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Imagine being named Jimi Hendrix's favorite guitarist...

link

...meet the late Terry Kath (1946-1978).

That song is golden. Chicago was a horny band, but that song was horn-free. The band was tight, and truly inspired for their time. Watch it -- shades of everything in that one.

Don't break one's sugar bowl, just sayin'

I saw ZZ Top open for Leon Russell in the fall of '72 at Cole Field House on the U. of Maryland campus. It was so long ago that my beard was longer than theirs.

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Overheard:

Sixty Grit wrote

Not a fan of the Allmans, they always seemed to be dying.
I had never paid attention to the 11/4 intro until I read about it yesterday - they called it "the elevens". Very nice - 1,2,3, 1,2,3, 1,2,3, ONE TWO - once you hear it in those terms it is unforgettable.

[other comment omitted] 

May 28, 2017 at 1:26 PM

Sixty was referring to the song "Whipping Post" by the Allman Brothers. He's right -- in those terms, it's unforgettable.

I want to take this KLEM FM series in a slightly different direction: unusual time signatures in rock.

First up is "Manic Depression" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Unfortunately, the Hendrix family has purged YouTube of any studio versions of the song, but there's a VIMEO version here if you need a refresher. I looked at the Wiki page for the song and learned that it was in 3/4 time, which is the same time signature as most waltzes. Heh. That doesn't help. The main drum groove is said to be represented as follows:

link to original

Well, I still didn't get the feel for it -- not how Sixty described the 11/4 beat in "Whipping Post." So I turned to the online drum scholars. This guy gave me my "ah ha moment." See particularly beginning at 2 min 25 sec.

link

I get it now!  I can see how the musical notes represent the groove.
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[added: Can you tell what this guy gets wrong?]

link

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Overheard:

Shouting Thomas said...
Now, that's something to think about:
The genius of the electric guitar was a patriot!
September 3, 2016 at 6:41 AM

Context:

Jimi Hendrix: I don’t know, man. All I did was play it. I’m American, so I played it. I used to sing it in school. They made me sing it in school, so it was a flashback. 

Dick Cavett: This man was in the 101st Airborne, so when you send your nasty letters in…

The contextual caveat refers to Hendrix playing the national anthem at Woodstock. Lesser known was Hendrix's call to stand and sing the British anthem, "God Save The Queen," the following year at the Isle of Wight Music festival:

Hendrix to the British crowd: "In fact it'd sound better if you'd stand up, for your country, and your brother...and start singin'! And if you don't, fuck ya."

Of course, this all went to hell a scant seven years later.

link

So look where Britain is now.

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The best ever Chuck Berry cover:

linky

Hendrix cited Chuck Berry and Little Richard as favorite artists. I'm sure Chuck was delighted with that cover.

Look at Jimi's outsized hands!

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Overheard ca. 1969-70:

Jimi Hendrix: I don’t know, man. All I did was play it. I’m American, so I played it. I used to sing it in school. They made me sing it in school, so it was a flashback. 

Dick Cavett: This man was in the 101st Airborne, so when you send your nasty letters in …

Lesser known was Hendrix's call to sing the British anthem, "God Save The Queen," the following year at the Isle of Wight Music festival:

Hendrix to the British crowd: "In fact it'd sound better if you'd stand up, for your country, and your brother...and start singin'! And if you don't, fuck ya."

Of course, this all went to hell a scant seven years later.

link

Gun Control

That poster hung in my room as a kid. Instead of sports heroes, I idolized Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix and bassist Noel Redding were pointing guns at each other -- probably pretend guns. Funny thing was, Hendrix and Redding didn't get along professionally -- but that's another story. Let's take a closer look at their hands:

Jimi held the reins in his right hand and the pistol in his left hand (he was left-handed). He had his trigger finger in the trigger guard on the trigger and his thumb over the hammer. Had the gun been uncocked, that would have been the deadliest pose to strike. Now let's look at Redding:

The Englishman used both hands to grip the pistol, but way, way down on the grip. Note that Redding (who was right-handed) gripped the pistol in his left hand. He held the reins in his right hand.

It seems obvious that holding the reins of power is symbolically more important than self-defense, though both are hopelessly entwined. 

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linky

Netflix popped up a recommendation that I watched last night: "Hear My Train A Comin'." It's an "official" documentary -- endorsed by the fiercely protective "Experience Hendrix" family trust. The work was released in 2013. Because of the family involvement, there is a lot of never-before-seen footage and photos -- especially of his early and formative years as a musician. One thing I realized is embarrassingly obvious in hindsight. One of those interviewed noted that Hendrix was unique in having been so rooted in American blues and then having moved to London in the fall of 1966 during the very height of the music scene there. Hendrix observed British psychedelia at its peak. Who else did that? Other American musicians may have toured Britain, but none of them actually moved there.

Highly recommend!

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Jimi Hendrix - Like A Rolling Stone HD by link to original 

This was Hendrix's American stage debut as The Experience. The Monterrey Pop Festival in June 1967 came only a few short months after his debut in England. This song was his first tribute to Bob Dylan.* Dylan had been invited to the Monterrey festival but declined for who knows what reason(s). Jimi's reference to "Bob Dylan's grandma over there" was a dig at bassist Noel Redding who sported "granny glasses" and a dylan-esque afro. The two never did get on together and Hendrix ultimately replaced Redding with Billy Cox who is the last surviving bandmate.
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* The second one being his recording of "All Along The Watchtower" a year later. 

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Compare Jimi Hendrix playing our national anthem at Woodstock...

...to playing "God Save The Queen" during a return to England shortly before his death:

Hendrix admonishes the Brits: "In fact it'd sound better if you'd stand up, for your country, and your brother...and start singin'! And if you don't, fuck ya."

Contrast those performances with our President cupping his nuts during the national anthem:

Which figure -- Jimi Hendrix or Barack Obama built bridges between races?

What is it about the fools who loved Hendrix and thought Obama was some sort of political equivalent?

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This is a great story.

Chris Squire played bass guitar for "Yes."  Before that he was in band called "Syn" which nobody has heard of. In this interview, Squire tells the story of the night Syn went to play London's Marquee Club to open for a band called "Cliff Bennet & The Rebel Rousers" -- a band which never showed up.  Instead, a new act with a black guitarist replaced them.

link

It's amusing how candid and honest Squire is. Hendrix was the first black man he'd met -- and he was so amicable. Squire takes a professional dig at Noel Redding (whom no one seems to have liked).  Listen through because the story gets better when he still hadn't figured out what was going on and, going on stage as the opening act for Hendrix, he met a front row audience which included Steve Winwood, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, and George Harrison -- "all of my heroes."

I found this video of Hendrix playing the Marquee Club around that time -- not the same night -- he did four shows on different dates in addition to this special filmed show -- but it's close enough in time to approximate the person whom all of Britain's "guitarati" came to see that night (this was still months before Jimi's American debut at Monterrey in June of that year).

link

I can really see how Hendrix bridged the styles of Little Richard and Prince in that early clip.

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The definitive version of the song:

The best ever analysis of that song is here. It's really hard to add anything, IMHO. Even if you can't stand Dylan or Hendrix, you will learn something from that essay and probably appreciate both artists more.

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Kontinuing with The Kinks and with reference to last night's video...

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The excerpt below is from a book I'm reading called "Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight" by John McDermott with Eddie Kramer. Just to set the stage a bit, by the summer of 1969, the original Jimi Hendrix Experience had broken up. Hendrix had moved out of NYC to upstate New York near Woodstock where he rented a house.

Though Hendrix may have sought a quiet retreat among Woodstock's fabled wilds, he managed to stand out as much as he had in Harlem. 'Jimi used to drive through town in his red Corvette,' recalls Leslie Aday, an employee of Albert Grossman, who became friendly with Hendrix during his extended period upstate. 'He'd have the top down and be dressed in all his glory. Nobody in Woodstock had a red Corvette. These people were into growing organic vegetables and making their own clothes!' 

The musicians Hendrix had invited to the house were no mere motley crew. Hendrix, recalls Aday, had expressed his concept of a band that comprised musicians from a variety of racial backgrounds. The timing for such a concept, he explained, couldn't be better. Aside from Jimi's own celebrated mixture of Cherokee Indian and Negro heritage, percussionist Jerry Velez was an Hispanic from New York's Lower East Side; [Mitch] Mitchell (who would rejoin Hendrix) a white Briton; [Billy] Cox and [Larry] Lee were African Americans steeped in the Delta blues tradition; and Juma Sultan an African American who had embraced Africa's vast cultural heritage. 

Juma Sultan was well known within the Woodstock artistic community, a respected percussionist actively involved with the Aboriginal Music Society, which presented a broad mosaic of musical influences in semiconcert form on Sunday evenings at the Tinker Street Cinema. Sultan introduced Hendrix to the aggregation of local musicians, but when they played together, Hendrix couldn't help plowing through their delicate, polyrhythmic patterns. He had not yet integrated softer elements into his live music, volume and feedback remaining the essential ingredients of his style. Even his rhythm playing, while not as bombastic as his solo work, was still delivered with great force. It would be this simple fact, plus a lack of adequate rehearsal time, that would doom the Gypsys Suns & Rainbow, the moniker he invented for his new band.

A brief summer of spontaneous jamming turned to serious rehearsals after Hendrix was signed to headline the musical festival in August which became Woodstock. Hendrix and his jam buddies closed the event at dawn on a Monday morning, several hours after the festival was supposed to have ended. Only a fraction of the fans actually witnessed his performance. This is how they sounded, playing one of the few original songs not belonging to the Jimi Hendrix Experience; it's called Jam Back at the House:

 

Eddie Kramer, hired to record the entire festival, was not impressed:

Tracks such as "Jam Back at the House" -- born from incessant jamming -- did more to showcase the band's deficiencies than strengths. Larry Lee was a close friend and an accomplished player, but he was not in a league to be trading solos with Jimi Hendrix.

That song has long been my personal favorite from that performance. It's deceptively simple -- seemingly just an endless riff driven over and over. Only a real genius like Hendrix could make that interesting. I especially like how he plugs in and comes back at around 4 min 40sec, puffing his cigarette no handed, breathing like a dragon.  But now I see Kramer's point. Hendrix overwhelmed the other players. Of those on stage, only Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox would stick with him.  Only they could keep up. 

Eddie Kramer's Sound Board

Watch this brief clip of Eddie Kramer explaining Jimi Hendrix' song "Hear My Train A Comin'." Kramer is 71 now and was Jimi's sound recording engineer. He also recorded The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and a slew of other acts. His name used to be all over the credits and liner notes of vinyl LPs.

I'm just cheered to see him still around & staying true to the music. He wrote a book which I just ordered.

One More, If I May

Jimi Hendrix died 43 years ago today. I don't mark that on my calendar (nobody should). I noticed it only because I was looking back at some old posts.

I remember that day, actually. I was only 10 but knew about him via older siblings and neighbors. Plus it was on the 6 o'clock news. The next day I learned that one other kid in my 5th grade class knew who he was.

Hendrix had something which no celebrity has had since -- not even the queen's favorite prince. It was an ability to bring races and nations together in awe and admiration. It was based on talent and showmanship. The hippies loved him while the squares just shook their heads. But even hippies who later grew edges can still see that in him.

Here is a clip from his Woodstock appearance. I think some kudos are due to the videographer on this one; the image is clear and he captured Hendrix' outsized hands and how he could just manipulate the fret board. Good crowd shots too:  Link

(time skipped embedding appears complicated for this clip; and I have seen this one go up and come down quickly)

Favorite part is around 24m10s when he starts driving the same riff over and over using only modulation while sucking down a cigarette no-handed. I think this is where air-guitar got invented,

"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: