Mark2 -> RE: jimi hendrix tonight (Nov. 6 2013 16:53:40)
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Thanks for that post. Jimi was to me the greatest electric guitar player ever. No one else even comes close. Not that I'm not a fan of hundreds of other players. He was so much more than a guitar player. His version of Machine gun on the live at the Fillmore East record contained some passages that can not be duplicated and are truly astounding. In fact, that whole album represents the absolute peak of live rock guitar playing IMO. I also credit some of the sounds on that record with creating the sound of what would become "metal", although I don't rate that high on his long list of accomplishments. Although technically many feel players like Satriani, and even SRV might have surpassed him, they are simply standing in the immense shadow created by Hendrix. Then in the studio, the way he expanded the sounds a rock guitar player could create. Some dismiss his playing as sloppy and out of tune, but it's worth considering that most of the recordings that led to that conclusion would never have been released if he had lived. The fact is every fart the man ever produced has been released, re-mixed, edited, added to, and packaged. Every bone picked clean because of the public's demand. Certainly great jazz players like Joe Pass and many others played with more chops, but they were not as influential. Even Django, who was also a giant, and could possibly rival Hendrix in terms of influence among guitarists, did not have the impact among the public that Hendrix did. For me, his only rival is Paco, who also is a great guitarist, composer, innovator who actually changed his idiom, and cultural icon. What's truly incredible is that Hendrix did all that in just a few short years. I believe that his music will still be relevant for many many more decades. quote:
ORIGINAL: rickm if you think of the sixties, you think of viet nam and the civil right era. a contentious time for all. Most bands were quite plastic at the time, in other words you come on stage in a suit and tie, didn't move and played cfg chords. The quintentesmal wedding band. What you never saw was a black guy leading a white band playing to white audiences. Hendrix took the blues, and if you look at his musice he was a Mississippi delta player more than anything, put some feedback behind it and made a new sound. Hendrix took the viet nam war, with songs like machine gun and American anthem and others and tossed the violence back into the face of mainstream America. the destruction of his guitars is the symbolic destruction of the idealogoy of war and discrimination. Hendrix never played the same loop twice. Most players have several favorite licks and if you listen they show up in every song. there are no loops in Hendrix music. Hendrix inspired thousands of young people to journey into music. How many kids said I want to do that after listening to Hendrix? Hendrix didn't play the guitar in some studied rehearsed fashion, the music flowed from his fingers in his magical connect to his brain. And it was primal and free and was a conversation with his mind. Hendrix had it all, a player, a composer, a singer and a showman. he never wanted for what to do next. You cannot look at Hendrix as merely a guitar player. he was the cultural icon of the sixties. Sidenote. the first time I heard Hendrix I was in Vietnam. I was a machine gunner on a gunship out of a ****hole called chu lai. I really didn't care if I lived or died. We would fly missions come back to our tent and get ripped on jack and weed and whaterver else was around at the time. Someone played the experience album one night and I was ripped out of my freakin dead skull and I had a religious experience, I literally saw god. And ya know from that point on I desperately wanted to live, to survive this freakin ****pot called viet nam and I wanted to play guitar like that. I like to think Hendrix saved my life. I like flamenco and classical and the stones and john lee hooker. I love jimi, he gave me a purpose to live. peace out
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