{"id":654817,"date":"2026-06-23T23:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654817\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T23:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T23:06:15","slug":"billy-gibbons-played-purple-haze-while-opening-for-jimi-hendrix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654817\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Gibbons played \u201cPurple Haze\u201d while opening for Jimi Hendrix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Gibbons<\/a> was just 19 when Jimi Hendrix famously called him America\u2019s best young guitar player. It was a compliment that carried enormous weight. But by then, Gibbons had already earned Hendrix\u2019s respect.<\/p>\n

The pair first met in 1968, when Gibbons\u2019 pre-ZZ Top band, the Moving Sidewalks, landed the opening slot on a U.S. tour by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Looking back, Gibbons still isn\u2019t sure how the young Texas psychedelic-blues outfit got the gig.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great mystery,\u201d he told AXS TV.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Jimi\n<\/p>\n

The Moving Sidewalks meet Jimi Hendrix in 1968. Billy Gibbons is second from right. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

What wasn\u2019t a mystery was Hendrix\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had only recently discovered Jimi Hendrix, and we quickly came to learn that here was a guy who was doing things with the Fender Stratocaster<\/a> that was turning it inside out in ways the inventors never even imagined,\u201d Gibbons recalled with a laugh.<\/p>\n

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He was a bit shy offstage, but once the lights went on, he came a-glowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Billy Gibbons<\/p>\n

Offstage, Hendrix was reserved. Onstage, he was transformative.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a bit shy offstage, but once the lights went on, he came a-glowing,\u201d Gibbons said. \u201cAnd man, he would set about doing things with that guitar that were just otherworldly.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

For the Moving Sidewalks, every night on tour became a masterclass. The relationship took an unexpected turn when the band realized it didn\u2019t have enough original material to fill its 40-minute opening set. Their solution was audacious: play two Hendrix songs \u2014 \u201cPurple Haze<\/a>\u201d and \u201cFoxey Lady\u201d \u2014 in front of Hendrix himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cDare we play this in front of Hendrix?\u201d Gibbons remembered asking his bandmates.<\/p>\n

Billy Gibbons on His Friendship with Jimi Hendrix and Prince – YouTube
\n\"Billy<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The gamble paid off.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAs we wrapped it up, I remembered passing by, being spun around, and this guy grabbed me by the shoulders, and smiling, he said, \u2018Man, I wanna meet you. You got a lot of nerve. I like that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the tour, the musicians were spending evenings together in Hendrix\u2019s hotel room, listening to records and talking guitars. During one listening session, Hendrix reportedly asked Gibbons how Jeff Beck produced some of the sounds heard on the Jeff Beck Group\u2019s Truth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gibbons\u2019 answer put Hendrix\u2019s influence into perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cJimi, it would probably surprise you to know that Jeff Beck is probably listening to your record, trying to figure out what you\u2019re doing<\/a> at the same time!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Billy\n<\/p>\n

Gibbons performs at the Tenth Annual Love Rocks NYC Benefit Concert for God\u2019s Love We Deliver, March 5, 2026. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The lessons Gibbons absorbed during that tour stayed with him long after Hendrix\u2019s death in 1970. In fact, one of Hendrix\u2019s guitars helped shape a key ZZ Top recording nearly a decade later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we recorded that song, I was playing the Fender Strat that Jimi Hendrix gave me when we were traveling together,\u201d Gibbons told Music Radar<\/a> of ZZ Top\u2019s \u201cA Fool for Your Stockings.\u201d \u201cFor some reason, the guitar wasn\u2019t working through the amp<\/a>. We wound up plugging the guitar straight into the board, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s such a clean tone on that track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hendrix\u2019s influence extended beyond gear. The Experience\u2019s three-piece format helped inspire ZZ Top\u2019s own lineup, though Gibbons later admitted it took years for the band to find an identity beyond the blues tradition Hendrix had so radically expanded.<\/p>\n

Even today, the Strat Hendrix gave him remains part of Gibbons\u2019 arsenal. Speaking to Premiere Collectibles<\/a> in 2020, he revealed that the guitar \u201cstill gets a good whoopin\u2019 in the studio every once in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billy Gibbons was just 19 when Jimi Hendrix famously called him America\u2019s best young guitar player. It was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-654817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}