Jay Jay French mentioned that Eddie Van Halen was so important in the rock scene, same as Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix
French spoke about Eddie‘s influence during an appearance on the Van Halen tribute, where he said:
“[Eddie] resides with the gods — he’s right up there. He is, to rock and roll, as important as Chuck Berry was, as important as Jimi Hendrix was. There guys are immortals and they speak a language.
“For 10 years, what Eddie Van Halen did was he created generations, legions of guitar players around the world in that style, and that’s what makes him so important. Jimi Hendrix pioneered the sound of a Stratocaster into a Marshall amp with distortion and a whammy bar and found a language nobody heard before. And then Eddie Van Halen came along and took it to another level.
“So when it comes to guitar players who were inspirational, who created dreams, who made more people wanna go out and buy a guitar and play a guitar and emulate who they are, that’s who Eddie Van Halen is.
“He was a pure artist. He was absolutely a pure, dedicated musician. He didn’t wanna get himself involved in the business.”