This week (in celebration of my birthday) I am going to try and point out a couple of albums that came out the year I was born.
Jimi Hendrix's first two albums were released the same year as the Beatles' Sgt Pepper, Cream's Disraeli Gears, Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Doors (self titled) and of course my own personal debut (birthdate 7/7/67).
Through my early teen years, I remember seeing the usual history of Rock n' Roll footage of Hendrix playing the Monterey Pop Festival making feedback with his guitar and then setting it on fire. For a small town boy in North Platte, NE, I didn't get it. As teen years grew on, the sound of the electric guitar does something to a young man's hormones and his testosterone. Which I believe why hard rock guitars and teenage boys go together so well. In my senior year of High School, I bought a cassette that Warner Brothers had released called Kiss the Sky. This was my first time I sat down and listened to Jimi Hendrix. I was NOT on any chemicals of any kind at the time. I remember finishing the tape(yes it was a cassette) and picked up the phone to call a friend and couldn't remember why I was calling him. I blamed it on the "far out" "psychedelic" music of Hendrix. Years later, in college, It seemed the only people who gushed over Hendrix were stoner guys and guys who idealized everything that was classic rock radio and tried to replicate it on college radio.
I am continually thankful for all the wonderful misfits I've come to know in my life. I feel like if it weren't for those misfits, I wouldn't be the unique individual I am today. In 1988, I met a unique individual named Carl Hanson. Carl was known around Kearney for being the guy who dressed (and played) like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix. Carl was looking to put a blues trio together and asked me to play drums. I went to Carl's apartment and he made a cassette tape of Jimi Hendrix and SRV songs. He had a VHS copy of the 1973 Jimi Hendrix documentary. So, we went to my apartment and watched it from start to finish. It was like a crash course in the greatness that was Hendrix. Carl was ecstatic about Hendrix and the excitement was palpable. So, then we would go to his apartment listen to more Hendrix and just jam on Hendrix and SRV music. For my growth as a drummer, this was the point where I found the magical "groove" and was able to reach that point where everything I had learned about in rudiments and syncopation and technique just flowed from my brain to my hands and I just played. I stopped thinking about what to play and just did it. It was absolutely liberating. He taught me about the intro to Little Wing when the drums come in to propel the song into the next dimension and the rolling toms of Manic Depression gave me a rhythmic challenge I didn't know I could conquer. The frenetic playing of Mitch Mitchell on Fire was just out and out playing. At first, I thought Mitch's drumming was just a variation on the Keith Moon school of wild abandon playing. I soon learned it was much more. Even in his recent 2008 passing, it's been reported that Mitchell was a huge fan of jazz drummers and has even been called by many drummers as "the Elvin Jones of Rock Drumming". Soon thereafter, I went back home and put on the tape that Carl had given me. I played it in my car, my walkman and anywhere else I could soak it in. I was hooked. Something about Jimi and his new interpretation of the blues just smacked me into another world. Even as I write this and read back what I've written, it's hard to convey how revelatory this music was to me. We practiced hard for a month and half (or so) and played a Halloween party and Carl performed the live stuff just like Jimi did..dialogue and all. For example, we played Jimi's cover of Like a Rolling Stone and he quoted the part about the song being written by Bob Dylan and then pointing to Noel Redding and saying "That's his grandmother over there!" Well, the party-goers for this venue didn't get that. It was funny to see the looks of bewilderment. Of course, through the years, many of the songs from Jimi's debut have been covered by many who felt his influence. In the summer of 1989, a handful of my friends and I went to Omaha to see Metallica on their ...And Justice for All tour. When guitarist-Kirk Hammett took his mandatory guitar solo spot, he played an instrumental version of Hendrix's Little Wing. Kirk's Little Wing I was absolutely stimulated to know that this band would inject some Hendrix into the set. I still wonder how many of the fans that night caught that nod to Jimi. There's the Dana Carvey (as Garth Algar) scene in Wayne's World where Garth can't control his thrusting pelvis while Foxey Lady plays on the jukebox. Garth's Foxy Lady I remember loving Joe Satriani's unplugged performance of Jimi's May this Be Love. Joe Satriani -May this be Love
Over the years I have listened to Are You Experienced? so much that I have actually become tired of it. I recently downloaded the Live at Monterey concert that the Hendrix family had remastered. It's still an exhilirating concert with Jimi covering the Troggs-Wild Thing and his classic performance of Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone. Another sure sign of Jimi's influence is the many times that we have heard guitar players (while soloing) quote the signature phrase from Third Stone from the Sun. Santana Third StoneI think every time I've seen recent footage of Carlos Santana, he's managed to include that riff into whatever solo he's playing.
I feel like I'm rambling on about Hendrix and not the albums. But, then again, I could listen to Are You Experienced, Axis:Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland all in one sitting because they're all so good!
One of the songs I loved to play was Manic Depression. Both my brother and I could play it on bass and drums(respectively). So, it was fun for us to jam with other guitar players to see if they could play it. I'm not sure we ever found anybody. I think his childhood friend Hobbs could play it. Another song I used to love to play(still do) is Come On(Let the Good Times Roll) off the album Electric Ladyland. With our blues trio- Boogie Chillun', Mike, Jayson and I played a lot of obscure blues tunes. But, then again, we wanted to be a bluesy power trio with some funk and soul mixed in. One of the most memorable times I have playing Hendrix songs is a night when up and coming blues act-Indigenous was in town as was Lincoln based -Baby Jason and the Spankers. We had worked up a version of a Baby Jason song called Funky Thang. So, they wanted to hear us play it. But, in the same night, Mato Nanji (guitar) and his brother Pte (bass) of Indigenous were there and got up on stage and played Hendrix's Voodoo Child (Slight Return) with myself on drums and I'm happy to say I held my own, rocked the house and have my own personal story to pass on for years to come.
It's hard for me to talk about each one of the albums by the "Experience" separately. Are You Experienced is a great introduction to the talent that was Jimi Hendrix..not to mention the talent and sound presented by the trio of musicians. When you get to Axis:Bold as Love, the aural barrage of experimental music and interpretation of the blues and music in general goes that next step further into Jimi's imagination. I absolutely love the power behind the songs Spanish Castle Magic, You Got Me Floatin', and Little Miss Lover. But, I am mystified by the beauty of Bold as Love, Castles Made of Sand and (of course) Little Wing. For years, I've heard people like my peers and others criticize Jimi for his loud use of feedback and psychedelic style and dismiss it as just that. But, when I hear the beauty of those songs, I beg to differ.
By the time Jimi got around to making Electric Ladyland, Jimi was at the peak of his popularity and could do whatever he wanted. I have watched the Classic Albums edition of Electric Ladyland many times. This is the album where Jimi had sounds in his head for what he wanted and not only used his famed "Experience" band of Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, He also enlisted the talents of such musicians as Steve Winwood, Mike Finnigan, Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane), Al Kooper, Dave Mason and Buddy Miles too. My Favorites off of Electric Ladyland include: Crosstown Traffic, Voodoo Chile(both of them), Come On(let the Good Times Roll), Rainy Day Dream Away, and All along the Watchtower. Of course, these are the songs that everyone knows. But, the whole album is really another great listening experience from start to finish.
Most of my love for these albums come from the drumming of Mitch Mitchell. As a drummer myself, I connected with the drumming of Mitch and how he interpreted Jimi's playing into a style that was unique in itself. When Hendrix died, I was too young to know who he was and it wasn't until his legend grew after his death that I truly appreciated it. For me, both Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix and their fired up treatment of the blues are a big part of what gets me excited about music. When SRV passed away in August of 1990, I was absolutely thrown for a loop. I had only seen him a month before his passing. When Mitch Mitchell passed away in November of 2008, I was saddened of course because I always had hoped that Mitch would have made some new recordings in the (almost 40) years since Jimi had died that were just as great as the stuff he did with Hendrix. But, the legacy and influence of the Jimi Hendrix Experience is captured on 3 great albums from the years of 1967 and 1968....absolutely incredible considering a lot of artists can't even finish one album in a two year period.
As I write this, I have concluded that I have bought these 3 albums at least 4 times. While in college and working at Dustys, I bought them on vinyl. After seeing a Guitar magazine feature on Joe Satriani in the early 90's, I remember seeing Satch sitting at his CD player with a CD copies of these albums. So, I thought how cool it would be to have these on disc. In 1993, Alan Douglas re-released these albums with new album artwork and remastered recordings through MCA records(the original were through Warner Bros records). So, I bought those versions of them. In 1997, Jimi's dad-Al Hendrix won the rights to Jimi's recordings and then released them again with the original album artwork. So, I bought them again. Those are the copies I currently own. Now in 2010, Sony Music Entertainment is rereleasing them once again with an accompanying DVDs. I'm not sure I really want to buy yet another version of these albums yet again. I'm just not that interested in riding the consumer treadmill again on this one.
But, if you don't own any of these, I highly recommend them...after all I bought them 4 times.
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