When Jimi Hendrix first became famous, it was before the internet, before social media, during a time when the only way to find out about an artist was to listen to what people were saying and what music other artists were making. When Hendrix initially took the world by storm, everybody who went to go see him live left his shows with their jaws on the floor and a song in their hearts. The Beatles weren’t immune to the Hendrix effect.

Paul McCartney first witnessed Jimi Hendrix live in 1967, a couple of days after The Beatles had released their psychedelic record Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Even to veteran songwriters and performers like McCartney, it was obvious that Hendrix had something special, as the guitarist opened with one of the new Beatles songs in his own way.

“Jimi opened, the curtains flew back, and he came walking forward,” recalled McCartney, “Playing ‘Sgt Pepper’, and it had only been released on Thursday, so that was like the ultimate compliment.” Hendrix made the song his own, soloing over it, using his classic running licks and incorporating a whammy bar into proceedings, “And we’re going, wow, that’s great!”

From there, Hendrix began influencing musicians all over the world. His guitar style was unique but infectious, and many musicians tried their best to imitate it. Paul McCartney has already admitted that a few of his songs had a Hendrix influence, one of the most prevalent of which is ‘Taxman’, which featured a guitar solo that McCartney wanted to sound like Hendrix.

“George let me have a go for the solo because I had an idea – it was the early Jimi Hendrix days, and I was trying to persuade George to do something like that, feedback-y and crazy,” he said, “I was showing him what I wanted, and he said, ‘Well, you do it’.”

That wasn’t the only Beatles song where you can hear a Hendrix influence, though. While the Seattle guitarist was renowned for his soloing, he was also great at playing around with chords. When you listen to tracks like ‘Bold As Love’, ‘Little Wing’ and ‘Hey Joe’, he was able to not only play a chord but improvise over it, creating exciting runs and plucking combinations that were excellent to listen to.

The Beatles had never used this chord technique before Hendrix, but afterwards, a couple of songs could be heard. One of their most popular is the hit ‘Don’t Let Me Down’. If that song had been written a few years earlier, it would likely have just used a simple strumming structure. Instead, the chord is plucked, and then octaves and soloing are used to mimic the vocals on the track. This is similar to the guitar style Jimi Hendrix was famed for playing.