Saturday, September 14, 2013

"Singing Through His Fingers"

[This is a follow-up to deborah's post about guitar heros here]

"Singing through his fingers" perfectly describes Jimi Hendrix when he said "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice" and a great example is the song called Power to Love. Hendrix recorded four different versions of that song at the Fillmore East on New Year's Eve/Day in 1970. The so-called third version is the best one and appeared on the LP Band Of Gypsys, recorded for Capitol Records to fulfill an old contract Hendrix had neglected. The third version is the only one where after a brief 20 second intro, Hendrix launches into a one minute solo flight before the main body of the song begins. Listen to at least the first minute and a half:




The visual equivalent of that opening solo is the opening scene in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil:


[added: In the comments, Lem says: "Start both videos, kill the Touch of Evil volume, only leave on the sound of Hendrix and you will see what pollo is talking about."]

The camera work in Touch of Evil is a three minute long single take--an uninterrupted point of view that takes us from ground level to hanging aerial shots and back to ground level. I think Hendrix was striving for a similar "elevation" with his opening guitar solo because it perfectly sets up the otherwise inane lyrics in the body of the song:
...Shoot down some of those airplanes...'specially the ones that are flyin' too low
Come on back up to earth my friend, come on back up with me
We've all been up through the night time baby now let's read the rays of reality
With the power of soul anything is possible...
...With the power of soul anything is possible.
What do those words mean?
Playing too much with one toy baby "tends to lead into the fog"?
It's so groovy to fool around sometimes -- even a jelly fish will tell you that
I said flotation is groovy and easy and even a jelly fish will agree to that.
Yeah, but old jelly fish been floatin' so long and so slack-lord he don't got a bone in his jelly back
Floatin' every day and every night, ridin' high, but there's a risk, sometimes the wind ain't right
I suspect those lyrics represented Hendrix' attempt to express his personal struggles with drugs at the time. A little less than a month after this show was recorded, the Band of Gypsys played Madison Square Garden but Hendrix, severely impaired, ended the show after just two songs and the Band of Gypsys would never play live again.

Getting back to singing through the fingers -- this comes later in the song when Hendrix uses "call and response" guitar riffing with Buddy Miles' singing, all while playing rhythm. When Jimi's actual voice suddenly appears to harmonize with his guitar voice, I get a spooky feeling that I am hearing three voices instead of just two. I cued up this part of the song here (5m40s).

So who is playing like that these days?

8 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Start both videos, kill the Touch of Evil volume, only leave on the sound of Hendrix and you will see what pollo is talking about.

chickelit said...

Exactly, Lem! If only the Hendrix solo were longer or the Welles clip shorter, it would be a perfect mash-up!

Chip Ahoy said...

There are four Jimi Hendrix real voices on different tracks and now that's a brain worm, overlapped, out of synch, in varying voices, "Wif ♪da powwah ♫ov goad, any-theen iz possabuh ♫wif da powwah ov goad any-theen iz possabuh wif da powwah ov goad, any-theen iz possabuh..." Thanks.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I heard two voices... two voices only.

Maybe I should put on my headphones.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I hear two distinctly different voices... meaning, I don't believe the voices are from the same person.

chickelit said...

There are two human voices, Lem. I'm talking about the third.

Revenant said...

"Singing through his fingers", I like that.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

"First B.B. sings, then Lucille sings."

B.B. King claimed a reviewer once wrote that about him and he liked it.

Seemed kind of dumb to me.

There's a story out there about the time when Hendrix went to go see B.B. King. You can look it up if you want. Maybe it's on the internet, somewhere.

Anyway, when asked why he never plays guitar while singing, B.B. King responded, "I've got stupid fingers."