Jim Hendrix was a god among mortals...

[auburngrad82]

I got the Monterey Pop dvd set for Christmas and watched Jimi Hendrix Live at Monterey Pop last night. A few things struck me as I watched him play.

Monterey was his first big appearance in the US. He had just made it big in Britain and John Phillips booked him for Monterey to get him in front of American audiences. So basically his career lasted from 1967 until his death in 1969. Roughly three short years that changed the world of music.

He was a baby! I think he was 27 when he died in 1969 so he would only have been 25 years old at Monterey.

John Phillips, the narrator, said that all the rockers in Britain would go to his shows to see how he made his guitar sound the way it did, but they could never figure it out. He was incredible. He played a right handed guitar upside down, yet left it strung for a right hander. He played behind his back, behind his head, between his legs, one handed, with his elbow, you name it and he was doing it.

He made frilly shirts and feather boas look MANLY! Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, on the other hand, just looked like a couple of silly Brits.

I wish I could have seen him perform live.

[HEAVYHEART]

1. Yup

I too wish I could've seen him live. I love his music, the way he looks, the way he plays, sings, talks. sigh.. I was so obsessed with Jimi in my 20s, that I went out with this guy who looked just like him, but the guy turned out to be a dick.

I love Jimi.

[StopTheMorans]

2. best guitarist ever.

and so ahead of his time.

[blueknight]

3. no one else

compared then or since then. i get a kick when i hear people say "he's the next hendrix" PLEASE, there will never be another!

[charlie]

4. A nitpick

Hendrix used right-handed guitars, but restrung them for a left-hander. Two notable lefties who did play with the strings reversed were Dick Dale and Albert King.

[blindpig]

5. he was indeed a god

Music would have been a pretty lame thing without him.

A minor point: he died in August or September of 1970. I remember well, I had a severe acid bummer that evening, news of Jimi's demise being the catalyst. Did see him play a few months earlier at the Baltimore Civic Center. It was the Band Of Gypsies tour and I'm afraid that Jimi was not in the best form, really loaded, smack or barbs or something, though he came alive for the encore, a rendition of Slight Return that has been burned into my mind for eternity.

[auburngrad82]

7. Sept 18, 1970

I said 69. He was 27 years old. Between 1969 and 1971 we lost Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, and Janis Joplin. I think they were all 27 years old. What a waste.

[Wat_Tyler]

9. Brian Jones wasn't a waste.

He was just a waster.

[FDRrocks]

18. I must object to your lambasting of Mitch

:)

As a budding guitarist and a long time drummer, I must say that Mitch's drumming was incredible. It was energetic and spontaneous. You never knew what chop he was gonna pull out of his ass next.

As for the bassist... well... a bass is a bass... at least he could back up Jimi? I guess? He wasn't any Vic Wooten, though.

[auburngrad82]

25. I wasn't putting his playing down.

He was a great drummer. And I thought Noel Redding was a good bassist as well. But they looked a lot sillier in the frilly orange and striped shirts than Jimi did.

Let's face it. There aren't a lot of people that can wear orange frilly shirts and pink bellbottoms and get away with it.

You know, I think the biggest tragedy with Jimi's death is he was ahead of his time as far as recording goes. No recording truly does justice to his (and the Experience's) playing. The equipment just wasn't there yet.

[FDRrocks]

28. There would be world peace....

If Jimi was destined to live and mature in his playing as much as, say, Clapton.

I personally am a fan of old recording techniques. Well, except for the one channel vocals. I miss the days where bands used to go in and actually play together to record the albums, rather than peice by peice as most do nowadays.

[auburngrad82]

30. Have you seen Tom Dowd and the Language of Music?

Great documentary. Dowd was the engineer on records from the 1950s all the way up until his death just a couple of years ago. Very interesting look into how recordings were made and how technology changed during Dowd's career.

[FDRrocks]

31. No, is it on DVD?

I have never even heard of it.

[auburngrad82]

32. Yep, it's on dvd

He recorded the Allman Brothers, Cream, Ray Charles, and many others.

[Wat_Tyler]

6. I've never liked him - too much wanking, not enough tunes.

Never understood the big deal about him.

[FDRrocks]

8. Wait....his guitar was standardly strung?

so it went eBGDAE? If so, thats even more impressive.

[chaska]

11. No, he strung it the right way for a lefty.

EADGBe. I'm a lefty and have played for a very long time.

Wat, shame on you. Listen again. He had some awesome tunes, though I will agree he hadn't hit his stride. Truly great tunes were in his unrealized future.

[Wat_Tyler]

12. Nah, he just bored me.

So what, who cares what I think anyway - you like him, that's good enough.

[chaska]

15. Hey as long as you've given it a chance...

I admire your willingness to buck the norm. I hate the deification of Hendrix ... or any famous musician who dies. They ain't all great.

[FDRrocks]

16. Ever heard "Third Stone from the Sun"?

I swear to god it's sonic valium. Wonderful, but to each his own.

[Cornjob]

17. Jimi used out-of-the box Strats...

that had the nut and strings reversed to left-handed.

Part of his magic was the shortened length of the upper strings of the reversed Strat. It permitted incredible string bends due to the lower required tension. The string reversal also changed the sound thru the pickups.

Typically, Jimi would have a local music shop set up a couple of Strats for a gig, then Jimi would either destroy the guitars on stage or give them away. According to his guitar suppliers, Jimi never bought any cases for the guitars, since he wouldn't be keeping them.

It still amazes me that he could play brand new guitars night after night and make the sound incredible!

[Cornjob]

10. A TV documentary described Jimi as...

a sonic sculptor and a Michaelangelo of the electric guitar.

When I listen to his playing, I could not agree more!

I have never heard anyone who could make a guitar sound more alive than Jimi.

Noel and Mitch were a great match as Jimi's rythm section.

Jimi's later work with Buddy Miles & Band of Gypsies was less inspired.

He was truly, for too short a time, a virtuoso.

[theorist]

13. The first great electronic composer.

As other posters have pointed out, he did restring the guitars he played. This also required modifying some of the hardware on the instruments (e.g. flipping the nut, tweaking the bridge). And such an undeniably incredible performer.

[Wat_Tyler]

14. Oh come on - electronic composer?

Ever hear of Karlheinz Stockhausen?

[theorist]

20. Sorry, man, but that's all pretentious crap as far as music goes.

He does have some legitimacy as a 20th century artist, though, but a composer? Nah, I'd say more of an engineer.

[Wat_Tyler]

22. Ha.

Fair enough. I think we see a split here - pretentious hippy guitar wank versus Euro Techno Futurism. :P

[chaska]

19. The next Hendrix???

Kaki King is really very impressive. Check out the videos on these websites. She will knock your socks off. Listen to several pieces before you dismiss her, there is more depth there than you will realize from one piece.

http://www.kakiking.com /
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4179954

She's a true natural. Playing is as natural as breathing to her.

[charlie]

21. She's good

But she's got a ways to go before she's the next Michael Hedges, let alone Hendrix.

[chaska]

23. Listen some more. I'm a Hedges fan. She has her own thing.

She's still coming into her own. But then so was Hendrix. Hendrix never reached his full fruition. And his influences were very evident as well.

[auburngrad82]

26. I liked Hedges as well. eom

[charlie]

27. I've heard plenty

This isn't my first exposure to her. She's interesting, she's talented, she may have potential. Whether she achieves greatness is far from certain, IMO.

[Droopy]

24. She's very impressive

She has a unique playing style. Does she always fret upside down?

[Swamp Rat]

29. Yes, he was the greatest guitar player of that era and genre.

He taught me how to play guitar through listening to his albums for years, and there wasn't one square foot of wall space sans a dedication to or photo of him.

Lay back and GROOVE brutha... :smoke: