Jimi Hendrix

It seems as if no other musician has had more posthumous music released than the mighty Jimi Hendrix. But more amazing is the stratospheric, comet-like career of the man who, more than anyone before or since, revolutionized the way the electric guitar is played. Ask any middle-aged English blues and rock guitar player from Eric Clapton to Pete Townshend, and they will each individually claim that they were Jimi's best friend -- Hendrix was known for having that kind of ingratiating effect on people. His prodigious guitar playing, his soul-saturated, swaggering vocal style, and his brother-from-outer-space aura immediately seemed to hypnotize anyone within a five-mile radius. From 1966 to his death in 1970, he breathed life into his Stratocaster, squeezing a new sonic language from the fretboard that had never been played, let alone fathomed, by any guitarist before. With drummer Mitch Mitchell and bass player Noel Redding, his power trio, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, forged a new galactic style of psychedelic blues. Nearly thirty years after his untimely death, his music remains as popular, influential, and powerful as ever.