Jimi Hendrix - just a tad overrated ?

Miles Davis, just a tad overrated? Perhaps just a tad.

Frank Zappa, just a tad overrated? Perhaps just a tad.

Gershwin, Mingus, Cage, Parker, Coltrane, etc, etc, etc just a tad overrated? Perhaps just a tad.

The nickalicious answer: Why heavens NO my dear man!

don't say jimi taught eddie what he knows cos he really didn't.

True. Eddie Van Halen ripped his shit straight from Chet Atkins (finger-pickin stuff) and Steven Hackett (two-handed tapping stuff). He has said so himself MANY A TIME.

Dude, Kenan, I love you. And JP, contrary to what you may believe, I love you too. But Jimi-the-songwriter = DA POOH.

The biggest problem with Hendrix is that he's just an awful singer -- sure, he has a great voice, but even with this massively cool-sounding voice the most he can muster is to occasionally distract you from the fact that he has no ability whatsoever as a vocalist. It's not so terrible on the upbeat numbers, which are essentially just rock-and-talk instrumentals with some hyping chatter on them, but in the slower bits it's just painful, the same ostensibly-serious drawl but with the intonation and phrasing of one of those guys who reads books onto plastic records for kids to look along with. I mean, "Castles made of Sand," I almost expect to hear

so the Indian boy [BEEP] turn the page, alright

and I just can't take it. That's the other thing, I have this irrational aversion to how he calls out every solo and change like some sort of tour guide, which just reinforces the fact that -- from today's perspective -- half of his work is just flat-out mugging for the camera.

Okay but so THAT SAID it's not his fault. Much as I hate to forgive the sixties for really unforgivable levels of wank in all directions, it's flatly obvious that it was pretty impressive and compelling at the time, and it's just the over-compelling effect it's had on like way to much of everyone since that's run it to the point of senselessness, picking up exactly the worst mugging of guys like Hendrix and turning it into the uber-mugging. The problem is that, you know, the same thing could be said of boys having long hair, and at some point we were all able to just fucking move on and not go around valorizing the long hair of boys in the sixties, even if it was really impressive back then and it was latter-day mullet-head who took the steam out of it. Whereas with Hendrix people keep pretending that there's something deep and meaningful in his stuff that's completely absent from the work of the clerk at the guitar store. And there probably is, but not that much, and anyway standing in today's shoes does it even matter?

I dunno, if you can still see this stuff straight enough to tell me -- in the author-is-dead just-look-at-the-product sort of way -- that there's something I should be getting out of Hendrix and not out of Troy at Guitar Center, well then good on you for catching it. But as far as I can tell Hendrix stuff either needs to be buried in a time capsule for half a century until we can actually deal with it again, or we need to put some fucking distance in there ourselves, either by hating it or ironizing it or playing with it or something.

The biggest problem with Hendrix is that he's just an awful singer -- sure, he has a great voice, but even with this massively cool-sounding voice the most he can muster is to occasionally distract you from the fact that he has no ability whatsoever as a vocalist.

I've read too many of your posts and respect you too much that you honestly find this such an issue.

Anyway also I understand on an intellectual level that there was this massive amount of creation and invention going on in Hendrix's stuff but when I put it on I just don't hear it -- it's on the books but I can't seem to find it there in the music itself.

there's a intellectual level to understanding this (you could prob apply musicological args to almost anything but i don't play that game yet) and then there isn't, really

(I'm ans to some of nabisco's points not the retarded fuck who started this thread)

there's wank to every decade (I want dan perry to wake up)

He had a sense of humor and a tender side and a sexual side and could write 3 minute pop songs and perform 10 minute abstract improvisation.

I mean here's a guy who wrote and sang "The Wind Cries Mary" and did that version of "Star Spangled Banner", and we have to argue if he's any good? The rock hating is getting tiresome.

Probably half the music I like has "bad" vocals.

''Probably half the music I like has "bad" vocals.''

that's right. I've had this out on the doors thread and the Pil thread.

after punk this args abt vocals are really useless (I'm not saying 'anything goes' but the threshold for 'bad' vocals has increased).

(NB my problem with his vocals isn't that he's a "bad" singer but that the vocals themselves just don't seem to do very much.)

I don't know, who can say how much Hendrix lay up nights worrying about being a black man in a white man's world? He certainly always seemed like a phlegmatic fellow. But that whole Band of Gypsies thing. Total disengagement move. The guy just followed his muse and did not care. We are able to reap the benefits.

Nabisco, you don't need to apologize! My reasons for liking Hendrix are pretty much the same reasons everyone else has--my viewpoint on this is very close to the consensus viewpoint, so I don't think I'm the person to convince you about this. or maybe tonight's not the night for me to, since I'm doing some other writing right now and want to concentrate my energies on it somewhat (yeah yr doing GREAT by posting this Matos)

to come dangerously close to sounding like a hippie, not many people have played music that seemed like such a natural, flowing extension of themselves. and his voice rulzxorxed, dammit.

because you're totally lame. it hasn't lured me yet, most hendrix sounds like soulless, muso crap to me and i strongly suspect that three-quarters of the people who claim to enjoy it are purely full of shit (and probably own no fugazi records, either, and are thus untrustworthy).

i don't really feel guilty about it, though. i do enjoy some hendrix-derived music (genesis, moody blues, tribe called quest, lenny kravitz, seal, supertramp, the thrill jockey label) but i refuse to feel bad about other people's fucked up tastes.

yes, i have down syndrome. and you're called "squirrel_police" tee hee hee!!

thanks for not calling it "down's syndrome,"
me

aww, my stalker came back! so cute!

they are a live concern only (might see them someday).

I second that, Andrew, it's an excellent book. I particularly like the way he separates out and analyses the aspects of different genres (blues, jazz, soul etc) in his music.

Taste is taste nabisco, but you missing it. Hendrix as the last great bluesman, and as the extension of the entire r&b thing up until that time, and as a great songwriter (yeah the words might be a bit ungrammatical as in "Castles," but nearly every tune has some MUSICAL bit that only someone who wanted to make the seemingly mundane and received interesting would've thought to put in, thus elevating him from mere craftsman to true innovator), he has no peer at all. I decided long ago that guitar-lovers were mostly divided into two big camps--those who love the Fripp/Van Halen (yeah, I put 'em together, "proficient" and even intermittently innersting players totally lacking in grit, soul, etc.) school, and those who love the Hendrix/Nile Rodgers/Mayfield etc. rhythm-guitar-based funky guitar style. Hendrix beats Clapton, Garcia, and name 'im from any decade, any era, because he was a master of tasteful, understated, essential rhythm guitar, and he could do all the rest as well. "Electric Ladyland" is one of the few classic rock albums that is truly visionary, out there...yet rooted in the Impressions and Earl King and all that. So hell no, he is not overrated, and to say that he needs to be buried reveals perhaps that we have lost our soul a little bit? Sorry, don't mean to say YOU have but Hendrix is such a perfect example of the persistence of African-American culture and its ability to, you know, as Jimi might've said, FREAK HIMSELF OUT.

words like tasteful, understated and essential are the enemies of humanity.

wasn't he buried in 1970?

soul is a marooned signifier lacking any signified.

who the fuck is earl king?

One of my favorite quotes comes from Jimi's own grandma:

"I've seen it all. I've seen slavery, and I've seen Jimi Hendrix perform."

words like tasteful, understated and essential are the enemies of humanity.

wasn't he buried in 1970?

soul is a marooned signifier lacking any signified.

who the fuck is earl king?

-- Eye Ronnie

I like that, "marooned signifier." Earl King did a fast shuffle with that very title, at the Dew-Drop Inn, New Orleans, 1962--got himself some "trim" with it too, he thanks ya. You Ronnie. (Sorry to objectify there with the use of the sexist slang, please forgive just this once.)

- fuck this whole classic-is-superior mentality when it comes to who innovated what.
-- JP Albin
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Yeah I don't think it would be possible to make me any less proud to agree with you on this one.
-- nabisco

_________

So what about someone like Bach then? Am I supposed to believe that some conservatorium performance of Bach's music is equal to the original? I think it's only natural that we favour the innovator, the one who came up with authentic original music. Hendrix changed guitar music more than anyone else. He just was a genius of the same order as JS Bach, imo, and is beyond reproach. I've seen footage of him playing and singing with a 12-string acoustic, some kind of 12-bar blues I think, and he did that like no-one else too, he wasn't only a lead guitarist. You watched him on stage and, as someone hinted above, it was like an erotic experience. His posture, his pained wailing expressions, his beautiful hands and the way he handled his instrument made him a complete one-off, a natural. I think HE was the catalyst for eveything that came after up to punk and post punk and the rest. Name a modern guitar band who's music would even exist had Jimi not exploded the boundaries of electric blues the way he did.

arg for AMM is obv OK w/me.

Explain this to me... does it have to do with the fact that everyone who has ever worked there, no matter the store or place, has always been really into 80s hair metal, and LOVE Rush?

I still love Jimi though, so nya.

I listened to Radio One Sessions this morning. Lotsa fun. Jimi was Great.

I guess it comes down to the fact that he has a fairly small catalog that's easy to exhaust. I don't listen to "Satisfaction" very much, although when I do I always seem to respond with some small bit of delight--but anyways the Stones, overexposed and overdiscussed though they may be, have a very large catalog by which to renew your enthusiasm. I think I've had my fill of Hendrix's three major records, sometimes I think the world has had its fill.

Oops, I doubt anyone would dispute that the guy was an unnaturally gifted musician.

Lots of people, like Earl King, were dabbling in jazzy voices before Hendrix, so H.'s embrace, imperfect as it was, of jazz doesn't seem any giant step to me. Hendrix is overstated, but he's also so casual. "Long Hot Summer Night" is very casual.

Chuck Eddy I enjoy too, but he's full of shit when he says that about "token" whatever...that's Chuck Eddy's problem in that particular case. Who's blacker than whom, that seems totally beside the point, as is the fretwagging hordes who missed the subtlety and the good humor but loved the bombast--heavy metal, here we come. Also I could care less whether an artist is racist, frankly--cf. Michael Bane, "White Boy Singing the Blues" and the Memphis tradition, which isn't exactly PC.

I hate heavy metal music myself, I admit that out front. Hendrix is the father of a lot of it, but Led Zepp and all the other, far worse, British wanking blues bands are equally as responsible. If not more.

Obviously, I think he's great, very great, possibly the greatest musician to come out of pop music in the '60s, period. It's something that's right there in front of you, so big (and not even really that complex) that it's easy to dismiss it, since its hip cachet is long gone. Again, jess and the rest, I respect your views, but I really disagree with you on Hendrix.

good joke but this isn't a hendrix vs prince thread.

(I kind of neglect this bcz I 've never to classic rock radio and media overexposure is a bitch when you are trying to get into the meaning).

So OTM

Surely you guys don't think it's, like, that purely self-evident that Hendrix is beyond reproach? I was expecting some more people to be down on him, especially because a Hendrix discussion in my office last week ended with everyone agreeing that a lot of it just sounds silly now.

We need more British people up in this thread.

yeah this put me off the beatles but I like the early stuff a lot now and lots of the white album.

I think we've had a couple of big threads on him already.

and yeah: its a pretty good thread thanks to nabisco.

So does a lot of L Armstrong stuff.

Which is my experience with a lot of '60s music--Hendrix, Beefheart, Stones, Velvets, Can...I could go on. In almost all cases, I went back after massive, toxic overexposure (being "stoned") and found that I really liked it, it was actually quite basic and even healthy, somehow, and that I had just over-thought the whole damned thing. Back to Earl King and a glazed doughnut. And that's where I am now. With most rock and roll, punk, and indie, actually. I know the above is silly, but it seems kind of Hendrixian (?) to me...

Outside of the 3 Experience albums (which include far more good non-"Purple Haze" stuff than has been mentioned so far--like "3rd Stone from the Sun" to name just one, it's jazz y'know), there is:

Band of Gypsies ("Machine Gun," onomatapeic warzone guitar etc, heaviest rhythm section he ever had)

First Rays of the New Rising Sun (all the good posthumous studio stuff that was going to his next album collected, Jimi gets further into the layered guitar but goes back to the songwriting basics, fills out the sound with more rhythm instruments etc, even if it's not actually finished this is still almost as good as the official albums)

Radio One (really fun stuff he recorded live for the BBC, lots of covers including Beatles, Elvis, Howlin' Wolf etc., straight blues, concise renditions, the band just having fun and blasting it out)

And a bunch of great live albums, which are worth hearing because Hendrix was a stellar improviser and you can actually get something out of hearing him do different versions of the same songs. Of which the best are:

Live at Winterland
Hendrix in the West
The Jimi Hendrix Concerts

And after that, you have cool comps like "Blues" (he was Great purely on the basis of his blues playing) before you start getting into the cash-in dreck.

The remarkable thing is how much great music he managed to record in such a short period of time.

i recommend that all of you take another listen: MP3 (~3.75MB)

considering that Band of Gypsys is as responsible for what funk became as any James Brown album, not to mention that the Experience records pretty much rewrote the templates for what rock, R&B, blues, pop, psychedelia and even jazz would become...um, BULLSHIT.

(I also don't understand how my open-ended question could be perceived as cant. But don't let that stop you from making another pointed comeback.)

cross-posts w/Scott damn

of COURSE he didn't have the range because he didn't have the career. then again nirvana - who were around for 6 years? - didn't have the range of led zeppelin - who were around for for, what, 10? sure they only released 3 albums and one odds'n'sods to zep's 6-7 (and one odds'n'sods), but it's what you do with the time you got, not the time itself, right? then again, zep's project (like prince's to a lesser extent) was warping any music they listened to their zep-framework whereas nirvana's was to write pop songs in their nirvana-framework. which makes the comparison, essentially, bullshit. i'm willing to take some of this talk of jimi's presupposed pick'n'mix genius at face value, but i have HEARD the canonical hendrix albums (live records and bootlegs are of no interest to me with almost any band/artist)...and well, i'd be lying if i said that i could see the future rainbow coalition of modern music that matos seems to. (how, for instance, does jimi predict hip-hop? i'll give you, uh, the red hot chilli peppers.) if anything, hendrix is interesting to me becaus he presents an indigestible PROBLEM for black (and all) pop, and in that way he's quite like both zep and prince. (who are paid constant lipservice to, but dillytants rarely directly inspire as much they seem. and not always what you expect: we owe trent reznor to prince much more than the neptunes, and we own stevie ray vaughn more to hendrix than un the neptunes.) hendrix's irreducible BLACKNESS makes his WHITENESS (y'know, that flower-power rock music thing) that much harder to integrate into current black pop. so you get mos def namechecking him without actually engaging with his sound (common not to thread, not only because it fucks with the theory but also because he's a one off) and you get pharrel ironically namechecking fucking AMERICA over jimi, because america is a nice, easy signifier of his NERD-iness (read: the white stuff excised by hip-hop which makes him "different", cf. kodwo eshun in hyperdub on n.e.r.d.) whereas grappling with jimi's legacy would actually force him to answer some hard questions about artists who actually stradled racial/cultural/musical boundaries.

Not that many, and you forgot mentioning the few really good songs that he did actually write ("Little Wing", "The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp" and "The Wind Cries Mary")

But as a whole entity, he was essentially sui generis.

So I'm having it both ways.

And if you haven't heard Hendrix's live stuff, then you've missed out on a major part of him.

see all uses of horrible noise EVER in a non-lab-coat-wearing musique concretist sense, which takes care of Rick Rubin, the Bomb Squad, Marley Marl. see also Funkadelic, impossible to imagine w/o the Band of Gypsys; then see all G-funk.

so you get mos def namechecking him without actually engaging with his sound

what's wrong w/your argument, Jess, is that you seem to be insisting that Hendrix's "sound" = sounding just like him, which is too fucking binary. what I'm saying is that Hendrix changed the way everybody approcahed sound; no one sounds just like him because no one else can (and when they do it usually sucks). he pioneered noise-as-music, volume-as-music, music-as-immersion-that's-still-pop. he's not the only person to do those things, but he's definitely the most pop (meaning non-jazz or concrete or whatever; chart-bound) person to do it earliest and with the most concentration.

also, Jess, you're the last person on his board who should make fun of other people getting indignant

See cause the Hendrix discussion on this thread is exactly why I can't get him: I totally believe everything that's been said about his music's immense resonance in everything since, and that's exactly why I have trouble seeing any point in going back and listening to it. (It's like if you show me a brick wall and say "this was the first wall made out of bricks, it totally reshaped the way we build walls." It's a brick wall.)

Exactly why I prefer English psychedelia (the most wimsy sort) to American psychedelia. Using all sorts of electronic effects on guitars and vocals may have sounded different in 1967, but "everybody" has done it afterwards. Using sitars, guitars recorded backwards and "high" vocals singing nursery-rhyme-like lyrics about pink elephants, however. That sounds so 1967 the style is still instantly recognizable.

i also don't see how anything i wrote could be interpreted as saying that "hendrix's 'influence' must = sounding just like him." if anything, i would think that stating that my primary interest in hendrix (as both a figure and a sound generator, and in music the two are rarely if ever seperable) is how he relates or doesn't to music today while NO ONE EXPLICITLY SOUNDS LIKE HIM is pretty clear indication that i think his "influence" (blah) runs much broader than "guys who play just like him." but saying that he SOLELY inspired "all uses of horrible noise EVER in a non-lab-coat-wearing musique concretist sense" or "pioneered sound-as-music" is reductionist as well as just plain wrong. (so in what ways ISNT it cant?) picking bones about what he "pioneered" is as useless/useful as saying "sabbath inspired all metal which came after them", which, y'know may be sorta, kinda true but so fraught with inconsistencies (hendrix himself, for one) that it kinda falls apart as an argument for sabbath's greatness.

and pharrell DOES NOT trade in hendrix's image AT ALL, except possibly in the way that, yes, all black artist's who came in the shadow of james brown must grapple in one way or another with what he left us (which is some ways different from "paying homage.") hendrix NEVER undercut his swagger with schoolboy idiocy. one the primary things that makes his persona so exciting is that at 19 you really did think that young jimi had Done It All.

yeah, he's not too bad with that guitar thing i hear. could do with some better songs tho, sometimes. i like coltrane and all too, but the mystical modal mucous gets a bitch much.

(my parents did have a record collection which i borrowed from, but it was all my own initiative to build my record collection around rolling stone's top 100 albums, i'm afraid. but hey, most of them are good albums, and i did move on)

the solely part is wrong of course.

we are getting caught up in 'influence' and 'importance' as an artist and all that crap.

ben williams is completely otm.

But, sure, much of his stuff has been overplayed, a lot of it can be cheesy, a lot of the songwriting was really basic. I don't really care that much about his influence (though I totally disagree that he invented heavy metal).

Dave Davies and Townshend (and Wolf's Sumlin/Willie Johnson, the various Kings of Miss. and La., etc.) were important. With some exceptions here and there, though, what they did was like country music in many ways, an interesting and intermittently adventurous but essentially pro forma and hidebound music that didn't really ever change. B. B. King is great but it's one thing; ditto Albert King ("Jimi just playin' what I been playin' up in Osceola, Ark., on mah front-end loader durin' my day job..." gimme a break), etc. Blues music as we all know hasn't gone anywhere to speak of since about 1960--except for those people like Hendrix, Beefheart, few others (Ulmer?) who've dared to do something with it. So, tradition, as usual, good thing but only to point.

Whereas Davies and all the rest--they didn't know anything, good for them. They'd heard some generalized blur of "blues" and like most of those rather stupid British blues people of art school persusasion, were just confused about the whole thing. At least Townshend was smarter than the rest, as were the Stones. But it was a case of a crippling purism mixed with a total misunderstanding of how all that black American music fitted togther--not to mention the usual racial fear, envy, and un-hipness about what the "black audience" in America really was like (they, uh, weren't really listening to blues too much by even 1960, just in a few places like westside/southside Chicago, down south). In other words, yeah, "You Really Got Me," "distorted guitar," "innovation," but come on--they underneath it all were just the bastard sons of Richard Berry, homogenized Latin riffs played badly (good) and so forth. The only thing that saved the Kinks were the lyrics, in the end.

All of which is pretty much lame in the extreme compared to Hendrix.

Interesting then, that Hendrix had to come to the UK to get his career started, and hired a couple of Brits to back him. Maybe this 'total misunderstanding' at least meant that minds were open enough to accept him and his music.

I think Hendrix performed a useful service circa 1967 in showing up Clapton for the one-dimensional limited blues-bore that he always was.

And sure, Hendrix did show up Clapton--a nice lead guitar player, but that's it, nice tone. I mean anyone who says Eric Clapton can't play is wrong, but it's what he's playing, his conception, I find thin.

Anyway, I want to know more about this Earl King geezer, assuming that he actually existed and hasn't just been made up. Any links?

Showing up "Clapton for the one-dimensional limited blues-bore that he always was" is just the tip of the iceberg.

No more than we fetishized *everything* over here in the 60's, and maybe ever since. The fetishize, ape, bastardize & discard cycle was fairly efficient from 62/3 onwards. Maybe Hendrix sensed this and knew that stuff would be more *interesting* for him over here. However, I reckon he was too advanced and different to get thrown into the mix with everything else - it took years for his ideas to get picked apart and used.

I mean, The Beatles broke and suddenly there's a huge swathe of beat groups following in their wake. But when Hendrix broke, everyone just seemed to stand back and say 'wow! how the f@ck do you do that!'. There's precious little Hendrix-worship in late 60's UK music.

(waves hand)

here's what's also frustrating: what I should have said quite a while back was "I know Jess was kidding but I think there was more range in Hendrix's music than he's being given credit for." the problem is that I didn't know he was kidding because I didn't read the thread very carefully, and I wound up backing myself into a corner as a result. I stand by most of what I said but I could have been nicer about it; my conduct here has been less than exemplary. apologies.

part of that has to do with my frankly being unable to say anything remotely articulate about the guy's music over the last few days. one thing that blew me away about his stuff when I discovered it (and I mean "discovered" in the sense of "this has always been here but I'm actually hearing it for the first time," which would be around 21 years old) is that at his highest/finest he always seemed to be carried by something bigger than him; there's something preternatural about the music's feel, a sense of channeling rather than leading the way. hippie mystic bullshit, right, but it's about as well as I can do with him. even after we know about the technical aspects of his style and/or what he listened to etc., there's no way to prepare for him. you can rationalize Hendrix all you want, but the music itself still has a force-of-nature drive, even when it dates itself (plenty of the lyrics, some of the effects, definitely the stereo-placement of the mixes). the Tate book explains everything I mean here a lot better, though.

you're arguing for Hendrix as the Mad Magazine of rock: so successful in his project that his relevance or impact isn't there any more. i think tehre are ASPECTS of Hendrix that are part-and-parcel of what we take for granted about music now; what Matos talked about, the immersion in feedback, the tube-fuzz texture of sound that could be wallowed in for its own sake, sound qua sound if you like; to me, right now, this seems like his most far-reaching and lasting contribution to pop music, even above his "skills"; BUT this is only one aspect. we've heard from many other people here about his other "value-adds" and i don't see their ubiquity: o_nate on his expansion of what the the guitar could do in a rock ensemble; matos on his feeling of his lead sound as an irresistable force to be reckoned with, matched VERY rarely to my mind, not even by SRV who was far more business-like even when he was getting all evil-snake about it; personality-wise as beatific loveable goof who turned all jekyll on stage; and lastly, to state the obvious, he was a black man in a rock band whose guitar was the main focus. none of these things are exactly inspiring Musik covers these days.

-- Marcello Carlin

Hell no, Earl King wuddn't made up Marcello. He wrote lotsa New Orleans hits for himself and other people--he wrote "Trick Bag." He came up with a fairly cool method of sub-Mel-Bay circling thru cycle of fifths/sevenths blues guitar (supposedly inspired by a visit from jazz guitarist Barney Kessell)...he was so drunk once at BB King's Club on Beale St. he played all his songs on one string...past his prime. He's really Silas Johnson, b. NOLA 1934. EMI America had a good LP out, '86, with his hits--typical New Orleans stuff w/titles like "Mama and Papa," "Don't You Lose It," "Come On-Part 1," cover of Guitar Slim's "Things I Used to Do," etc. What can I say, my dad had all those old Imperial 45s and was into that kind of guitar playing, so while I was all into whatever noise I liked back as a tyke in the late '70s/early '80s there was always this other stuff in the background...another even greater guitarist down there is Snooks Eaglin, perhaps the most underrated of all "blues" guitarists, typically ill-served by this purist "roots-rock" production esthetic of the Black Top Records geezers.

Try Offbeat mag in NOLA, they have all kinds of archived stories about the local greats.

Look, Hendrix fucking rules and those of you who think otherwise have a MOAB of reality coming in the near future.

And by the way.. Hendix, overrated? Who the fuck do you think you are? You're overrated. Bitch.

TURBOJUGEND FOREVER!!!!

"Hear My Train a-Comin' " from "Rainbow Bridge" is about as good as JH gets.

this might be the funniest thing i've seen on ILM in the past year.

the hendrix non-believers must try harder.

was just listening to Electric Ladyland last nite, inspired by that "1983" thread. So amazing...

"Jimi...ended up with six four by twelve Marshall cabinets, a four by twelve monitor, and four 100 watt Marshall tops, all souped-up and coupled-up through fuzz, wah-wah pedals, and a Univibe! He had a special box of gadgets and the fuzz and wah-wah pedals acted as pre-amps. If I tried to test his equipment, all I got was feedback. Jimi could control it all with his fingers, and I still don't understand to this day how he did it."

That said, if you were going to say he's overrated, it's obviously not his guitar playing. Certainly not his songwriting. But maybe his singing.....

One of my favorite Jimi moments isn't even on a Jimi Hendrix song. It's his solo on the Love song The Everlasting First.

I mean, almost anyone else would have played "Wind Cries Mary" with brushes, or cross-sticking, or a pingy ride pattern. Mitch turns to the floor toms. It's the loudest quiet song ever.

Part of my affection for his sound is how primitive it is; the drums are as dead as can be, and weren't miked in an especially sophisticated way. You should hear me fussing at present-day recording engineers and sound people about how I want my drums to sound "very 70s. Y'know, like Mitch Mitchell." Just overheads, man. Please do not close-mike the toms and gate them to death, until they're all bright and punchy. I want them to go "thud," not "boom."

Oh, and Jimi doesn't have to have innovated one god damn thing in order to be admired (by me, anyways). Excellence can lie in what you do with what you've been given.

Hendrix? Overrated? Bullshit. Yes, a lot of his material is "of its time," but that doesn't detract from the fact that he was the single greatest expressionist to pick up an electric guitar. And he always will be/

His synthesis of so many styles (Mayfield's rhythm comping, Buddy Guy's frenetic leads, Albert King's string-bending, etc) and his visionary use of effects and redefinition of what was tonally possible has never been equalled.

Some will argue Eddie Van Halen, but he was monochromatic next to the rainbow of sounds and styles that came out of Hendrix.

Page will always be a close second for me, but I have a hard time believing there would have been a Page if not for Hendrix.

Steve Vai said something to the effect of being able to play everything that Hendrix played, but not understanding how he conceived it. And any guitarist would likely agree with this statement. The way he took Mayfield's rhythm style and stretched it across the neck (Just look at Castles Made Of Sand and Little Wing - a proficient guitarist can learn these songs but could they write something 1/10 as interesting?) The way he voiced chords, I mean where did he come up with this stuff?

So much of Hendrix's style is part of the vocabulary. You hear it everywhere, so perhaps the familiarity breeds contempt.

Mick Hall OTM.

And that dude who was whining about Kirk Hammett not getting credit? KIRK HAMMETT? Hendrix had more soul in a single one of his headbands than Hammett will ever have. I can't listen to a Hammett solo without laughing outloud. Every single one of them is a mode exercise or a display of neo-classical arppegiation. Technical, without an OUNCE of FUCKING SOUL.

Seriously, this thread makes me mad!

And I love the comments on Mitch Mitchell. I would say that kind of drumming has been "lost" except nobody really played like him in the first place...

-- Tim Ellison, September 11th, 2004

Jimi Hendrix, Godfather of Shoegaze?

Perfect Sound Forever:What was the music that you were listening to before you were in any bands?

Ian MacKaye: I am an eternal Jimi Hendrix fan. Furthermore: Janis Joplin, the Beatles, Ted Nugent, Queen, Cheap Trick. So forth.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/fugazi.html

I babble, I know, but I think this is what's missed in discussion of Hendrix being overrated. There's so much music available to us, so many reference points, that you take for granted what it is for something new to have been created, influences & culture reinterpreted and made original.

It's just a matter of if you're open to learning something new, rather than resisting the education based on the assumption that everything is already known.

where does he do this? and do you hate james brown for doing this too? i understand you might hate wyclef for this, but where does hendrix do this?

"also I understand on an intellectual level that there was this massive amount of creation and invention going on in Hendrix's stuff but when I put it on I just don't hear it"

so youre saying he was just a guitar rambler who couldnt think about what he was playing but just smacked it out like some sort of primitive?

Are Tad overrated?

white stripes? theyve covered hear my train a comin when they did a show at electric lady studios. im sure theres more rock acts but theres dangelo, erykah badu, common, andre3000 too. maybe white rock acts dont know how to take hendrix cos most rock acts today, esp in the UK, dont seem to like taking from non white influnces. can anyone say any rock acts take cues from hendrix today? id like to know.

"My personal feelings about Hendrix: his songs haven't held up to the horrible overexposure."

you could say that about any 60s rock act though, from the beatles to the stones. much much much more so for them actually.

"Whereas (again to use a facile comparison) the Stones seem to keep reminding me of new contexts, new ways to hear them."

MWAHAHAHA

"I think the argument that Hendrix influenced/anticipated future developments in rock, blues and jazz to varying degrees is pretty straightforward (and I'd throw electronica in there too). Funk, R&B, pop and psychedelia I don't think he had much effect on (though they were definitely part of his own mix)."

funk in the 70s wouldnt have sounded like it did if it wasnt for hendrix and sly stone.

"grappling with jimi's legacy would actually force him to answer some hard questions about artists who actually stradled racial/cultural/musical boundaries."

true.

still, i've always thought of his songwriting ability in terms of crafting solos (and no, i dont for a second think you can play like that by instinct) not in more conventional songwriting.

Do you ever take a moment to picture Jimi actually excusing himself from a conversation and then kissing the sky?

music theory

Good Hendrix doco on the BBC this week. I'm not a huge fan, but he was an interesting guy for sure.

In re the theory stuff above, I would imagine a lot of the conventions of whether a note is *really* a flat x or *really* a sharp y come from the conventions of voice leading in western classical music, none of which really has much impact on the hendrix chord, which is static.

Whoa, 10 years ago ILM actually took the time to answer a question respectfully even if it was a dumb one and the op was obviously being agressive out of nowhere.

yea nowadays someone would be all like OI SOME BIG BELL-BOTTOMED BIRD IS A-PLAYIN THE BLUESIE-WEWSIES, IMA MAKE A 'ORRIBLE POST TO ME ILXOR CHUMS

omfg at that last post. Just spat laughing.

and his voice rulzxorxed, dammit.

― your null fame (yournullfame), Thursday, March 20, 2003 2:16 AM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really miss this kind of spirited debate round here

His voice really did rulzxorxed, though.

he had a great voice.
shame it's overshadowed bu his guitar
i don't understand how can anyone think differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koxpJ7nhz2Y

I would imagine a lot of the conventions of whether a note is *really* a flat x or *really* a sharp y come from the conventions of voice leading in western classical music, none of which really has much impact on the hendrix chord, which is static.

Yeah, but doesn't G in the chord anticipate G as the root of the next chord?

Oh yeah actually that's true

Good thread. Are You Experienced has great songwriting and performance. If someone is upset about the evil done by SRV and Mayer using Jimi's material, I'd recommend searching 'May This Be Love' on Spotify. There are many good-to-great covers, and perhaps this is a sign of a well written song.

kinda want to poll these covers, and I'm not sure that I can restrain myself.

i'm gonna start strumming the guitar with my penis. i will get so popular. people will adore me for that. i will have the biggest fanbase cos i'm such an innovator.
― JP Albin (John Paul Albin), Thursday, March 20, 2003 2:49 AM (11 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

JP Tanuki more like

I want to put out a guitar record under the stage name Tad Overrated

haha

album is called "Just a Tad"

horrible album titles...

Ellen McIlwaine actually has a few interesting Jimi covers and is basically awesome