Though Jimi Hendrix was just 27 when he died in September 1970, he managed to secure the near-unanimous public opinion that he’s the best guitarist who ever lived. Last year, Gibson.com readers voted Hendrix No. 1 in our Top 50 Guitarists of All Time poll, and he’s topped similar lists by Rolling Stone and other music publications. Those that saw him play live say that Hendrix was even more magical and arresting in person than he is on his records and in film. In interviews, however, he had a soft-spoken, wry manner that can be difficult to reconcile with his loud stage presence. Hendrix didn’t grant many interviews, but the ones he did reveal him to be obsessed with his craft, frustrated with and stifled by the music industry, and surprisingly self-depreciating and hilarious. Here are some choice quotes from Hendrix.
On rock and roll, as reported in the 1970 book Rock: A World Bold as Love
“Rock is so much fun. That’s what it’s all about — filling up the chest cavities and empty kneecaps and elbows.”
On his various identities, as told to radio interviewer in 1970.
“All I write is just what I feel … I don’t round it off too good. I just keep it almost naked … what I was trying to do was doing three things at a time, which is my nature … I hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.”
On his musical intentions, as said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1969.
“We’re playing for our sound to go inside the soul of the person and see if they can awaken some kind of thing in their mind. There are so many sleeping people.”
On how he writes a song, as told to Rolling Stone in 1970.
“Most of the time I can’t [write] it on the guitar, you know? Most of the time I’m just lying around daydreaming and hearing all this music. And you can’t, if you go to the guitar and try to play it, it spoils the whole thing, you know? — I just can’t play guitar that well, to get all this music together.”
On Bob Dylan, as told to rock journalist Steve Barker in 1967.
“I saw him one time, but both of us were stoned out of our minds. I remember it vaguely. It was at this place called The Kettle of Fish in the Village. We were both stoned there, and we just hung around laughing — yeah, we just laughed. People have always got to put him down. I really dig him, though. I like that Highway 61 Revisited album and especially ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.’ He doesn’t inspire me actually, because I could never write the kind of words he does.”
On what he’s aiming for when making a record, as told to rock journalist Steve Barker in 1967.
“We quite naturally want people to like it — that’s the reason for putting the record out. You see, I have no taste. I couldn’t say what’s a good record and what’s a bad one, really. We play records at the flat sometimes and say, ‘This is great,’ and then somebody will say, ‘Oh, yeah, but it’s something else.’ Then they say, ‘That’s terrible,’ and I’d say, ‘That’s great — the tremolos, for instance.’ So I don’t have no feeling about commercial records. I don’t know what a commercial record really is. So what we do is write and try to get it together as best as possible for anybody who’d really dig it. It doesn’t make any difference who.”
On the record industry, as said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1969
“Money is getting to be out of hand now. Musicians, especially young cats, they get a chance to make all this money and they say, ‘Wow, this is fantastic,’ and they lose themselves and they forget about the music itself. They forget about their talents; they forget about the other half of them … The more money you make the more blues you can sing.”
On women and sex, as told to an interviewer in 1967
“If you’re not used to [groupies] it can kill you really. [Sex is] just another way of communication. That’s why a lot of people can’t understand and say, ‘Damn, why you with so many people?’ … It’s a part of you, it’s nature, I just can’t help it, that’s all. Some people just communicate better by not even knowing each other’s name, by just saying, ‘Hey, hi, why don’t you come with me here for a minute?’ We can be the best of friends then. Some even get married after that. It was worse before [I was famous] because I used to be on the block starving. Girls used to really help me. Girls are some of my best friends. Ever since then, that’s why I say to myself, ‘Any girl I meet now I’m going to try to show her my appreciation for what they did for me before.’ [Laughs.]”
On his ideal lifestyle, when asked if he has enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life, as spoken in a 1970 interview with New Musical Express
“Not the way I’d like to live. I want to get up in the morning and just roll over in my bed into the indoor swimming pool and then swim to the breakfast table, come up for air and get a drink of orange juice. Then just flop over from the chair into the swimming pool and swim into the bathroom and shave and whatever.”
On the transformative power of the electric guitar, as reported in the 1970 book Rock: A World Bold as Love
“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. Not just only for the black and the white, but I mean for the cause!”
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According to NME.com, the park will cover 2.5 acres and be in the shape of a guitar and feature “lyrical stepping stones, rain drums, a sculpted butterfly garden, performance area, sound garden and a green space” and a fretboard-shaped bridge.
little to do with the relationship between the musicians.