Jimi Hendrix

[desertbluesman]

Two hours of Jimi Hendrix on PBS tonight. pretty neat show. Tracked his whole life pretty much. A must watch for an amateur 1960's guitarist from the Jersey Shore. I generally hate the TV schtick, but for me this was some good TV. I liked it.

 

[Junior 1]

I was surprised to hear that he didn't like his own voice! He has one of the most iconic voice and guitar sounds there are!

[Larryz]

I actually liked Jimi's vocals and lyrics and covers more than his guitar playing. The guitar playing was nothing less than great too! Great show!

[Junior 1]

Throughout the show I only saw him play a lefty guitar once! The pictures from the Isley Brothers with him playing a Dano was cool. It appears that long after he could afford any guitar he wanted he still flipped over rightys! How about the sound he was getting out of that 12 string!

[whitefang]

Back in his time, Junior, makers didn't put out lefty guitars much. He either didn't care for the ones who did, or he kept so busy he didn't want to take the time to have one made. Either way, it made no difference. He sounded great regardless.

 

I wondered where they got those interviews with Redding and Mitchell since they've been long dead before this show got aired. Was it all put together beforehand? Or what?

 

His comment to Dick Cavett about paying attention to fame being a distraction and leading to complacency seemed to make a lot of sense since I've noticed it happen to a lot of artists over the years. I knew for a long time about the "Jekyll and Hyde" personality between performer and person, and it's always been one of his facets I found to be endearing.

 

Great show. I gotta find if there's a DVD of it available.

Whitefang

[Scott Fraser]

Great seeing Jimi with a Jazzmaster in his Chitlin Circuit days. I never knew he played that.

[whitefang]

What I found surprising was that, even though, of course, I knew about him once playing for Little Richard, I DIDN'T know about Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave and the Isley Brothers.

Whitefang

[LeftyBlues]

Wonderful show! I did not know he played in the band that became Humble Pie. What a genuinely nice guy too, true once in a lifetime genius.

[whitefang]

The one thing I took away was that one person on the show kept referring to Jimi as a "blues guitarist". And indeed, I recalled a show back when my local NPR station played a lot of music. There was a show I heard on the way to work in which someone was pointing out, with recordings, the similarities in many of Jimi's riffs with riffs and passes that were much used in blues artists of the past. Jimi's riffs and passes were much the same stuff "on steroids", as we'd say today. The guy wasn't ragging Jimi, but rather praised him for breathing "new life" into the tired and old riffs.

 

It could be said that Jimi breathed "new life" into everything he tried. Guitar playing, guitar sound, blues, rock, even attitudes.

 

I would go so far as to claim Hendrix was as important to the developement of '60's popular culture as the Beatles were four years earlier.

Whitefang

[desertbluesman]

For me it was The Beatles, Hendrix, and The Cream. Of course I listened to all of the other 60's/70's bands as well and had an extensive record collection of varied things from folk and country to hard rock and everything in between. But The Beatles, Hendrix, and The Cream, were at the top of my list as the most favorite. To this day I listen to those bands in my MP3 player quite a lot. Mostly I listen to those years, the 60's 70's as well. But I do have some later stuff, Satriani, Van Halen, Eric Johnson, Peter Frampton's newer stuff and a bunch of others.

[whitefang]

OOPS! I forgot DYLAN!

 

Both the BEATLES and HENDRIX claimed to be influenced either lyrically or musically, or both, by him. Hendrix was a huge fan.

Whitefang

[desertbluesman]

yeah I listened to Dylan a lot back then. Usually on the way to work in Philly driving from the Jersey Shore, usually on the radio on WMMR 93.3 FM, back in the day. I loved his wry sense of humor.

[p90jr]

In the moment, playing with my kid, I totally forgot this was on... and I work for the local PBS network... duh...

 

well, here's a link to view it online for a while, and support your local PBS station!!!

 

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/jimi-hendrix/film-jimi-hendrix-hear-my-train-a-comin/2756/

[Larryz]

Dylan is still one of my all time favorites. I liked Cream, Beatles, Hendrix, Doors, Steppen Wolf, Dylan, Elvis, Orbison, Ventures, Beach Boys, CCR, The Kinks, The Animals, Joplin, Dion, and later on the Eagles...and the List goes on.

[desertbluesman]

That is the beauty of the 60's/70's music scene, you could like the Zepplin and at the same time enjoy Pete Seeger, and Joni Mitchell, then listen to something harder. No one was in a box of only listening to one genera like you hear about today. Everybody and every style was relevant in those days. I enjoyed the heck out of all that creativity. It inspired me to play many styles of stuff over the years.

[whitefang]

That is the beauty of the 60's/70's music scene, you could like the Zepplin and at the same time enjoy Pete Seeger, and Joni Mitchell, then listen to something harder. No one was in a box of only listening to one genera like you hear about today. Everybody and every style was relevant in those days. I enjoyed the heck out of all that creativity. It inspired me to play many styles of stuff over the years.

 

Especially in the late '60's. You could hear them all on ONE RADIO STATION! Not "format specific" as radio is today. It wasn't rare to hear 30-45 minutes of uninterrupted music with line-ups like Airplane followed by Dylan followed by the Mothers followed by Miles Davis followed by Cohen followed by Cream and on and on like that. Now, they make a big deal out of "20 minutes of commercial free music" except, of course, station promos.

Whitefang

[desertbluesman]

That is the beauty of the 60's/70's music scene, you could like the Zepplin and at the same time enjoy Pete Seeger, and Joni Mitchell, then listen to something harder. No one was in a box of only listening to one genera like you hear about today.

 

Especially in the late '60's. You could hear them all on ONE RADIO STATION! Not "format specific" as radio is today.

 

That is how I got a varied musical appreciation attitude, I started out in music singing a-capella and only listened to doo wop stuff, no other music worked for me. But when I started listening to underground FM radio in the late 60's that did it for me. Of course the freak scene of the late 60's (and everything that went with that) helped me to evolve out of only listening to one style. My former group of a-capella singers are still only listening and performing the doo wop stuff of the late 50's/early 60's.

 

So the FM radio of the times helped me evolve beyond the little box I was into musically into a broader musical appreciation.

[Bottom End]

Especially in the late '60's. You could hear them all on ONE RADIO STATION! Not "format specific" as radio is today. It wasn't rare to hear 30-45 minutes of uninterrupted music with line-ups like Airplane followed by Dylan

Even into the early 70's I could hear a band like Little Feat on AM, no less, coming out of NYC! Once I discovered FM radio, I often went to sleep with the little transistor under my pillow. Album sides, dusk-to-dawn artist features, six-packs of new releases, it was a golden era. Living outside of Boston in the '80's, I was spoiled for choice with so many great commercial, local, and college radio stations, as well as a variety of roommates who exposed me to a lot of great artists. My teenage kids mostly discover new music through YouTube, then they buy the albums.

[Owens92]

I was surprised to hear that he didn't like his own voice! He has one of the most iconic voice and guitar sounds there are!

 

That's what I was thinking, too! Hey Joe was the first Jimi's song I've heard and my first thought was:"Hey, his voice is so amazing!" Great people are never satisfied about their achievements, that's exactly what makes them better.

[picker]

Especially in the late '60's. You could hear them all on ONE RADIO STATION! Not "format specific" as radio is today. It wasn't rare to hear 30-45 minutes of uninterrupted music with line-ups like Airplane followed by Dylan

Even into the early 70's I could hear a band like Little Feat on AM, no less, coming out of NYC! Once I discovered FM radio, I often went to sleep with the little transistor under my pillow. Album sides, dusk-to-dawn artist features, six-packs of new releases, it was a golden era. Living outside of Boston in the '80's, I was spoiled for choice with so many great commercial, local, and college radio stations, as well as a variety of roommates who exposed me to a lot of great artists. My teenage kids mostly discover new music through YouTube, then they buy the albums.

 

I was very fortunate to be in Tucson, Az from 72 to 77, with KWFM, one of the coolest free-form FM stations anywhere. I was exposed to everybody from Return To Forever to Pure Prairie League to Paul Horn to The Mothers to Tom Waits to Heart to you-name-it.

 

But even back when I was a kid, the AM stations played the most amazing minestrone of music imaginable. I heard everything from pop(when that meant people like Frank Sinatra, Steve Lawrence & Edie Gorme, etc) to rock & roll to doo wop to folk to soul to show tunes, even the occasional blues and rockabilly tune, AND country, all on the same stations. Anyone who grew up during the 60's & 70's in the belt of the Midwest that reaches from Louisiana up to Minnesota and up into Canada has at least heard of KAAY 1090 AM out of Little Rock, Ark., one of the last great AM giants, which had as much power as the station ZZ Top immortalized as "The X". Because of international treaties, they were no more powerful than any local AM station during the daylight hours. But after dark, they could push their power up and reach that far. I heard everybody from Lonnie Mack to the Beatles, Stones, Animals, etc., to all of Motown, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and other soul music like Aretha Franklin, the Meters, just everything that was on the top 40 nation-wide, and God bless 'em for it, because a station in the South during the 60's, playing black artists at all was pretty daring.

 

Stations like that are a thing of the past, thanks to the bean-counters. I feel sorry for kids now, they don't have near the opportunity to hear and absorb as many genres of music now. It's showing in the music that is coming out of them, too. And that is the worst thing possible.

[whitefang]

I once discussed here many a moon ago about how AM radio used to be more diverse than FM radio is now. Yeah, picker, even though I never heard of the station you mentioned, AM stations around HERE played much of the same stuff. As a kid, I recall hearing George Hamilton's "Abeline" followed by the Four Season's "Sherry". Later there would be Roger Miller, the Beatles and Ramsey Lewis all coming out of the same station.

 

Today, I doubt that you'll hear Weezer followed by Ludacris on ANY radio station.

Whitefang

[Scott Fraser]

In LA in the 60s we had just 2 top 40 AM stations, but in any given hour you could hear Beatles, Dylan, Tiny Tim, Yardbirds, Glen Campbell, Four Tops, Lulu, Marianne Faithful, Richard Harris, Mrs. Miller, Aretha, Chuck Berry, Slim Harpo, Beach Boys, Ramsey Lewis Trio, Sam & Dave, Fifth Dimension, Rolling Stones, Roger Miller, Lou Rawls, Otis Redding, Peter, Paul & Mary, etc. In other words the entire range of popular music, including all the fringes that crossed over from folk, doo wop, jazz, blues, soul, country, gospel, r & b, etc, all at the same time. Thus I really think the generation coming of age at that time had a much broader range of musical taste than what targeted marketing exposes kids to today. It was a great time for music & a great time for broadcast media.

[whitefang]

GAWD! Mrs. Miller and Slim Harpo!

 

Two names I haven't heard in a coon's age!

 

Man, those were weird times, weren't they?

Whitefang

[Scott Fraser]

GAWD! Mrs. Miller

 

'Downtown'. Musical parody where the artist wasn't in on the joke.

 

and Slim Harpo!

 

'Baby, Scratch My Back', pure jukejoint blues, right there on top 40 AM radio.

 

Two names I haven't heard in a coon's age!

 

I can clearly hear both those voices, & Harpo's tremolo guitar riff, in my head, though I haven't heard either tune in probably 45 years.

 

Man, those were weird times, weren't they?

Whitefang

 

Great time to be growing up.

Oh, let us not forget 'They're Coming To Take Me Away' by Napolean the XIV. Top 40 AM radio hit. Talk about your weird. Ever hear the B side of that?

[whitefang]

Yeah, I have, but can't remember it. Here's another thread kind of idea...

 

How many oldsters out there( old enough to have bought 45s as kids) bought a 45 of a popular radio song you liked, but wound up liking the "B" side better?

 

Even if you're only old enough to have only bought LPs, how many bought them because you liked a particular song on them and wound up liking it LESS than all the OTHER tunes on it?

Whitefang

[desertbluesman]

Elvis, Hound Dog flip side, Don't Be Cruel, I wore out copies of those two on 45's.

 

[Larryz]

The old 45's were cool and the players allowed you to load them and not have to lift the needle and skip songs like you would have to do on the 33's. I can't recall all of the B sides that I liked as good or better than the A sides...Elvis, is a great example. I remember a Bobby Vinton song "I Love You" which was as good as the A side "Blue Velvet", Fats Domino was great on the flip side too!

[Scott Fraser]

Yeah, I have, but can't remember it.

 

The B side was the A side played backwards. Seriously.

 

Here's another thread kind of idea...

How many oldsters out there( old enough to have bought 45s as kids) bought a 45 of a popular radio song you liked, but wound up liking the "B" side better?

 

The first single I had was Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart In San Francisco". The B side was a song called "Once Upon A Time" & I actually listened to that side more than the A side.

 

 

[Bottom End]

"Restless" was the B-side to "Ballroom Blitz" I loved that tune.

[skipclone 1]

That is the beauty of the 60's/70's music scene, you could like the Zepplin and at the same time enjoy Pete Seeger, and Joni Mitchell, then listen to something harder. No one was in a box of only listening to one genera like you hear about today. Everybody and every style was relevant in those days. I enjoyed the heck out of all that creativity. It inspired me to play many styles of stuff over the years.

 

Especially in the late '60's. You could hear them all on ONE RADIO STATION! Not "format specific" as radio is today. It wasn't rare to hear 30-45 minutes of uninterrupted music with line-ups like Airplane followed by Dylan followed by the Mothers followed by Miles Davis followed by Cohen followed by Cream and on and on like that. Now, they make a big deal out of "20 minutes of commercial free music" except, of course, station promos.

Whitefang

 

Until recently I have been listening to the AFN station, because most Japanese stations have more talking than music. Apparently audiences expect that, even in live shows. Someone will take five minutes between songs and talk about what they had for breakfast. So what does AFN do-they switch to a `morning DJ` format-in the evening. Now it`s commercials, followed by-that`s right-more talking than music.

Well at least it pushes me to pick up the guitar more.

 

I used to love the variety of music on my favorite stations too, in fact it has influenced me to this day now that I make original music.

I always get stuck on that inevitable question, `So what kind of music do you do?`

David Lee Roth said something interesting in an interview for a magazine here-he has been studying Japanese sword for many years. He is working on some projects with music that is very different from anything he has done commercially, but he said that expectations are very rigid in the U.S., that once you establish an `image`, it`s hard to step outside of that and have anyone pay attention.

 

Anyway ya, I heard that Jimi was so shy in the studio that he used to play behind a curtain. If I see Roger Mayer next year I should ask him for some studio stories.