1967 Hit Ranked Among the Greatest Guitar Riffs of All Time - And It Rewrote the Rulebook

Jimi Hendrix might be widely celebrated as the ultimate pioneer of psychedelic rock, but his studio innovation is what truly cemented him as a permanent deity of the electric guitar.

His work on "Purple Haze" landed him a spot near the absolute pinnacle of the list of rock's greatest guitar riffs of all time, according to Classical-Music.com.

The publication praised the track's incendiary opening, tracking its progression "from the discordant stomp that opens proceedings through to that liquid lick that introduced a whole new way of playing."

"Its simple melody incorporates a tritone interval-the 'interval of evil'-played across a heavily distorted 'Hendrix chord' progression," they wrote. "It wasn't just a catchy tune for the radio; it was a sonic assault that proved an electric guitar could produce texture, feedback, and raw emotional intensity that had never been captured on tape before."

‘Purple Haze' Came Together in a Backstage Dressing Room

On December 26, 1966, The Jimi Hendrix Experience was booked to play an afternoon show at the Upper Cut Club in Forest Gate, London.

While sitting in the dressing room before taking the stage, Hendrix began messing around with a new, cyclical guitar line.

His manager and producer, Chas Chandler, happened to be sitting right there in the room when the riff came together. The moment Chandler heard the notes, he instantly recognized the magic of what Hendrix was playing and told him right on the spot: "That's the next single". Within just a few weeks, the band was in the studio tracking it.

The song was a massive critical triumph, peaking at No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart and serving as the definitive global announcement of Hendrix's genius.

Interestingly, despite decades of listeners assuming the song's signature line was an explicit nod to the specific counterculture substances of the late 1960s, Hendrix consistently maintained that the lyrics had a completely different, out-of-this-world inspiration.

"I dream a lot and I put my dreams down as songs," Hendrix said. "I wrote... 'The Purple Haze,' which was about a dream I had that I was walking under the sea."

Biographers have noted the imagery was actually sparked by his love for science fiction, specifically Philip José Farmer's 1966 novel Night of Light, a book Hendrix was actively reading at the time that featured a strange, disorienting "purplish haze" blanketing a distant planet.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 4, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 7:24 PM.