A friend of mine emailed me a link to an NPR story on Jimi and asked if I was going to write anything today since it was the 40th Anniversary. I actually wrote something up back in July about Jimi Hendrix and the three "Experience" albums. So, I'm posting a link to that blog.
But, in memory of Jimi, I'd like to say that the music of Jimi Hendrix was an absolute game changer for me as a music fan and a drummer. I met a guitar player named Carl Hanson who was a Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix fanatic. He had asked me to play drums with him for a blues trio he was putting together called "Bluesberry Stew". When we started jamming and we did lots of that, it was the first time that I found the almighty "groove" and my playing switched from the formal drum education of rudiments and time signatures into just plain feeling the music and applying what I knew into my instrument. I still get excited listening to Jimi. There was an energy to his playing. He took the blues and rock and jazz and put it in a "stew" together and it came out as the most aurally stimulating music that musicians and music lovers still revere.
In the spring of 1992, I saw the band Arc Angels at the Ranch Bowl in Omaha. The band featured guitarists Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton along with Stevie Ray Vaughan's rhythm section of Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon. That night, they played a song that wasn't on their album called Angel. It would be later that I realized it was a Jimi Hendrix song that had been released after his death. That song is a beautiful song and still a favorite of mine.
I was only 3 years old when Jimi died. So, I had no idea who he was until many years later. It's amusing that he only lived to the age of 27 and his music and the stories of Jimi have lived on for 40 years after his death.
Thank you Jimi for your music you gave us!
My music and memory blog from July 2010
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