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Jimi and Jimmy
Many have debated who the best guitar player in history is. The debates about his topic are usually all just opinion due to the fact that every guitar player has a different way of playing, even though two guitarists may play the same genre of music. Every guitarist has their own voice in guitar, just like singers all have a different voice. It can be debated who has the better voice, but it would all just be opinion. Some guitarists obviously have more skill than others, but when comparing two masters of guitar, it would mostly just be opinion.
Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix were two guitar players from the same era and that played with a similar style. Jimi Hendrix is the better known of the two, while Jimmy Page is less known. Some do not even know who Jimmy Page is.
Jimmy Page
James Patrick Page, known as Jimmy Page, was born January 9, 1944, in Heston, England. He took up the guitar at the age of 13 after being inspired by the famous musician Elvis Presley. In 1965 he was asked to join the band The Yardbirds. He turned down the offer, recommending the guitarist Jeff Beck. The next year The Yardbirds sought him out again, and he finally agreed to join. For a while the band had two lead guitarists. Beck left in 1966 due to poor health and a possible nervous breakdown.
The band fizzled out in 1968, and Page formed a new band to play some remaining Yardbirds concert dates. They originally called themselves The New Yardbirds. The band consisted of John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards, John Bonham on drums, Jimmy Page on guitar, and Robert Plant on lead vocals (“James Patrick Page”).
In 2003, Rolling Stones magazine rated Jimmy Page as the ninth best guitarist in all of history. They stated that Jimmy Page was best known as the “Fire-slinging riffmaster that helped Led Zepplin to hard-rock dominance in the 1970s.”
Led Zepplin toured the U. S. in early 1969, opening for the band Vanilla Fudge. They released their first album in February; within months it had reached Billboard’s Top 10. Led Zeppelin II, their second album, reached Number One , only two months after its release, and since then every album of new material has gone platinum; five of the group's albums have reached Number One (Serpick).
In September 1980, John Bonham died at Jimmy Page’s house after heavily drinking and chocking on his own vomit. After the event Page could not bring himself to pick up the guitar again for months. The band decided that they could not continue without Bonham. Led Zepplin broke up that year.
In 1982, Page returned as a music composer and penned the score to the Charles Bronson film Deathwish II. Page reunited with John Paul Jones and Robert Plant in 1985, to play the international benefit concert Live Aid. They were joined on stage by drummers Tony Thompson and Phil Collins. They played together again in 1988, for the special concert held in honor of Atlantic Records 25th anniversary. This time, however, Jason Bonham, son of the late John Bonham, filled in on drums. Page helped revive Led Zeppelin in 2007, for a special benefit show for the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund. Led Zepplin had been dead for 19 years which resulted in the show very quickly selling out. Everyone was shocked by how Jimmy Page, at the age of 63, had not diminished in skill with the pass of time.
Jimi Hendrix
Johnny Allen Hendrix (later changed to James Marshall), known as Jimi Hendrix, was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington. He was first inspired by Elvis Presley when he was 14 years old and took up the guitar at the age of 15. Jimi Hendrix dropped out of high school in 1959. He worked odd jobs while pursuing his musical aspirations. Hendrix enlisted in the United States Army in 1961 and trained to become a paratrooper at Fort Ord in California. He found time for music even as a soldier, creating a band named The King Casuals. Hendrix served in the army until 1962 when he was discharged due to an injury.
After being discharged, Jimi chased his musical dreams whole heartedly, becoming a session musician. He played backup for performers such as Little Richard, Sam Cooke, and the Isley Brothers. He also formed a band of his own called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, which played shows around the New York City area.
In 1966 Hendrix met Chas Chandler who became his manager. Chandler convinced Hendrix to go to London where he joined forces with musicians Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell to create The Jimi Hendrix Experience. There he built up a great following among England’s rock royalty; members of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who and Eric Clapton were all great admirers of Hendrix's work.
All three of the albums released by The Jimi Hendrix Experience were instant hits. Their final album, “Electric Ladyland,” was released in 1968 and featured the hit "All Along the Watchtower," which was written by Bob Dylan. The band then broke up in 1969 (“James Marshall Hendrix”).
Rolling Stones Magazine hailed Jimi Hendrix as the best guitar player of all time. They described him as, “One of the biggest cultural figures of the Sixties, a psychedelic voodoo child who spewed clouds of distortion and pot smoke.” He pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before Hendrix had experimented with feedback and distortion, but he turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary (Kemp).
Hendrix died on September 18, 1970, due to drug-related complications. Even though he was only 27 when he died, Jimi Hendrix had a huge impact on the world of rock, and on the whole realm of guitar. One journalist wrote, "Jimi Hendrix could get more out of an electric guitar than anyone else. He was the ultimate guitar player." ("James Marshall Hendrix").
Determining who the better guitar player was would be hard to say due to the fact that Jimmy Page is still alive and playing guitar to this day, and that Jimi Hendrix is long since passed away. We can look at their lives and see that in the short 27 years he lived, Jimi Hendrix had a huge impact; whereas Jimmy Page did not have such a great impact. Jimi Hendrix was more influential in the area of guitar, but, on the contrast Led Zepplin had more hits and lasted longer than The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Jimi Hendrix wins when looking at the more influential guitar player and guitar icon.
As stated in the beginning of this article, comparing two masters of guitar all comes down to, for the most part, one’s opinion. Both Page and Hendrix brought something to the table, Hendrix just brought a little more for the little time he was alive. That is not to say Jimmy Page did not have a large impact on the music realm; they both were masters of guitar and they both had a huge impact on music, and they both helped form it into what it is today. We will always have both of them to thank for helping mold guitar, and music in general, into what it is today.
