JIMI HENDRIX IS rock’s most important and influential guitarist, rightfully revered as one of the most significant musicians of all time. More than a half-century ago, the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s 1967 debut release, Are You Experienced, included this bold proclamation: “Be forewarned. Used to be an Experience meant making you a bit older. This one makes you wider. Jimi Hendrix breaks the world into interesting fragments, and then reassembles it. You hear with new ears after being Experienced.” Sixties record-company hype? Absolutely, but also 100 percent true.
All these decades later, Hendrix’s playing on Are You Experienced and his subsequent recorded performances remains among the freshest and most exciting music ever heard, and his influence as a guitarist, composer and sonic innovator continues to resonate with today’s youngest generation of guitarists. In this lesson, we’ll explore how Hendrix’s music has inspired the distinct, signature styles of six of today’s top players — Melanie Faye, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Marcus Machado, Ayla Tesler-Mabé, Joanne Shaw Taylor and Ayron Jones.
MELANIE FAYE
old Melanie Faye is a phenomenal guitar player from Alabama, now based in Nashville, who brings a jazz/R&B sensibility to Hendrix’s music, as evidenced in her creative and expressive arrangement of his classic ballad “Little Wing.” illustrates some of the techniques and chord voicings Faye employs
