A legacy that refuses to fade

More than half a century since he first captured the world's attention, Jimi Hendrix remains one of the most alive presences in music. His influence goes beyond technique and into what the guitar is capable of and what it means to play it. At the heart of his legacy is innovation with no rules, and it’s that spirit that continues to resonate with musicians today. 

We asked some of the artists we’ve worked with over the past year to reflect on what Hendrix means to them. For many, their introduction was visual as much as sonic. Watching archive footage feels like a recurring origin story across generations of players. From the bandanas and military jackets to the bell-bottoms and blouses, Hendrix's stage presence demanded attention before he had even played a note. Something about that first encounter stays with you. For some, like Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, it was going back to a neighbour's flat in Shepherd's Bush again and again just to hear ‘Purple Haze’ one more time. For others, like producer Carlos Dela Garza, it was returning to footage of Hendrix’s 1967 Monterey Pop Festival performance so many times he lost count, trying to unpick licks and techniques that no one had ever seen or heard before. What drew people in was less about a song or a solo and more about the feeling that something genuinely new was happening. 

Jake Clarke of Superheaven first encountered him when a guitar teacher put on ‘Purple Haze,’ and KennyHoopla grew up with a painting of Hendrix on a motorcycle on his wall, not knowing who it was, only making the connection years later when music became his life. Sunset Sound engineer Farrokh Shroff stumbled across footage of him playing a long improvised rock and roll solo as a kid and never looked back. Everyone's first encounter with Hendrix is different, but the effect is the same, and it never quite leaves you.

His playing was technically extraordinary, but it was the raw emotional intensity running through every note that nobody could get close to. John Notto of Dirty Honey heard it in the original pressings he found in his mother's record collection: rhythm guitar, blues lead, and psychedelic experimentation, bound together through controlled feedback and chord improvisation that pushed the guitar beyond its traditional role. Orville Neeley of Spiritual Cramp describes the moment he put on Hendrix through headphones and finally heard every instrument clearly, and in that moment, he understood how records could be made. Decades later, those records are still shaping the way musicians think about what playing guitar can be. 

The physicality of what he did on stage is its own chapter. The feedback, the whammy bar, the sheer confrontation of the volume itself carried what guitarist and producer Chris Greatti calls a punk energy before punk had a name. A broken string or a cable going down never phased him, he just kept playing, and that refusal to be thrown off by anything became as much a part of the performance as the music itself. One unforgettable moment came at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, when, after his set, Hendrix lit his guitar on fire as he knelt over it, smashed it against his amps and tossed the charred remains into the audience. It was the kind of moment that defined his shows and made everything that came before feel like it was playing it safe.

Hendrix’s legacy runs deeper than sonic influence. What he left behind was not a sound or tone to replicate, but a way of approaching the guitar, with technical brilliance and an unwillingness to hold anything back, that musicians are still drawing from today. Some are guided by the philosophy he lived by: there are no rules when it comes to the guitar; for others, his influence is woven directly into the music itself. Joey Santiago of the Pixies credits Hendrix as the reason he picked up a guitar and has spent his entire career quietly embedding a Hendrix chord into every album the band has made, a tribute hiding in plain sight. Decades on, his influence runs through the way modern musicians play, record and think about the guitar, whether they know it or not.