Originally Posted by The Bullet

You're joking, right? I take it you don't play guitar. He did so much for guitarists, even outside of that ****. He did as much for music as showmanship. He popularized wah-wah pedals, and pedals in general. Do you have any clue how significant that is? EVERY guitarist uses pedals now. Also, he started Phycedelic rock in a sense. It existed before him, but he really made the genre what it is- pure sounds of LSD.

He would take so much time trying to get amazing sounds out of his guitar, using multiple pedals, reversing it, and everything else he could. His early bandmates thought he was hearing things. They couldn't hear he was dojng something different, they heard insanity, because in those days, Elvis was considered crazy and uncomprehensible. It's just so clear now, though, how amazing his guitar tones were. Before him, no one cared about "guitar tone" really, or no one would have gone to lengths like that. Those long, drawn out phycedelic outros on the longer songs on Electric Ladyland? It was done once or twice before, but he was one of the true pioneers. A song ended where a song would end before him. Having sound transfered from one speaker to the next, in a gradual process (well, not exactley gradual, but non-instant)? I forget the name of the technique, but he was one of the first to do that, too. And he just improvised when he was playing live (most of the time). No one jammed as much as he did. In his early days, producers would get really, really mad at him for that. I remember reading, in his Nashville days, one producer faded his part whenever he refused to simply play eighth-notes on a basic chord progression.

Just listen to Are You Experienced and Electric Ladyland. You can hear that he was the first to do this stuff, even if it's commonplace not, because that passion for exploration just pours out, and it just has that "original" quality. :| (and on that note: MB needs an "indifferent" smiley)