Psychedelia was the burgeoning trend and Hendrix in those flamboyant clothes was a ready fit for it, so it's not surprising lots of fans didn't see him as a bluesman, but guys like Clapton and Beck would have known exactly where Hendrix was coming from. They realized Hendrix personified everything that every English blues musician aspired to. He was also their worst fear, because he wasn't 60 years old and from the plantation. He was the same age as them but what they'd learned second-hand, he had learned on the circuit, playing with the originals. . . . I think it was Jimi's arrival that made a lead guitar player out of Pete Townshend, because when he got into his boiler suit era he was suddenly soloing, really flying, playing some amazing shit as a soloist, which he never did before.