Trower was amazing no doubt!-- but I know who would've been the "white Hendrix" had he ONLY lived past age 23 or so...
I'm the #1 Hendrix fan I guarantee you! Love Clapton, Beck, Duane, Ronnie V.Z., David Gilmour, etc., etc. But I've never heard "heavy Metal" guitar- playing... OR gorgeous acoustic mellow pieces... like I heard on the first two Ozzy solo albums dominated by Randy Rhoads!
This kid went from unknown, to revitalizing Ozzys' career by a very young age! (Zack Wilde dreamed of being Randy-- didn't come close!) He was a child prodigy trained by his parents for a future in Classical music... 'till he decided the Electric guitar was his instrument... & that "Metal"/ power- Rock turned him on! His music on those 2 albums was not "Metal" really-- but the power chords & thunderous double- tracking solos produced some of the greatest guitar sounds ever heard certainly in the "hard" rock genre!
Talk Deep Purple... Iron Maiden... and Metallica or Eddie V. all you want-- in only 2 albums Randy blew them away!!-- and imagine what his 12th album WOULD have sounded like! Don't take my word for it: just put it on & play it loud! "Blizzard of Oz"... & "Diary of a Madman" are easily found. Tell me how many were better than he after hearing both!
Little known, is how Randy died so young: most figure drugs, choking on his own vomit, etc. Randy was a totally- clean California health- food/ wholistic- type raised by hippie parents... who didn't even drink! He was afraid his whole life of airplanes/ flying (as I admit am I too!)... yet he accepted a dare to go up in a small plane with others from the Ozzy tour to prove his bravery. He made the fatal mistake of overcoming his fear to say "yes," not knowing then that the pilot was (legally) drunk! That's what it took to stop the true next "modern/ white Hendrix"...
Hybrid Mode
