Another brilliant article from Music Radar in their “Remembering Jimi Hendrix” series to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his untimely demise. Steve Vai looks back at his early days and gives us an insight of what Hendrix meant to him. Here’s an excerpt:
“It was really eye-opening when I started taking guitar lessons from Joe Satriani, who had a stack of Jimi Hendrix records. In fact, Joe was the first person to tell me that Jimi had died. I was so disappointed, because I thought, I’ll never get to see him play.
“Watching Joe play Jimi’s songs on the guitar was an unbelievable experience. It was the first time I actually saw somebody play this unbelievable music right in front of me. Up till then, it was all alien to me; it existed on records and eight-track tapes. Watching Joe perform Hendrix on the guitar made me realize, ‘I can do this, too.’ And of course, Joe showed me all the chords and the voicings and how things were done. It was such a magical time.
It shows just how far Hendrix’s influence reached when 40 years on his music is still part of so many household names. I know that for me, his and Randy Rhoades’ death are the greatest losses in the world of guitar.
