November 27 is Jimi Hendrix's Birthday
Jimi Hendrix was born on Nov 27, 1942. He's performs Little Wing below (from YouTube, video quality is bad).
Skating to Hendrix?
Genius is often recognized posthumously.
Link: CANOE -- SLAM! Sports - Figure Skating - Rochette rocks on
Canadian champion Joannie Rochette will make her 2006-2007 competitive debut with a new short program she'll perform to a bluesy Jimi Hendrix guitar instrumental.
It's called "Little Wing", and the choreographer for Rochette's 2 1/2 minutes on the ice to Hendrix is the acclaimed Sandra Bezic, so expect Rochette to score big with the new technical program
Remembering Jimi Hendrix, who died 36 years ago today
He was a voodoo child who heard his train coming.
Videos:
Hear My Train A Coming (acoustic 12 string version)
American Heritage has an excellent history at Jimi Hendrix Dies—And Lives On
John Mayer's new album Continuum includes 'Bold As Love'
Scott Mervis at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interviews John Mayer about this new album.Excerpts below.
Mayer covers a Hendrix song on this release.
Link: Music Preview: John Mayer takes strides with new record.
He also shows off his blues guitar prowess with a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Bold As Love."
A bold step for a young pop musician like Mayer?
"I'm in my third record," he says. "No one thinks I'm covering a song because I can't write one more. Even if I don't have what it takes, which I probably don't, to cover a Jimi Hendrix song, I have at least proven myself to be true to the art and true to the message and true to the spirit. And I'm also coming at it as a singer-songwriter, because I believe Hendrix was a brilliant singer-songwriter and I'm defending that memory with 'Bold As Love.' And defending music as music. There are no musical hallowed grounds if you walk into them pure of heart."
Fred is Foxy Lazy
Lazy Way advocate Fred Gratzon shows how laziness inspires creativity by coming up with an interesting twist on a famous song: Foxy Lazy.
Source: The Lazy Way to Success: Hard Work versus Smart (and Rich) Laziness
I use the word “lazy” but, except for a few enlightened souls who see the cosmic value contained within that word, laziness is generally regarded as a strictly negative trait. To fill this void, I have tried to create phrases that come close to what I am driving at. Some examples are smart lazy, effective lazy, and foxy lazy (for Jimi Hendrix fans). The definition for this powerful insight into laziness would be the ability to avoid work, yet still be able to get the job done and become wildly successful as a result.
Flash Back Video
It's 1969, young people are flocking to a farm in Woodstock, NY, and Jimi Hendrix is displaying his amazing talent.
Here's the link to Google video: Jimi at Woodstock
Not Safe for Work (loud music)
Progressive Rock / Progressive Thought - Part 10
Here's an excerpt from Part 10 of Mark S. Tucker's essays on Progressive Rock with observations of Jimi Hendrix' explosive emergence in 1967.
Source: Progressive Rock / Progressive Thought - Part 10
...one of the most landmark rock LPs of all time, the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced?, featuring rock music’s #1 eternal mainman, the inimitable Hendrix. Having been a much-suppressed sideman for ensembles fronted by Curtis Knight, Little Richard, and others, Hendrix burst onto the late 60s scene like an atomic bomb.
In that maiden effort, Hendrix hit every archetype in the still-young rock canon, twisting them to suit his voracious appetite for innovation....“Purple Haze” and “Are You Experienced?” were hedonistic penseés on the pleasures of drug consumption (in which he still stands as the guy to top, lo!, these several decades later), particularly LSD. “Manic Depression” explored that notorious mental state without reverting to the sort of Kasenetz-Katz sugary avoidances so common then. “I Don’t Live Today” was an existentialist expostulation, but, all reading material to the side, what hit everyone between the ears was the guitarist’s ultra-spacy approach, best codified in “Third Stone from the Sun”.
This tune demonstrated most vividly the new mindset. Throughout the disc, Hendrix had been embroidering bars and measures with florid exotica, throwing in instrumental asides and extrapolations, pointing to a rich new mindset for pushing back convention and expanding territory. It was as much an impulsive urge as a disciplined one. Jimi was one of those fanatics who lived for his instrument, practicing constantly, injecting his experiences - magnified by a vivid imagination - into gifted fingers....It was obvious, no matter how you cut it, that he was not your average workaday humanoid, transcending norms in more ways than one. That pronounced sense of otherworldliness came pouring out in “Third Stone”, ineradicably putting the stamp of approval on forthcoming space and jam styles. Improv, variations, and extensions had been around, though not prolifically, but Hendrix set the mold all others had been reaching for and now people like Clapton and a legion of admirative players would jump in with wild abandon.
The National Recording Registry adds Jimi Hendrix' Are You Experienced album
Link: VOA News - The National Recording Registry Grows By 50
To be considered for the National Recording Registry, recordings must be at least 10 years old. The Library of Congress has been selecting recordings of historical significance every year since 2000.
Librarian Of Congress James Billington says these recordings reflect the nation's ever-changing cultural history. "They represent the diversity, the humanity and the history that lies in our sound heritage. They are a cascading flood of mostly joyous sounds and certainly always creative spirits that flow into the American bloodstream," he says.
Legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix recorded one of the most influential rock and roll albums of all time, Are You Experienced.
NASA Tribute
Here's a video tribute to the men and women of NASA space shuttles Challenger and Colombia. The soundtrack is Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix.
A touching collage of sights and sounds, remembering people who died in their prime.
Psychedelic Hendrix
With Voodoo Child, Hendrix creates delta blues for space travelers. A genius gone too soon.
This video captures the music and the times.
Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (1969)
Vintage Hendrix
Video of a mellow Hendrix.
Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary (live 1967)
Jimi appears to have aged about 20 years between 1967 and 2000.
Note: YouTube needs to increase their server / network capacity.
Progressive Rock / Progressive Thought, Part 3
Mark S. Tucker demonstrates impressive wordsmith skills and a deep knowledge of music. Here are some excerpts from part 3 of his essays on Progressive Rock / Progressive Thought from OpEdNew.com.
Source: Progressive Rock / Progressive Thought - Part 3
Foundation
1967 was the seminal year, the Moody Blues were the great Fathers of progrock (now the Godfathers), and it was already time to move on. The Moodies would do so on their very next LP, In Search of the Lost Chord, but it’s worthwhile to remain in the year a moment more and see what surrounded the founders.
As noted last installment, Pink Floyd issued their debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which started archly the moment it opened, in a song exceedingly durable, “Astronomy Domine”, featuring the peripatetic Syd Barrett, a small genius who staggered to the top of the pile for a moment or two before going under, an acid-damage case destined to be mythologized out of all proportion to the body of work left behind (especially when considering his wretched later solo LPs). With this release, the Floyd established space rock, soon to be a sub-division of Prog Inc., and contributed seminally to paisley pop, a mainstream offshoot heavily infused with psychedelic overtones, something The Soft Machine would add to next year.Jimi Hendrix and the Experience cut their imperishable Are You Experienced, one of rock’s dozen most influential discs. Hendrix instantly became a superstar, setting the sky on fire with his unbelievably unorthodox guitar playing, backed by Noel Redding’s bass and Mitch Mitchell’s superb drumming. Jimi took the bluesrock formula and turned it inside out, drug impregnated and glowing like an unquenchable conflagration. “Third Stone from the Sun” would prove to be as essential to space rock as Pink Floyd’s most galactic, while the rest of the LP established several other milestones. The tormented ubermaestro would not live long but his very short catalogue of records set a marker by which the entire genre paid attention. Once safely dead, the effect would prove itself, as his corpus of work would be vampirized to a staggering degree: Hendrix saw three LPs published while alive; at last count, the post mortem flood (label releases, bootlegs, anthologies, etc. - up to but not including Janey Hendrix’s overwhelmingly providential wresting of the estate from greedheads) was over 350, or so some have averred. Like as not, they're right.
Continue reading "Progressive Rock / Progressive Thought, Part 3" »
What Jimi Was Listening To
Link: RelishNow | Mix Master.
A recent exhibition at the Experience Music Project displayed many of the albums in Hendrix's collection at the time of his death. It's a wide mix of music but taken as a whole, Hendrix's distinct musical vision takes form.
1. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," The Beatles, Abbey Road
2. "Rainy Day Women, 12 & 35," Bob Dylan, on Blonde on Blonde
3. "A Hazy Shade Of Winter," Simon and Garfunkel, on Bookends
4. "2,000 Light Years From Home," The Rolling Stones, on Their Satanic Majesties Request
5. "Cocaine Blues," Johnny Cash, on At Folsom Prison
6. "Seven and Seven Is," Love, on Da Capo
7. "Plastic Factory," Captain Beefheart, on Safe As Milk
8. "Darling Be Home Soon," Lovin' Spoonful, on You're A Big Boy Now
9. Gustav Holst, The Planets, conducted by Adrian Boult, performed by The New Philharmonia
10. "Pink Half Of The Drainpipe," Bonzo Dog Band, on The Doughnut In Granny's House
11. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," The Beatles, on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
12. "In The Evening, The Sun Is Going Down," Lightnin' Hopkins, on Autobiography In Blues
13. Lenny Bruce, Warning: Lenny Bruce Is Out Again
14. "Crosscut Saw," Albert King, on Born Under A Bad Sign
15. "All Along The Watchtower," Bob Dylan, on John Wesley Harding
TIME.com Interview with Bono and Gates
Link: TIME.com: "We Just Go Off" -- Dec. 26, 2005 -- Page 1.
TIME Are you bigger music fans now?
BILL GATES: I've always been a music fan. Paul [Allen, Microsoft's co-founder] played guitar and made sure I knew all the Jimi Hendrix songs. He's a real music nut. Not many people create a music museum. [Allen founded Seattle's Experience Music Project.]
BONO.: You couldn't not listen to music if Paul Allen was your partner. So Jimi Hendrix helped form [slipping into a monster-movie voice] "the Brain of Bill!"
BILL GATES: Paul would always say, "Are you experienced?" And it would mean different things at different times.
Review of "Hendrix: Live at Woodstock" from All About Jazz
Below are excerpts of Doug Collette's review of the recently released DVD of Jimi's performance at Woodstock.
Link: Hendrix: Live at Woodstock Redefined
Adorned with a banner on its glossy color front cover that reads “Definitive Collection.” this comprehensive production actually lives up to its title. Startling in both its video and audio clarity, this double-DVD is nevertheless more than just another remaster. In enlisting the aid of the original film editor and gaining the rights to an independent recordist’s shots of Jimi’s heralded performance (never before see due to official film crew lapse), the producers of this package—Janie Hendrix and John McDermott along with esteemed Warner Brothers film restoration specialist Bill Rush— provide every sight and sound to a presentation that, with positive revisionist hindsight, now is as courageous as it is striking.
Live at Woodstock, as full of color, vision and intensity as it is, may be the clearest illustration why Jimi Hendrix's death was such a tragedy.
Timeless Music
I'm watching the intro to the Duke vs Texas basketball game. They are ranked number 1 and 2, respectively. As the commentators break to a commercial, they show some slow motion of a high-flying dunk shot, and the soundtrack is one of my all-time favorite songs, All Along the Watchtower – the Jimi Hendrix version. Very cool!!!
FYI: All Along the Watchtower was written by Bob Dylan, who now performs it using Jimi's arrangement. (Two geniuses combined.) For a great analysis of this song, see the post on the wonderful Reason to Rock web site.
The Cult of 27
Source: The Northern Light - Best-selling rock biographer explores the ‘Cult of 27’.
Cross lectured on “The Cult of 27” at the Fine Arts Building, Nov. 10 at an event cosponsored by Student Activities and the Campus Bookstore. The title of the lecture refers to the many musicians who died at the age of 27, including Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Robert Johnson and Jim Morrison, among others.
Anchorage was Cross’ last stop on a worldwide tour to promote his latest book, a biography of Hendrix titled “A Room Full of Mirrors.”
Cross said music can recover from being inundated with untalented bands and performers.
“I’m not sure who’s going to save rock ’n’ roll but there’s always somebody who will.”
Jimi Hendrix Plays the Spangled Banner at Woodstock
Source: IndianExpress.com: One Man's Anthem
It was 8.30 in the morning of August 18, 1969. After three days and nights, 32 acts, 210 songs, two births and two deaths, Woodstock was grinding to a halt. Most of the legendary half a million had dispersed; the 40,000 who remained were bleary-eyed, sore-headed and seriouslyhungover.
There was only one way to get them going. Half an hour into his set, Jimi Hendrix launched into his version of the Star Spangled Banner; for the next three minutes and forty-two seconds, time stopped at Woodstock. Upstate New York was 11,000 miles from Vietnam but one man and his guitar brought the war home, using every electronic aid — feedback, sustain, fuzzface — at his disposal and his own peerless skill to rewrite the American national anthem.
Even today, on an anodyne stereo and in the aseptic environs of your own home, you can hear the Vietnam War in this track: the screams of the bombers, the bombs and the bombed, the rush of blood as the United States tangled with yet another unequal foe.
Probably the single greatest moment of the sixties,’’ said New York Post critic Al Aronowitz. ‘‘You finally heard what that song is about, that you can love your country but hate your government.’’
Ironically, Hendrix didn’t intend it to be social or political comment but merely an exercise in musical creativity. It was typical of the man, arguably the most creative and certainly the most enigmatic guitarist of all time.
Mccartney digs out old Epiphone guitar for new album
Source: Mccartney digs out old Epiphone guitar for new album.
Sir Paul McCartney re-tuned the old Epiphone guitar he played on the Beatles' Taxman and Paperback Writer for a new track on his latest album.
Producer Nigel Godrich insisted McCartney dig out some of his old instruments for his latest album, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard, and the rocker dusted-off one of his old favourites, even though he knew it was tough to keep the instrument in tune.
He says, "(I remembered) George (Harrison) let me have a go (on it) for the solo (on Taxman) because I had an idea - it was the early Jimi Hendrix days and I was trying to persuade George to do something... feedback-y and crazy.
"I like to play on it because it's oldish and a bit infirm. It won't stay in tune easily, like Jimi Hendrix's guitar didn't."
McCartney bought the guitar after watching Hendrix perform one night - and called out to pal Eric Clapton to help him tune his axe.
He recalls, "I went to the shop and said, 'What have you got that feeds back great?' That was normally a disadvantage in the old days."
Full Intensity Of Hendrix's Genius Burns Bright On Fiery 'Live At Woodstock' DVD
MTV reviews the Live at Woodstock DVD Jimi below. I can't wait to see it.
Thirty-five years after his death, Jimi Hendrix is still The Man. The howling winds of his talent — his breathtaking guitar technique, his eloquent melodic gift, his astral songcraft and his wrangling of raw feedback into a revolutionary new kind of music — still surge and roar through the four studio albums he managed to record in the course of a solo career that lasted little more than three years.
The iconic Hendrix performance, of course, is his bombs-away rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. But Hendrix played a full set at Woodstock; in the famous 1970 documentary of the event, "The Star Spangled Banner" is all that remains (with a bit of lyrical, minor-key improvisation edited on at the end). What happened to the rest of it? Well, the missing footage turned up on an overseas-only DVD in 1999, and now it's finally been released here, in a two-disc set called "Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock," with the music remixed into Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. What took so long? And has it been worth the wait? Let's see.
Jimi Died 35 Years Ago Today
Last night I was at a party talking to an experienced guy. He said that he was awakened one rainy morning by someone tuning a guitar. The person tuning the guitar was Jimi Hendrix; he was getting ready to play the Star Spangled Banner on the last day of the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969.
Jimi died on September 18, 1970, a huge loss for those of us who feel he created some of the most original music in rock history. We will not let his music die.
Jimi's First Day in Britain
Source: RollingStone.com: Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix took his first footsteps on British soil on Saturday, September 24th, 1966, arriving at Heathrow at nine in the morning. As he walked off the plane, he carried a small bag that contained a change of clothes, his pink plastic hair curlers and a jar of Valderma cream for the acne that still marred his twenty-three-year-old face. These few items, along with his precious guitar, were all he owned.
Escorting Jimi was Chas Chandler, formerly the bassist for the Animals, who was launching himself as a manager. Chandler had come upon Jimi in a Greenwich Village club and spilled a milkshake on himself, convinced that Jimi was his ticket to riches. Jimi was penniless at the time, having spent the previous three years as a backup musician on the chitlin circuit. Though Jimi had been born in Seattle, and didn't even begin to play guitar until he was fifteen, by the time Chandler met him he had already toured the nation with countless R&B combos, including Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. In Greenwich Village, fueled by both LSD and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, Jimi was attempting to re-create himself as a solo act. He was playing to twenty teenagers when Chandler arrived, yet Jimi still only agreed to follow him to England if he promised to introduce him to Eric Clapton.
Once in England, Chandler immediately set out to turn Jimi into a star. On the way from the airport, they stopped by the house of bandleader Zoot Money. Jimi attempted to play his Stratocaster through Money's stereo, and when that failed, he grabbed an acoustic guitar and began to wail. Andy Summers, who a dozen years later would help form the Police, lived in the basement and heard the commotion. When he came upstairs to join the informal party and found himself mesmerized by how Jimi's huge hands seemed at one with the instrument's neck, he became the first of Britain's guitar players to be awed by Jimi's phenomenal skill.
Musical Geniuses Reincarnated?
I don't know enough about music and music history to see the parallels. But it could create some interesting conversations.
Source: Lennon was Bach, Hendrix Bartok - antiMUSIC News.
In their previous lives, Sir Paul was Scarlatti, Lennon J.S. Bach, Sting Schubert and Hendrix Bartok. Thus postulates the Barbary Coast Guitar Duo.
According to them, it wasn't the psychedelic drugs that influenced what possibly are the most brilliant and well-crafted songs ever written in modern times. "No, it's the result of reincarnation of some of the greatest composers in music history" says matter-of-factly Florante Aguilar, one half of the guitar duo. "It was their inner Stravinsky pounding away".
"The Beatles' strict observance of 17th century counterpoint? Uncanny. Their effective use of voice leading and text painting? Master-like. Sting's gift for naturally flowing melodies are straight out of a Schubert lieder. And what to make of Hendrix's liberal use of ancient scales like pentatonic and mixolydian? You can't tell us that was independently arrived at by a man from the 20th century."
Call it years of over-education at the conservatory but this dynamic duo's tongue-in-cheek approach sets out to prove the theory with the release of their CD Suites for 2 Guitars: The Music of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and The Police. A collection of heart-stopping guitar duo re-interpretation of classic rock songs.
The Barbary Coast Guitar Duo (Florante Aguilar and Michael Walsh) have been wowing audience in the Bay Area and beyond for over 10 years. Their fiery interpretations, crisp ensemble playing, and engaging stage presence promise to "blow the roof off this joint". The duo's concept of the recording stems simply from their desire to play the music they love and grew up with. "We owe our existence as musicians in equal parts to Andres Segovia and Jimi Hendrix".
Grace Slick – Outspoken and Controversial at 65
If you don't know the name, Grace Slick was a lead singer for the band Jefferson Airplane in the late 1960s. FYI: White Rabbit was a song about doing drugs. If you want to hear her at her best, find the song Somebody to Love and give it a listen. She really rocked in her prime.
Below are excerpts from an interview in DailyBreeze.com.
Psychedelic '60s rock icon Grace Slick will tell you herself: She's a "fat, white-haired woman" who's too old to make music. "To watch people flap their wrinkles around with rock 'n' roll songs really gags me," she says. "I stopped when I was 50, and that's too late."
Q: What is the significance of "White Rabbit," 40 years ago and today?
A: Well, it's actually not well done in the sense that what I had in mind is not obvious in the song. Our parents would sit there, and they'd have a glass of Scotch or whatever in their hand, and they'd ask us, "Why do you take all these drugs?" What I was trying to say in the song was to remind the parents of the books they read to us when we were very young.
Continue reading "Grace Slick – Outspoken and Controversial at 65" »
Robert Cray's Heroes
Link: Soul Shine Magazine : Robert Cray : Take Twenty.
Howlin’ Wolf or Jimi Hendrix? Ask Robert Cray who he’d choose to see of any band or artist, living or dead, and he has a hard time deciding. “I’d like to see Jimi Hendrix again,” Cray says, chatting on the phone in exactly the soft, soulful speaking voice you’d expect having heard his work. He did see Hendrix twice, the first time in a small crowd in Dacoma, Washington, and then later in Sicks’ Stadium in Seattle on July 26, 1967 [1970], just a few months before Hendrix’s death. Like Hendrix, Cray did some growing up in Seattle and took up guitar at age twelve. Cray started with a Harmony acoustic and shortly thereafter, inspired by the Beatles’ arrival in Washington State, he switched to an electric guitar of the same make.
Out of a Purple Haze
Source: Out of a Purple Haze – Washington Post, May 15, 2005
JIMI HENDRIX: The Man, The Magic, The Truth – Reviewed by Mary Ishimoto Morris
Who is Sharon Lawrence, and why did she wait so long to write this new memoir/biography of Jimi Hendrix, who died at the age of 27 in 1970, but still topped Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"?
Greatest Guitar Tracks
Link: Greatest Guitar Tracks - News @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com.
Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Nirvana were all included in the Top Ten of the British magazine Q's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks Ever, according to Tbsource.com. The list was voted on by the magazine's editors and managed to cover every era and decade of rock and roll's 50-year-history. The complete Top Ten is as follows:
Huey Lewis lectures on heart of '60s music
Link: Missoulian: Huey Lewis lectures.
There's history in a book and then there's living history.
University of Montana students in a class on the history of rock 'n' roll got a little of the latter Monday morning when Bitterroot Valley/San Francisco rocker Huey Lewis came to town.
Lewis, who had a string of major hits in the mid-1980s, lived and breathed rock 'n' roll in the 1960s, growing up in San Francisco and going to shows at the Fillmore, where he saw Cream, the Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead.
Continue reading "Huey Lewis lectures on heart of '60s music" »
Randy California's Spirit
REFLECTIONS OF SPIRIT
During 1965 jazz drummer Ed (Cass) Cassidy was playing gigs with Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal in a group called the Rising Sons at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. It was here that Cass and Bernice Pearl met and were soon married. A year later Cass took the family with him to New York City when he went to play some jazz gigs. With high hopes they loaded up the 'ol yellow Chevy which they called "The Yellow Submarine" and headed across America.
Jimi Played Guitar for Engelbert Humperdinck?
Question for musicians...
Hendrix couldn't read music — and he was behind the curtain: How did he know what to play?
From contactmusic.com: Legendary rocker JIMI HENDRIX once filled in for ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK's unwell guitarist - but hid behind the stage curtains so the audience wouldn't realise who was playing.
The late PURPLE HAZE star was touring Britain with Humperdinck in the 1960s when the unnamed musician fell ill just before show time.
And, while Hendrix's unparalleled musical prowess saved the day, his identity couldn't be revealed for fear of distracting the audience away from Humperdinck's performance.
Indian Humperdinck - real name ARNOLD GEORGE DORSEY - says, "That was my first UK tour and CAT STEVENS was also on the bill.
"He saved my bacon once when my guitarist fell ill just before the show was due to start. 'Don't worry,' he said, 'I'll play for you."
"I told him he couldn't just walk on stage with me - he was much too big a star."
"So he played behind the curtain. It sounded as though I had three guitarists instead of one that night."
Rolling Stone magazine: The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time
1 Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin
10 Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones
Link: RollingStone.com: Jimi Hendrix : The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time : News.
Continue reading "Rolling Stone magazine: The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" »
Ike Turner sues over stolen Hendrix guitar
Jimi was 27 when he died in 1970. He would have been 16 in 1959. He toured with Ike Turner in the 1950's?
Ike Turner sues over stolen Hendrix guitar
Big News Network.com Wednesday 15th December, 2004
Legendary rocker Ike Turner has lost two heirloom guitars, apparently to theft, Celebrity Justice reported Tuesday.
Turner, 73, was performing at an inner city Los Angeles nightclub two weeks ago when the two guitars went missing.
One of them used to belong to Jimi Hendrix, who had played in Ike's band in the 1950s.
Five Best Ever Song Covers
The Top Five Best Ever Song Covers are:
1: ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER - JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE, 1968, original - BOB DYLAN, 1967
2: YOU WERE ALWAYS ON MY MIND - PET SHOP BOYS, 1987, original - ELVIS PRESLEY, 1972
3: MY WAY - SID VICIOUS, 1979, original - FRANK SINATRA, 1969 (after Paul Anka, 1969)
4: HALLELUJAH - JEFF BUCKLEY, 1993, original - LEONARD COHEN, 1984
5: RESPECT - ARETHA FRANKLIN, 1967, original - OTIS REDDING, 1965.
Music legend JIMI HENDRIX's version of BOB DYLAN's hit ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER has been named the best ever song cover.
Music critics at British newspaper the DAILY TELEGRAPH said the song qualified as the best reworking because it was well established by one Dylan and was then given a new lease of life by Hendrix.
Link: Jimi Hendrix: Jimi Hendrix Beats Elvis Presley For Award
My CD Player Prefers Hendrix
I have a Pioneer CD Player in my office that holds 300 CDs. I really like having all of my music collection available instantly.
Three weeks ago it quit working. So I hauled it down to the local electronics repair show. Needed a new motor, they said — $95 for parts and labor. Since the CD Player cost $250 new, I decided to repair it.
Ten days later I picked it up. It worked fine for two days — even sounded better, probably because the lens was cleaned.
But today it just says "No Disc" when I select a CD. Then it returns to disk 3, which is Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix. Plays it fine.
I know Jimi continues to be widely appreciated, but this is surprising.
Reason to Rock: Layla
When I first heard the song Layla, I was stunned by its beauty and power. Layla and Jimi's All Along the Watchtower still give me chills, three decades after they were released. Note: Guitar genius Duane Allman, who was killed in a motorcycle accident soon after Layla was recorded, teamed with Eric Clapton and his band to produce this masterpiece.
Layla, recorded by Derek and the Dominos, written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, was originally released in 1970.
Herb Bowie's summation:
The effect is majestic, and unmatched in all of rock. The intensity of the singer's emotions is not resolved lyrically, but musically. It is as if the storm suddenly ends and gives way to a wet, green world overarched by a luminous rainbow. The singer's desperate situation seems to give way to a beautiful vision of a union with his loved one, the pair walking hand-in-hand through the forest alone, freed from other entangling relationships. The raw intensity of the song's first half is almost a mirror image of the haunting, gentle lyricism of it's second half.
Links about Derek and the Dominos and Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
John Mayer's late-night blues show in Atlanta
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Link Mayer's late-night blues showAfter his show Sunday at HiFi Buys Amphitheatre, singer-songwriter (and blues enthusiast) John Mayer dropped by Smith's Olde Bar in Midtown to play a blistering hour-long set featuring material by B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Jimi Hendrix.
Mayer isn't exactly famous for his blues background, but people who know him from his days in Atlanta are always testifying about his outrageous guitar chops. At Smith's, those chops were on full display, as Mayer --- wearing one of his own T-shirts on stage, and backed by bassist David LaBruyere and drummer JJ Johnson --- shredded song after song. By the end of the set, everyone who ever compared Mayer with James Taylor looked terribly imperceptive; this guy is Stevie Ray Vaughan in a folkie's clothing. If that strikes you as hard to believe, well, you shoulda been there.
Mayer's late-night show was billed in advance on the club's Web site as Midnight Blues Benefit Show, which was true enough (since the show began at 12:30 a.m. and benefited Mayer's Back To You Fund) but which wasn't exactly helpful to the general public.In any case, every scenester and their booking agent found out about it, and the place was packed.
John Mayer on Jimi Hendrix
Versatile guitarist John Mayer describes Jimi Hendrix:
Jimi Hendrix is one of those extraordinary hubs of music where everybody lands at some point. Every musician passes through Hendrix International Airport eventually -- whether you're a Black Sabbath fan or an Elmore James fan; whether you like Hanson or the Grateful Dead. He is the common denominator of every style of contemporary music. There were so many sides to his playing. Was he a bluesman? Listen to "Voodoo Chile" and you'll hear some of the eeriest blues you can find. Was he a rock musician? He used volume as a device. That's rock. Was he a sensitive singer-songwriter? In "Bold As Love," he sings, "My yellow in this case is not so mellow/In fact I'm trying to say it's frightened like me" -- that is a man who knows the shape of his heart
So often, he's portrayed as a loud, psychedelic rock star lighting his guitar on fire. But when I think of Hendrix, I think of some of the most placid, lovely guitar sounds on songs like "One Rainy Wish," "Little Wing" and "Drifting." "Little Wing" is painfully short and painfully beautiful. It's like your grandfather coming back from the dead and hanging out with you for a minute and a half and then going away. It's perfect, then it's gone.
But when I listen to Hendrix, I just hear a man, and that's when it's most beautiful -- when you remember that another human being was capable of what he achieved. I will always try to attain that kind of control on the guitar: Hendrix's playing was sloppy, but it was controlled. Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix. And that's who a lot of people have become. However far you stop on your climb to be like him, that's who you are.
Link RollingStone.com
Jimi Hendrix Quote on Power and Love
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
All Along the Watchtower
This description of the song written by Bob Dylan, as recorded by Jimi Hendrix, comes from the great Reason To Rock website. Reason To Rock, a Web Book by Herb Bowie, is subtitled Rock Music As Art Form. Herb Bowie, who writes with style and insight, shares his love for his favorite rock recordings through a series of essays on artists, albums, and tracks. Below he analyzes the synergy of a master song writer and a musical genius embodied in four minutes of amazing music.
Let's start by looking at the lyrics. This song came off of Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding album, which marked a radical departure from his previous recordings. His older compositions often had many more than the standard three verses of popular songs — “Positively Fourth Street” boasted twelve. His lyrics had often been pointed and sharply critical. His use of language was unusual, and called attention to itself by juxtaposing words and images not usually associated with each other.In contrast, “All Along The Watchtower” is spare and restrained. The song consists of only three verses, with no chorus. The language is simple. Yet the three verses are packed with meaning and drama. Let's see how it starts. continued...
Interview about Jimi Hendrix Book
Link to interview about Jimi Hendrix Book NPR's Tavis Smiley talks with author and Village Voice staff writer Greg Tate about his soon-to-be-released book, Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience. The book explores why some may have considered Jimi Hendrix a musician who played "white" music and, why he was never fully accepted by the African-American community. (June 26, 2003)