Don’t go down the lane of cheap flattery. He was an amazing player of the guitar, but what he was mostly was the greatest innovator in the way rock&roll was made. He didn’t invent the electric guitar, but he did make the first really functional version. His multi-track recording innovation, however, was far more important to how music has been recorded over the last fifty years. Without him, there would be no Beatles, no Mommas & the Poppas, no Queen (few classic exploiters of this technique). Frankly popular music would look completely different today if not for him.