“He died at 27, and look at all he accomplished in that short amount of time.”

In the recent Greg Prato book “Avatar of the Electric Guitar: The Genius of Jimi Hendrix”, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett talked about the late Jimi Hendrix.You can check out the book here. When asked, “Is Jimi the greatest rock guitarist of all-time?”, Kirk replied:

“Yeah, I would say that. Only because it’s hard to put anybody else in that position. And it’s easy to put Jimi in that position – because he died at 27, and look at all he accomplished in that short amount of time, like, five years, maybe.

“To accomplish all of that in that short period of time and be so influential, to leave a body of music that is still vibrant and influential to this day – to this minute – I would say yes, he is probably the greatest guitar player.

“To be able to do all that in that short of time… I mean, there are lots of great guitar players out there. But they had the benefit of their whole lives playing and getting better and exploring and shifting and changing.

“Jimi didn’t have that. He came out and he was all he was in those five years.”

You can check out Kirk playing Jimi’s “Little Wing” live with Metallica in the embedded player below.

The book also features a quote from Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, who said:

“It was the summer of 1967 and I was at [original Rush drummer] John Rutsey’s house – and his brother Bill had just purchased [1967’s] ‘Are You Experienced.’

“He dropped the needle and ‘Purple Haze’ played through that tiny speaker and changed our world immediately.”