Robbie Robertson's book on Music Legends Icons and Rebels , is about innovators, originals, those who changed everything. It contains 27 names of people who "changed the way we listen to music" "broke boundaries" and so on. But when he talks of Stevie Wonder's sonic adventurism and extension of electronic music, he sounds like he is occupying a universe in which Jimi Hendrix didn't come first. I have heard Pete Townshend describe Hendrix as more important (to musicians) than the Beatles. In cultural terms, Hendrix went to Britain where British musicians were popularizing black American music, and the took it back. Alexis Koerner and Gil Evans have spoken of Hendrix in similar terms.
Hendrix would belong in this book even if it had only 7 names. If it referred strictly to rock musicians, he would belong in the top 3, along with Dylan and the Beatles. They led, and everyone else followed.
http://www.amazon.ca/Legends-Icons-Rebels-Music-Changed/dp/1770495711
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