Jimi Hendrix

I don't want to get into this stuff about people being programmed or conditioned to like certain types of music presented by the media, it just isn't so. People know for certain what they really like to listen to, and they call the station and request those songs. And the station is going to play what the people want, not what some executive wants.

I'm with you up to this point.

The fact is, there have been many studies that have shown that taste in music is decidedly a product of cultural conditioning.

If you are exposed to lots of salsa music, grow up in a culture where it's appreciated, and have happy memories associated with it, you'll like salsa music. Same for any other genre.

The masses like what they like becuse it is a cultural norm to like it.

That doesn't make it not good music . . . but to deny the roll of exposure to musical taste is silly.

Interesting comparison, Kevin - especially if you compare the Hendrix power trio - Jimi, Mitch and Noel, or Jimi, Buddy and Mitch - to Clapton, Bruce and Baker.

Cream, for me, were the archetypal power trio - superb lead guitarist, one of the all-time great bass players, and a wonderful drummer - Ginger's up there with Moony and Bonzo in my top three, and there's nothing - IN MY OPINION - to choose between them.

The difference between the early Experience and Cream was the bass player - Noel redding wasn't really a bassist, and he fely constricted by Jimi's insistence on playing the bass lines Jimi wrote. Jack Bruce, on the other hand, was such a superlative bass player that Clapton had all the room in the world to solo....and often did!

Jimi's songwriting? Hmmmm - I don't think I'd have him anywhere near my top ten. Dylan, Lennon, McCartney, Fogerty, Brian Wilson, Orbison, Chuck Berry, Bowie, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison.....that's just off the top of my head.

But like I said before, and a couple of people have agreed with me, Jimi took the guitar WAAAAAAY past all previous boundaries - he showed us what COULD be achieved. I wonder what he'd be doing today if he'd lived - and that's all I can do, wonder. He was capable of so much - I wonder if the Yngwie/Vai/Satriani fan club would still be knocking him?

No disrespect to Messrs Malmstein, Vai and Satriani - I can honestly say I've never heard Yngwie on the radio - and these days, I( only listen to a classic rock station 99.99% of the time - and I could count on one hand the number of times I've heard Vai and Satriani. EVH, on the other hand, gets frequent plays - but he still does nothing for me. First time I saw Vai was in the film "Crossroads" - I thought, wow, he can play! And FAST!.....but ultimately, I was bored.

You can have all the technical ability in the world, but if you can't hold your audience, it doesn't matter - to me, a strong song - like "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Norwegian Wood" or "Baba O'Riley" wins hands down, every time, over some shredder....but that's down to personal taste again. It's about 30 years since "More Than A Feeling" was in the charts.... it's still my favourite solo, the one I turn to play when I want to sound good. It's even longer than that since "Samba Pa Ti" was in the charts - first time I heard that, I was absolutely knocked out - that playing is so fluid, so beautiful.....

Compare your favourite guitarists to painters - to me, Santana, Beck, Page and yes, Hendrix - when he wasn't farting about trying to get as many effects as he could in one song - are the musical equivalent of Rembrandt or Constable. Vai, satriani etc - Jackson Pollock. Just blobs on canvas....no real meaning.

As always, just MY opinion....I personally would love to have just ONE percent of the technical ability of Vai, Malmstein, EVH, SRV or Satriani. What little exposure I've had to their music has done absolutely nothing for me.....I won't denigrate their talent, just the way they choose to use it......but again, that's all down to taste.

May your musical heroes continue to bring you pleasure, just as surely as Fogerty, Dylan, Lennon et al will to me....

i'm just a non feeling, no emotion shredder that has spent over 15,000 bucks on lessons
and god only knows how many hours of practice, so feel free to bash away.

Nothing to bash away at - maybe you'd like to post some of your playing? Maybe then I'd be able to see where you're coming from.....and you can be sure I'll give you a fair chance. I might not like what you're playing - but if you're good, I'll tell you you're good. If I don't like it, I'll tell you why I don't like it, but I promise you I'll be fair with you. Fair enough?

I was going to say, maybe you should have spent some of that $15000 on English lessons or a deposit on a house - but that's just plain sarcastic and nasty. And if I had the choice of a new guitar or deposit on a house, well, who knows? If I was a single man, probably the guitar.....if I was a married man, probably the house....buying lots of new guitars is all very well, but it's a question of priorities......

:D :D :D

Vic

Interesting comparison, Kevin - especially if you compare the Hendrix power trio - Jimi, Mitch and Noel, or Jimi, Buddy and Mitch - to Clapton, Bruce and Baker.

Cream, for me, were the archetypal power trio - superb lead guitarist, one of the all-time great bass players, and a wonderful drummer - Ginger's up there with Moony and Bonzo in my top three, and there's nothing - IN MY OPINION - to choose between them.
Oh yea, well Ginger is prob a bit better than Mitch. But Mitch should be atleast in the same breath as him.
The difference between the early Experience and Cream was the bass player - Noel redding wasn't really a bassist, and he fely constricted by Jimi's insistence on playing the bass lines Jimi wrote. Jack Bruce, on the other hand, was such a superlative bass player that Clapton had all the room in the world to solo....and often did!
Of course. Noel Redding is a shaft. I really don't like the guy, I think he was an above average bass player at best.
Jimi's songwriting? Hmmmm - I don't think I'd have him anywhere near my top ten. Dylan, Lennon, McCartney, Fogerty, Brian Wilson, Orbison, Chuck Berry, Bowie, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison.....that's just off the top of my head.
Top ten? Ehh, maybe that's a stretch. I'd rate him better than Bowie/Wilson and even Berry though. Not Dylan, Lennon, McCartney, Fogerty, Morrison though. Holly, Orbinson, I think Jimi can compete with. And obviously we're leaving out many other writers, but I'm just going by your list. Perhaps I should post some of Jimi's finest lyrics.
Compare your favourite guitarists to painters - to me, Santana, Beck, Page and yes, Hendrix - when he wasn't farting about trying to get as many effects as he could in one song - are the musical equivalent of Rembrandt or Constable. Vai, satriani etc - Jackson Pollock. Just blobs on canvas....no real meaning.
Great comparison.

As always, just MY opinion....I personally would love to have just ONE percent of the technical ability of Vai, Malmstein, EVH, SRV or Satriani. What little exposure I've had to their music has done absolutely nothing for me.....I won't denigrate their talent, just the way they choose to use it......but again, that's all down to taste.
May your musical heroes continue to bring you pleasure, just as surely as Fogerty, Dylan, Lennon et al will to me....
Always. :)

As I said, here's some of Jimi's best lyrics (in no order)-

Belly Button Window- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/belly+button+window_20071663.html Just perfect for a down, dirty blues song, which it is. Talks about abortion, from my perspective. I didn't see much of that until the 90s.

Bold as Love- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/bold+as+love_20071546.html One of my fave Hendrix songs, probably my favorite lyrically. Great use of colors. He's pretty much saying his rainbow is out of order, and it's holding him back from giving his life to "a rainbow like you."

Castles Made of Sand- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/castles+made+of+sand_20071547.html Self explanatory.

If 6 was 9- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/if+6+was+9_20071549.html Love this song. Great job of explaining how you shouldn't worry about what everyone else is doing, and just worry about what you have to do.

Machine Gun- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/machine+gun_20071573.html Alright, obvously not his best lyrical work. But it's perfect for the concept of the song, and really links thinks together.

Room Full of Mirrors- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/room+full+of+mirrors_20071716.html Great concept.

Wind Cries Mary- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/the+wind+cries+mary_20071543.html Self explanatory.

Voodoo Child (Slight Return)- http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jimi+hendrix/voodoo+child_20071613.html Great song about power. And the song "Voodoo Chile" is great for leading up to it, kinda like a story.

Well, that's some of his best, I think.

OK, here's a little exercise for you Kevin - just pretend you'd never heard those lyrics before. If someone posted them as an SSG song, for instance, how would you react?

I must admit, looking at all those lyrics, there's more depth in them than I'd previously imagined - I'd probably give them a thumbs up in the SSG. BUUUUUUUUUT - we're not talking about talented amateurs, or wannabees, we're talking about someone (Jimi) who you rate highly as a lyric writer.

I don't - but then again, that's my opinion. We can argue until we're blue in the face about Jimi, or Satriani, or any other guitarist....and that's the beauty of music, there are so many different ways of seeing the same artist, album or song even.

As long as music gives you pleasure, who am I to knock it? No-one at all - just another music lover who has a different slant on things. Whether you or I can't derive any pleasure from Vai or Satriani can't negate the obvious pleasure people like Rocker, etc, do get from that genre - and who can say who's right and who's wrong? NOBODY.....it's all music, and if it sounds good to you, well fine.

I feel the original message has been lost - this post was about Jimi, and his influence on other guitarists. It doesn't matter whether there were better guitarists before or after Jimi, what mtters is his place in music history - and like I said before, I'm not his biggest fan, but he totally re-invented the electric guitar - he showed what COULD be done with it. Genius? I'd have to say probably.....Influence? DEFINITELY - people have made careers out of copying his style.

What came before and after is irrelevant - what matters is the way Hendrix took the guitar to another level. Chuck Berry did it in the 50's, Jimi - and others like Clapton, Townshend, Beck and Page did it in the 60's. At the same time, Lennon and McCartney, Dylan, and Jagger and Richards took songwriting to another level....you can argue that Jack Bruce and John Entwhistle took bass to another level, and Moon, Baker and Bonzo - and Carl Palmer - took drumming to another level. Maybe almost up to the standards of Gene Krupa, who was - in my opinion - the finest drummer ever. Maybe we could get Bish's opinion on that - or at least a list of his fave drummers? it'd mean more, coming from a drummer's perspective....

One of the biggest bands of the 70's prog-rock era was Yes - ever heard Chris Squire's bass? Do yourself a favour and listen.....I'm still not a big fan, but Squire's Bass, Howe's lead and Rick Wakeman's keyboards made them a band to listen to.....

But again, at the end of the day, it's all subjective, it's all down to taste.....Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Beck, Townshend and (insert your favourite guitarist here) all deserve their place in history......maybe others do as well, but who's going to judge?

:D :D :D

Vic

OK, here's a little exercise for you Kevin - just pretend you'd never heard those lyrics before. If someone posted them as an SSG song, for instance, how would you react?
Great idea.

Belly Button Window- Seems a bit long, stretched out. Some parts should be cut. The type of song that I'd need to hear first.
Bold as Love- Beautiful. One of the best songs I've read on SSG.
Castles Made of Sand- One of the best songs I've read on SSG.
IF 6 was 9- Great message, great song. Sounds kinda like a blues.
Machine Gun- Not too great.
Room Full of Mirrors- Very original. Never read anything like that. Very original. Would need to hear it to get the full feel, but lyrically it's great.
Wind Cries Mary- Wish it was a little longer. Great, beautiful song. (Aside- it was longer...much longer Jimi has been said, but he had to cut it way down because his manager told him it can't be like a 6 minute song. Same with Purple Haze)
Voodoo Child- Seems more like a music song than a lyrical song. The lyrics aren't too bad, the concept of 'voodoo child' is very good.

And I gotta say great post again. And I agree Gene Krupa is great. Not too much of a fan of Yes though, to be honest. Again, like we've been saying- it's all opinion.

[u]
Belly Button Window- Seems a bit long, stretched out. Some parts should be cut. The type of song that I'd need to hear first

I must use that one for every song I post in SSG ..

But like I said before, and a couple of people have agreed with me, Jimi took the guitar WAAAAAAY past all previous boundaries - he showed us what COULD be achieved. I wonder what he'd be doing today if he'd lived - and that's all I can do, wonder. He was capable of so much - I wonder if the Yngwie/Vai/Satriani fan club would still be knocking him?

I'm a supporter of Jimi in this thread because I do think he was a musical genius and a fantastic guitarist, even though I personally am not a big fan of his music.

But he really didn't take "the guitar WAAAAAAY past all previous boundaries," indeed, most of what Jimi was doing had been done by others before him.

What Jimi did do is put it all together in one package that was at once both exceptionally technically sophisticated and musically accessable. Jeff Beck was doing it before him, but Beck isn't that accessable to the average person. Jimi is. That's not to say that Jimi's playing isn't nuanced or in any way lessened . . . it's just that for the average listener, Jeff Beck was only slightly less intimidating then as Yngwie is today; whereas, Jimi's musical stylings reached a larger audience and moved them more.

Jimi gets credit he doesn't deserve here. Taking something to a larger audience is an achievement. But it is not the achievement of innovation.

When I think of Jimi Hendrix as a great songwriter, you cannot compare him to someone like Dylan, Lennon, or even Fogerty. They all wrote very meaningful music within a very mainstream style of music.

Jimi was very different. His lyrics can be pretty strange and hard to understand. There is some depth to some of his lyrics, but not like a Dylan or Lennon. But Jimi did not write mainstream music whatsoever. Now, listeners today may think just the opposite, because just about every guitar player has copied Jimi to a degree. So it is pretty mainstream now. But at the time it was revolutionary. Before Jimi everybody was playing surf guitar. There were groups like the Yardbirds especially experimenting with distortion and feedback, but Jimi took the sonic possibilities of guitar to a much higher level than anyone before his time.

But Jimi wasn't just making wierd noises and feedback. The music he played always related to the subject of the song. If you heard a Hendrix song without the lyrics you could probably guess the subject of the song and be correct. When you listen to Machine Gun, you can hear literal machine guns, jets diving and dropping bombs, at the end you could hear screaming and death. This is the difference between Jimi and the other shredders. I'm sure many of them can do this, but Jimi was absolutely great at this. This is where he excels above almost all electric guitarists.

But Jimi was a pretty freaky guy. He had few friends and even his friends had a hard time understanding him. If you have ever seen an interview of Jimi, it is pretty difficult to even follow his conversations. He was really out there, some due to drug use, but he was known to be pretty strange from his youth. He would lock himself in his bedroom and play guitar for hours, he was known to practice 16 hours or more per day. Even in the Army his superiors wrote that he had a hard time concentrating on anything because he was always thinking about guitar and music. So it wasn't just the drugs, he was just a born musician.

So anyway, Jimi's lyrics are pretty hard to understand as he was.

Jimi was like Picasso. He was a genius, but nobody could understand what he was doing.

And Jimi had a huge influence on recording. I have read articles where he would come into a studio and do amazing techniques with the recording equipment that the pros had never even thought of. They were absolutely awestruck by Jimi. Many of today's recording techniques and effects like panning are due to Jimi. Wikipedia even mentions this:
Hendrix strove to combine what he called "earth", a blues, jazz, or funk driven rhythm accompaniment, with "space", the high-pitched psychedelic sounds created by his guitar improvisations. As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas; he was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects during recording.

Another article says:
Jimi Hendrix was the single most inventive electric guitarist in rock. He did more to extend the reach of the instrument than anyone else of his generation. He single-handedly demolished traditional definitions of music by playing and recording sounds made with his guitar that defied transposition or even explanation. One of the best examples of these effects is his playing of “The Star Spangled Banner,” in which he essentially deconstructs the original composition and rebuilds it as a showcase for his guitar prowess, using his instrument to sonically illustrate the action taking place in the song.

Realizing the potential of the recording studio, Hendrix built his own, with the most modern equipment available at the time. He consciously used this device to achieve effects not possible in concert. His recordings frequently feature unusual uses of the stereo channels, for instance, with instruments and sounds apparently moving from left to right and back again. Hendrix spent a great deal of time in the studio, trying to perfect his musical visions.

Hendrix put his unique studio and guitar effects to good use in music that consistently sought to liberate his listeners from conventional modes of perception and expand their awareness. Songs like “Stone Free” and “If 6 Was 9” established a stance of defiant individuality and an accompanying refusal to conform to society's expectations. Anyone who did not live through the fifties and early sixties might have a hard time realizing the significance of these recordings, but this was a time when rigid conformity to narrow codes of dress and behavior were taken for granted throughout almost all of American society.

Although Hendrix' attitude and musical style were new and innovative, his approach to collaboration was very rooted in the blues and rhythm and blues traditions. He worked most often in the trio format, with a minimum of other musicians. He was the lead singer, songwriter and featured instrumentalist on his recordings, much in the style of a Robert Johnson or a Chuck Berry.

It is unfortunate that Hendrix got a chance to record only a handful of studio albums before dying at a young age from an entirely accidental overdose of sleeping pills. We will sadly never know how his music would have evolved and matured in later stages of his career.

I think this one line from that last article says it best:

He single-handedly demolished traditional definitions of music by playing and recording sounds made with his guitar that defied transposition or even explanation.

Jimi played music you couldn't even describe, much less try to transcribe. 8)

Great post, Wes.

Al Hendrix (his Dad) said in an interview that when Jimi was a toddler (2 or 3 at the most) and there were a bunch of other toddlers over the home, Jimi would normally just go in his room and just sit there. He wouldn't do anything. He'd just sit there.

As for Jimi's interviews, I love reading them. I think he had fantastic ideas. There's this one interview where he's pretty much describing what we know now as MP3 players, or ipods. When I first heard it I was just blown away. Just the way he described it, it was pretty much spot on.

Jimi seems like a very confusing man. According to one of his main girlfriends, Kathy Etchingham, she said Jimi hit her many times, but if they were in danger, he'd protect her till the end a lot of times. But a lot of times he'd just leave her hanging.

And if you want to hear a great Jimi interview, Wes, check out this. Really is a great, long, in depth interview- http://youtube.com/watch?v=bg3_XlrVts0

And yes, again Wes. Another thing with recording. Jimi pretty much invented the phaser, I think that effect. He described to many people this sound he heard on his head, but he needed an effect to make it work. Once the effect was made he was jumping for joy in the recording room, becuase he said that's exactly as it sounded in his dream. Eddie Kramer told this story, there's an interview with him somewhere up on YouTube. I'll try to find it.

Kevin

Thanks for the video, yeah Hendrix was very complex. He was visionary, you can hear it in his statements.

On the other hand, whoever made this video to make fun of Bush is just making their own self look bad. You don't have to agree with Bush or even like him, but this is very immature. That person wouldn't get the time of day from me. You should show all people respect whether you like them or not. That person is full of hate.

^^Yea, I agree. I dislike Bush, but I do respect him. You have to respect any president, they have to make hard decisions and there's no saying what you'd do in his spot. And no prob for the video. :)

I agree Wes with your statement about Bush

I am a Aussie so , I don't have political preferences in USA political scene

Just repect people for people , I don't like alot of people but then again alot don't like me either ..

Its called mature adulthood and respect

Maybe that seems to be it to you. Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, you don't really listen well enough? Or don't really know what an arpeggio is, that could also be it. Oh, notice those weird moving things on stage? Those are 'musicians', and he's playing together with them. That dude sitting behind that big machine is a drummer, you might have seen a few on television. Wow, who'd have thought.

I was comparing the first albums of each of the 3. I believe all but 2 tracks on Surfing w/ Alien are a drum machine, the liner notes even credit Satriani and one other guy with "drum programming". The subject is really not debatable.
For whatever that's worth. Woodshedding can become a cop-out for creativity. "When all you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

Thanks for the wisdom. Strange though, woodshedding apparantly onlu is a cop-out for creativity with electric guitars.

I wrote it CAN BECOME a cop-out, not that it IS a cop-out. You quoted my statement, then miscast it anyway.
Mozart got away with it in many an opera, Paganini loved to shred his violin to pieces and Rachmaninov went apeshit on his piano in his concertos. But when you do the exact same stuff on a guitar (fast bits mixed with slower melodies, heavy reliance on virtuoso techniques) it is suddenly a çop-out for creativity'. Oh, comparing satriani to malmsteen already kinda shows you don't really care about that kind of music and don't really know what they're doing.

I'm not sure what you're referring to, I did not use the word 'virtuoso'. But as long as you brought it up, you're probably right. The classical crowd decides who's a 'virtuoso', using what criteria I don't know. But it does seem like not all instruments are eligible. You'll never see that title conferred to a plectrum guitar player. Ernstmusik vs. Unterhaltungsmusik.
But hey, be my guest. If Satriani is creativity-less woodshedding then I can't wait to hear your tunes. darn, they must be so good.

My skill level has nothing to do with the discussion, but I'll take it as a compliment to be compared to these other guys. BTW I happen to like Satriani. But we were comparing him to Hendrix...
Oh: check Malmsteem doing Purple Haze: http://youtube.com/watch?v=95SYIpB0njQ
The same dude on his classical guitar: http://youtube.com/watch?v=griHv2CjxWo&mode=related&search=

That's an excellent interpretation of one of Hendrix's hits. (The classical one didn't load?)
I'm not a big fan of him but saying he just knows his arpeggios is just... bizarre.

Not *that* bad, is it?

Yes, that is a bizarre statement. And I said no such thing.

OK let me come at it a little slower. Shredding is just fine. It's worked great for Dimebag and many others. But how often is Dimebag compared to Hendrix? Shredding CAN BECOME a crutch, at times when the creative juices aren't flowing. It also CAN BECOME a time sink. Time that could be spent composing or coming up with licks, jamming etc. You have to balance that.

There'S also a limit to how far you can go with chops. Yngwie has built a monument to that. On the other hand, Hendrix said he couldn't read music, but he sure composed and performed a lot in just 3 years.

There's another point about Hendrix that might be worth a passing mention....he virtually re-popularised the Stratocaster. At that time, it had fallen out of favour amongst rock guitarists, particularly in Britain where it was very much linked to the Hank Marvin sound (and I don't mean any disrespect to Hank, he was a fine guitarist, and a big influence on Mark Knopfler, for one.)

Suddenly, along came this ultra-cool black guy (as has been mentioned before, still very much second-class citizens in those times...) with his wild hair and clothes and a white strat....next thing, what Jimi was doing was copied by everyone...
all the girls wanted him, and all the lads wanted to BE Jimi.....and to own a white Strat and a wah-wah.....

So it wasn't just his guitar playing - it was his image as well, he wasn't just a trend-setter musically speaking!

:D :D :D

Vic