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Joe Satriani: How Jimi Hendrix Changed My Life FOREVER!

2,694 views · Published 16 July 2018 · 17:23 · Indexed 29 October 2026

Channel: R&M News · 2018 · Music

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Guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani talked with musicradar on how guitarist Jimi Hendrix changed his life, and how he he is the reason why he started playing the guitar: 

Satriani said:

"The day Jimi Hendrix died, I can still remember it like it was yesterday. It was a beautiful day in suburban Long Island. I was 14 years old, I was on the Carle Place High School football team, and I was standing outside the gym, all suited up and ready to go onto the field for practice. Everything was right in the world.

"Suddenly one of my teammates came up to me - he had just been home for lunch so he saw the news on TV - and he said, 'Hey Joe, you know that guy you like so much, Jimi Hendrix? I heard he just died.'

"I'm pretty sure I was about the only kid in school who knew who Jimi Hendrix even was. Through my older siblings, I was getting turned on to all the great music that was happening at the time, and I really loved Hendrix. So this kid, my teammate, thought I should know.

"The minute he told me, my whole life flashed before my eyes. I don't think this kid expected the impact it would have on me. It was such a blow. I was devastated, shattered, in a fog of emotion. Without so much as taking another step towards the field, I turned around, went back into the gym and I told my coach, 'Jimi Hendrix just died, and I'm quitting the team to become a guitar player.'

"Telling the coach was one thing. Later that evening, I had to tell my parents. We were a large family of seven. Dinner was progressing normally, the usual conversations, until I said basically the same thing I had told my coach: 'Jimi Hendrix died today and I'm going to devote my life to playing the electric guitar.' There was a long moment of awkward silence, as you might expect, which was followed by a lot of lively discussion.

"My family was sort of used to me saying crazy things, but this time I think everybody knew I meant it; that I had actually decided on a course for my life, so much so that my older sister, Carol, who had just started teaching art in school, said that she would donate her first paycheck towards getting me an electric guitar so I could begin my new life as a musician.

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