Like so many guitarists based in London during the late 1960s, The Who’s Pete Townshend was blown away by Jimi Hendrix when the American virtuoso exploded onto the local music scene.
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Townshend was a talented player in his own right, but he readily admitted to not being as technically proficient as Hendrix, or such other contemporaries as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck.
In a 1990 interview with Guitarist magazine, though, Townshend surprisingly posed that Hendrix perhaps wasn’t as original as he was given credit for being.
“Hendrix was a great player, but he wasn’t really creative,” Townshend maintained in the interview, which was reposted by MusicRadar.com. “He was dealing in other people’s ideas, old blues things and tricks that were either borrowed from Eric—that Marshall kind of style—or the pyrotechnic things that he had caught off watching me.”
He added, “[Jimi] used to follow [The Who] around, watching, and then he suddenly appeared on stage doing all this stuff.”
Meanwhile, Pete suggested that beyond Hendrix’s playing, what really made Jimi special was his visual flair and his charisma.
“It’s very difficult now, just listening to records, to understand what all the fuss was about,” Townshend told Guitarist. “He was such a visual performer. There was something else, other than music, going on.”
He continued, “[Hendrix] was just an extraordinary man. Talk to the women who came in contract with him—he literally enchanted them. And he was a pretty unremarkable kind of gnarled-looking guy, but he was a real enchanter.”
Hendrix Inspired Townshend to Try to Improve as a Guitarist
Original or not, Hendrix’s playing certainly impressed Townshend, as well as his friend Clapton.
“The thing that really stunned Eric and me was the way he took what we did and made it better,” Pete told the magazine.
He also noted that Jimi’s skills motivated him to improve his own musicianship.
“I really started to try to play,” Townshend said. “I thought I’d never, ever be as great as he is but there’s certainly no reason now why I shouldn’t try. In fact, I remember saying to Eric, ‘I’m going to play him off the stage one day.’”
Pete then pointed out that Hendrix had an even more profound influence on Clapton.
“[W]hat Eric did was even more peculiar,” Townshend offered. “He said, ‘Well, I’m going to pretend that I am Jimi Hendrix!’”
Townshend may have been partly referring to how, after Hendrix became popular, Clapton began dressing more flamboyantly and started styling his hair in a similar fashion to Jimi.
Pete Townshend’s Upcoming Tour Plans with The Who
Pete Townshend will be returning to the road with The Who this year for what the band has announced as its final tour of North America.
The trek, dubbed The Song Is Over tour, kicks off August 16 in Sunrise, Florida. The outing, which currently features 16 dates, is scheduled through a September 28 concert in Las Vegas.
Among the artists opening for The Who on select dates are Billy Bob Thornton and his group The Boxmasters, The Joe Perry Project, Billy Idol, Booker T. Jones, Tom Cochrane, Candlebox, Feist, Joe Bonamassa, and ZZ Ward.
Before the North American tour, The Who will play two shows in Italy, on July 20 near Padua and July 22 in Milan.
(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; Photo by Graphic House/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
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