And you are now one of the people ledhendrix is talking about. Congratulations.
Which is fine, because he didn't say anything negative about them, as such.
Try the solo from "The Wind Cries Mary" if you want innovative and interesting lead work. For a while near the end he goes off on these other chords never heard in the song before or after that little solo bit. Also, he broke new ground in recording technique, effects, etc.
Fun fact: Some of his effects innovations were borrowed from Frank Zappa. Hendrix never claimed otherwise, but the "LOL BEST GIITAREST EVAR" hype ensures that Hendrix is generally credited.
Hell, while we're talking about Hendrix's flaws as a musician, he consistently lamented the fact that he couldn't make the music in his head come out on guitar, so what you hear is a compromise between his ideas and what his experience with guitar allowed him to do.
I say all this as someone who has studied Hendrix's music and has great love for much of it. Hendrix is overrated as hell. So is Page. And Clapton. And Slash. In fact, reaching that level of fame almost ensures, by default, that one is overrated. It's because a musician can only be overrated in comparison to the ratings of other musicians. So, while there is a quantity of unknown guitarists that match or surpass any of these players, they remain overrated.
A common argument goes along the lines of "If they were really that good, they'd be well-known", which is crock because the music industry hasn't been meritocratic for decades. Given, when these guitarists rose to fame, they
were almost peerless. Times have changed, however. Give a passionate teenager a half-decent guitar, a broadband internet connection and five years. They very well might have a similar amount of technical skill as any of those guitarists and lack only in experience and (arguable) amounts of musicality.
And that's a part of what I love about the guitar community these days. There are arrogant fools who place all their ego in the instrument and belittle the playing of others whenever possible, but there's an army of kids out there that don't care about anything but rocking as hard and as skillfully as possible. When the current teenage generation hits their late 20s-40s, we are going to see some
amazing shit hitting the fan.
Hendrix is just one of the action potentials that set this off. With free music on the rise and renewed interest in highly technical and innovative playing, we have a lot to look forward to. There just has to be a difference between
appreciation and the old school and
worshipping it.
