kill him more slowly. But in Arles, Vincent decided to take control of his “art.” Except that he made it hurry up with the task of his annihilation.

And I was thinking, Oh man, so this is a rice paddy, yes, wow! when I suddenly heard an electric guitar shooting right up in my ear and a mean, rapturous black voice singing, coaxing, 'Now c'mon baby, stop actin' so crazy,' and when I got it all together I turned to see a grinning black corporal hunched over a cassette recorder. 'Might's well,' he said. 'We ain' goin' nowhere till them gunships come.' ¶ That's the story of the first time I ever heard Jimi Hendrix, but in a war where a lot of people talked about Aretha's 'Satisfaction' the way other people speak of Brahms' Fourth, it was more than a story; it was Credentials. 'Say, that Jimi Hendrix is my main man,' someone would say. 'He has definitely got his shit together!' Hendrix had once been in the 101st Airborne, and the Airborne in Vietnam was full of wiggy-brilliant spades like him, really mean and really good, guys who always took care of you when things got bad. That music meant a lot to them. I never once heard it played over the Armed Forces Radio Network.

When Lizzy Stanton and I hosted the first women’s rights convention in Woodstock—” “I think you mean Seneca Falls?” Rhea frowned. “Wasn’t that in the ’60s?” “The ’40s,” I said. “The 1840s, if memory serves.” “So…Jimi Hendrix wasn’t there?” “Doubtful.” Rhea fiddled with her peace symbol. “Then who set that guitar on fire?

Jimi Hendrix is the Greatest, Jeff Beck is the Best, Eric Clapton has no equal, but I prefer to listen to Jimmy Page

One memorable offstage incident was reported in detail by Tork to writer Dave Zimmer: “We were in this hotel room. Jimi and Stephen (Stills) were sitting on these beds facing each other, just flailing away on acoustic guitars. In between ’em was Micky Dolenz, slapping his guitar like, ‘slap, whacka, slap, whacka, slap.’ And all of a sudden Micky quit. Then Stephen and Jimi stopped and Stephen said to Micky, ‘Why’d you stop playing? Micky said, ‘I didn’t know you were listening.’ So there’s one for ya—Hendrix, Stills, and Dolenz.

And yet it was important that Zachary be squished. The kid had been given his own practice room, a cubicle space lined with eggshell foam and scattered with more guitars than Katz had owned in 30 years. Already, for pure technique, to judge from what Katz had overheard in his comings and goings, the kid was a more hotdog soloist than Katz had ever been or ever would be. But so where a hundred thousand other American highschool boys. So what? Rather than thwarting his father's vicarious rock ambitions by pursuing entomology or interesting himself in financial derivatives, Zachery dutifully aped Jimi Hendrix. Somewhere there had been a failure of imagination.

Ten shockingly arty events What arty types like to call a ‘creative tension’ exists in art and music, about working right at the limits of public taste. Plus, there’s money to be made there. Here’s ten examples reflecting both motivations. Painting: Manet’s Breakfast on the Lawn, featuring a group of sophisticated French aristocrats picnicking outside, shocked the art world back in 1862 because one of the young lady guests is stark naked! Painting: Balthus’s Guitar Lesson (1934), depicting a teacher fondling the private parts of a nude pupil, caused predictable uproar. The artist claimed this was part of his strategy to ‘make people more aware’. Music: Jump to 1969 when Jimi Hendrix performed his own interpretation of the American National Anthem at the hippy festival Woodstock, shocking the mainstream US. Film: In 1974 censors deemed Night Porter, a film about a love affair between an ex-Nazi SS commander and his beautiful young prisoner (featuring flashbacks to concentration camp romps and lots of sexy scenes in bed with Nazi apparel), out of bounds. Installation: In December 1993 the 50-metre-high obelisk in the Place Concorde in the centre of Paris was covered in a giant fluorescent red condom by a group called ActUp. Publishing: In 1989 Salman Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses outraged Islamic authorities for its irreverent treatment of Islam. In 2005 cartoons making political points about Islam featuring the prophet Mohammed likewise resulted in riots in many Muslim cities around the world, with several people killed. Installation: In 1992 the soon-to-be extremely rich English artist Damien Hirst exhibited a 7-metre-long shark in a giant box of formaldehyde in a London art gallery – the first of a series of dead things in preservative. Sculpture: In 1999 Sotheby’s in London sold a urinoir or toilet-bowl-thing by Marcel Duchamp as art for more than a million pounds ($1,762,000) to a Greek collector. He must have lost his marbles! Painting: Also in 1999 The Holy Virgin Mary, a painting by Chris Ofili representing the Christian icon as a rather crude figure constructed out of elephant dung, caused a storm. Curiously, it was banned in Australia because (like Damien Hirst’s shark) the artist was being funded by people (the Saatchis) who stood to benefit financially from controversy. Sculpture: In 2008 Gunther von Hagens, also known as Dr Death, exhibited in several European cities a collection of skinned corpses mounted in grotesque postures that he insists should count as art.