News Jimmy Page’s disappointing Jimi Hendrix encounter
No matter what guitarist you speak to, regardless of the style of music they play or the genres they enjoy dabbling in the most, there is no escaping that all of them, at some point, will cite Jimi Hendrix as an influence. He was an unrelenting force in music that was impossible to turn away from and has a sound that is still just as infectious today.
You know someone is good when the public admires them; you know that someone is great when they are respected by other experts in their field. Arguably, another of the greatest guitarists to ever take to the stage was Jimmy Page, who, with Led Zeppelin, completely changed the rock landscape.
Both Page and Hendrix have impacted music in ways that can be felt everywhere. They each had monumental respect for one another, with Page even going as far as to call Hendrix the best guitarist he had ever heard.
When asked about his favourite guitarists, Page alluded to several different people, all of whom deserve their flowers in some shape or form. “I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing,” he said when speaking about the likes of Elliot Randall, Clarence White, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend, “They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.”
There was no doubt, though, that Hendrix was Page’s favourite. This was evident in 1975, as when Rolling Stone interviewed Page, he solemnly said, “We’ve lost the best guitarist any of us ever had, and that was Hendrix.”
Despite Hendrix’s brilliance as a musician, he struggled with drugs and alcohol throughout his life. It meant that a lot of the time when people met him, he wasn’t particularly one with his body. Page reflected on the only time he met Hendrix, which, despite being an honour, had an overriding feeling of sadness to it.
He said: “Did I ever meet him? I did actually go into a club in New York called Salvation, and he was there, but he was totally out of it. He didn’t really know who anybody was – he was barely conscious. Somebody was just kind of holding him up… It’s just kind of a shame that I never really had the chance to talk with him or hear him. I heard his records, naturally, but it would’ve been a thrill to see how he worked things out on stage. That’s quite another ballgame, as you know.”
Despite being one of the best guitarists ever to walk the Earth, the legacy that Hendrix leaves behind is often a distorted version of his life. Due to his complicated relationship with various substances, a lot of people who ended up meeting him barely managed to speak to the guitar genius, Page being just one story in many.
