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If you said Phil who? you've captured the essence of this legend. Variations: Phil Keaggy may be revered by legions of guitarists for his superlative instrumental artistry and appreciated by millions of fans worldwide who enjoy his Christian-based recordings, but he's still far from a household name, even after his more than thirty years as a professional musician. The irony in this legend applies on multiple levels: One of the first questions most people consider is whether Hendrix, who died in 1970, could even have heard (or heard of) Phil Keaggy, who was then still plying his trade as a member of the band Glass Harp. We'll assume for argument's sake that he had and that, true to the Hendrix legend, one listen was all it took for him to recognize Keaggy as the world's paramount guitar virtuoso. The most important question here is, of course, whether Hendrix ever actually appeared on the Tonight Show. He did, once, on July 10, 1969, performing the song Lover Man (which he dedicated to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who had drowned a week earlier). Although nearly all the videotapes of the Tonight Show made before the program's move to Los Angeles in 1972 have long since been destroyed, an audio recording of Hendrix's lone appearance on that show has been preserved. It discloses that there was no comment or question from either Hendrix or guest host Flip Wilson (who was filling in for an absent Johnny Carson) about who was the world's greatest guitarist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9op0efmm9TE As well, Rolling Stone reported on Hendrix's Tonight Show appearance and said nothing about any world's greatest guitarist question or answer: Hendrix apparently did sing the praises of a pre-ZZ Top Billy Gibbons (then a little-known guitarist with a band called Moving Sidewalks) during a Dick Cavett Show appearance at about the same time. We doubt that was the origin of the Phil Keaggy legend, but who knows?
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