Quoted in Jimi Hendrix and the Making of Are You Experienced (Lonnie) ↑

Jimi was reaching for something much deeper

Jimi was reaching for something much deeper than just a normal [route]. If he wanted to be a top R&B star, he could have been that. I don’t think that was in him. He had something inside of him. R&B—you’ve got Otis Redding, you’ve got Sam Cooke, they’ve got some great people out there singing their ass off and I thought Jimi was good enough for all that. But Jimi — something was calling him in another direction.

Lonnie Youngblood, from Quoted in Jimi Hendrix and the Making of Are You Experienced 2