David Gilmour > Jimi Hendrix

I prefer Gilmour because I prefer the music he plays. I prefer Gilmour's technique and style because I prefer that kind of controlled playing. I recognise that Hendrix was a great innivotive guitarist, he just didn't record very music much that I liked.

 

To me this is one of those questions that has no definitive answer - we cannot speculate on how Hendrix would have developed as a guitarist - he could have gone so many ways - he could have just as easily become dull and repetitive or he could have gone on to the next level but he could have also burned out like Peter Green.

 

All the guitarists in the (UK) psychedelic scene in the late 60s fed off each other, they all influenced each other, and to some extent tried to out-do each other - Hendrix was a (reluctant) showman, Gilmour was never a showman - both pushed at the limits of what a guitar could do and what you could do with it, both on stage and, more importantly, in the studio  - both saw the studio as an extension of the instrument rather than just a means of recording it. Both were influenced by Syd Barrett (Barrett is often not recognised as a guitarist because he was never a great guitarist, but listening to him play there is a level of control in his use of slide, feedback and wah-peddle that shows a degree of finesse he is not usually associated with) - I would go as far as to say that Hendrix's use of the wah-peddle to control feedback is something he pick-up from watching Barrett play the UFO club in 66/67 rather than the other way around. Gilmour had to "copy" Barrett's techniques to be able to play Barrett's music, but he soon improved and developed those techniques beyond anything that Barrett (or Hendrix) had done - "Saucerful of Secrets" and "Echoes" are Gilmour taking the guitar to almost avant garde levels - whereas Hendrix never strayed too far from his blues roots, even at his most "progressive" Hendrix would never have recorded anything as ground-breaking as those where at the time. After Hendrix's death all comparisons are moot - Gilmour settled into his signature style with is preferred effects (Electric Mistress, stacked Leslie Speakers etc), and honed them to his preferred level of perfection - and the Hendrix Estate muddied the Hendrix-waters by releasing sub-par cash-in recordings that Hendrix would have never released himself.

Both are icons.