Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt: the 10 guitarists that blew my mind

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Prog titan on the players that inspire his work

6. Jimi Hendrix

“Based on the Band Of Gypsies record, which has some of the best guitar playing I’ve heard on that song Message Of Love, Hendrix is definitely up there. If it weren’t for him, guitar music would look a lot different. It would have been something else, so in that sense he’s inspired everybody. 

“Hendrix brought that sense of being a real proper rockstar to guitar players, which then took off in hard rock and heavy metal. He could tune his guitar in the middle of a song and even that would sound cool. That’s how awesome Hendrix was!”

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Amit Sharma
Amit Sharma

Amit has been writing for titles like Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences. He's interviewed everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he's played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handling lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).