(Credits: Alamy)
Fri 9 January 2026 16:00, UK
In the high heavens of rock and roll Valhalla, Roger Daltrey already had a seat reserved thanks to his work with The Who.
He might not have been the one writing all of those classic hits, but even if Pete Townshend sang a good chunk of songs for them, it’s impossible to think of their music without his massive range on ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ or ‘Love Reign O’er Me’. But no matter how many times he was able to reach those impressive screams, the guitar was always the instrument of choice for all rock and rollers.
And it’s not like there’s any real competition, either. Freddie Mercury may have cornered the market in terms of rock and roll frontmen, and John Bonham and Keith Moon are strong contenders for the best drummers in the world, but from the minute that Chuck Berry started duckwalking with his massive guitar in hand, every single kid who wanted to play music saw a piece of themselves on the television screen.
But even when England got overrun with bands trying to do their own imitations of blues tunes, Townshend was coming at the genre from a different angle. He could still cut loose whenever he wanted to, but after working on ‘My Generation’, he had something that no one else did. There was volume and excitement to everything they played, and they were going to use the rest of their career trying to change the way that most people thought about what rock and roll could sound like.
After all, Townshend had a far more eclectic record collection than simple rock and roll, and he was going to toy with whatever sounds he could. If there was feedback on the record or if he created a sound by smashing the hell out of his strings, all it offered was another sonic colour to play with when they went into the studio. They may have thought they were breaking new ground, but then Jimi Hendrix showed up.
While the British blues scene had been going on for a while, Hendrix was able to nullify almost every other guitarist in the room with only a few notes. By being equal parts R&B, blues, rock and roll, and funk, Hendrix created the perfect middle ground that no one had ever heard before, and while Townshend was dumbstruck, Daltrey figured his guitarist didn’t need to worry about being the greatest anymore.
As far as he could tell, pure perfection had arrived on English shores that year, and no one on Earth was ever going to take that crown, saying, “When you saw him on stage that’s when you understood what he was. You would never seen anything like it. You can see him on film and it’s great, but to actually be there, the charisma of the man was extraordinary. He was something so special, I don’t think that anyone as a guitarist is ever going to beat that.”
And even looking at the greatest guitarists that came after Hendrix, they’re almost a reaction to what Hendrix could do. Eric Clapton managed to find an entirely different lane when he started making music after Hendrix, and even when someone as mindbending as Eddie Van Halen started making music, it was never in danger of stepping into Hendrix’s territory when he began making those tapping licks.
Because if you think about it, all of the great things that most people take for granted on guitar are only there through Hendrix first. Everyone can try to build their own musical legacy up from there, but even when The Who held their own next to Hendrix on occasion, there was no way anyone was arguing that Hendrix was the better guitar player.
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