Originally Posted by Far-L

Hendrix was a charismatic person and great player but he freely admitted to borrowing heavily from Buddy Guy and other bluesmen. Hendrix was mostly a blues player and an amazing improvisationist but he didn't write a lot of the songs he is best known for. He had a few but he is probably best known for his covers of Dylan, etc. His pop success was in the way he made black blues palatable to white kids by playing the hippie soul brother hipster.

Page is another guy that is kind of mythologized and sort of overrated in my humblest opinion. Looking at the music he has done post Zep vs Plant I get the impression that Plant was really the brain trust for the song writing and Page for the arrangements and studio production. In my opinion, his genius is as a producer because listening to him live he was not that interesting - compare his Yardbirds work to Clapton or Beck, Not saying he wasn't influential but all the Indian influence was being done by Brian Jones before Zep did it. Great in the studio (he started as a full time session guitarist) but sort of blah live in my opinion.

Good seems to happen ever five to ten years. Great happens every fifty to hundred. Genius comes along about every four or five hundred I think.