Jimi Hendrix

silverfox103

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Brings back memories. I saw Jimi at the Boston Garden in Nov of 1968.......50 years ago. You bought tickets a little different in those days. You sent your money in to the ticket office and the tickets were sent to you. I asked for the best seats available, don't remember exactly how much, maybe $5 each. Well, the night of the concert, I showed the tickets to the usher, he marched the young lady I was with and myself right down front. I think we were in the 2nd row. She was impressed and I was stunned. Great concert.

The opening act for him was The Troggs of "Wild Thing" fame.

Great Memory

Tom
 

Quantum Strummer

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Yep, for me Jimi is the one. When it comes to electric blues anyway. He bends the genre to himself rather than vice versa.

-Dave-
 

adorshki

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Surpisingly, because I was a big Jeff Beck fan by 1970, I actually didn't really "get" Jimi until I met a buddy in high school in about '72, and we had a chance to have some listening parties and he finally "got" Jeff Beck, and turned me on to the "real" Jimi.
Anyway, he was the first guy to ever point out to me that Jimi was actually a master blues guitarist even way back then, and had been respected by peers for it ever since hitting the London scene.
So I "got" that for a long time, but I'll never forget the first time I saw the version of "Red House" on the original (VHS) release of Live at the Isle of Wight (later re-done as Blue Wild Angel)
First time I ever saw actual footage of him with a Flying V
Anyway what grabbed me about that particular performance is that for the first couple of minutes it sounds a little "thin", and then he twiddles the knobs a little, does some scales and neck-wrestling and is obviously really concentrating on coaxing something out of it that isn't quite "there" yet, and then suddenly it "opens up" for him.
At the time I assumed the guitar itself had literally warmed up (it was supposed to be cold during the show) and/or that he'd finally just found the groove for that instrument that night.
But it's the only time I've ever seen him "go through the process", and during a performance, yet.
Shows just how serious he was about getting past the wild man image and actually trying to serve his art above all else.
And you get why he wanted another (his 3rd or 4th) Flying V!
Video's understandably hard to find on the net and I think the precise moment might be edited out here, (I seem to remember a close-in shot of him holding the neck perpendicular for a few seconds when he "finds it"), but you can see him starting at around 3:15 or so:

(Y'gotta press the start button or go to the URL)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xgcp

AS I understand it he used an earlier '67 to record "Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice", ("STP with LSD", nudge-nudge wink-wink) which, while not a traditional 12-bar blues song, has always been one of my faves for tone:
Jimi-Hendrix-onstage-with-psychedelic-1967-Gibson-Flying.jpg


Just to press the nostalgia button or give casual fans a new item to check out, my actual favorite 12-bar blues of his is "Belly Button Window".
:friendly_wink:
 
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wileypickett

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Saw him twice, once at Madison Square Garden with the Experience (good, not great); and the fourth of four shows (two on New Years Eve 1969 / two on New Years Day 1970) at the Fillmore East with the Band of Gypsys.

That fourth and final show is reckoned to be one of the best Hendrix ever gave.

The rumor is that Hendrix asked Bill Graham what he thought after he played the first set, and Graham was less than enthusiastic. His next set -- the one I was at (12th row, still have my ticket!) -- was his response to Graham; Hendrix played for three hours and pulled out all the stops.

On the 2CD set reissue of Band of Gypsys at Fillmore, there are more tracks from that show than any of the other three. The amazing extended version of "Stone Free," the first track on the CD set, and the first song he played that night, was edited on the reissue, which I thought was unfortunate, as the band (Band) took the song down to near silence, then built it back up to a rave-up ending, a true exploration of dynamics. (I taped the show on cassette, so I have the two versions to compare.) For the reissue, they removed a minute or so of near "dead-space" in the middle.

I got my dad to buy me my first guitar at age 14 -- a Harmony H168 -- after hearing *Axis:Bold As Love*. A lot of music I listened to as a teenager I have no interest in now, but Hendrix I still love and follow, via the various posthumous releases, remastered albums, etc.
 
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gjmalcyon

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Quantum Strummer

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I think it was the first New Year's Eve show that Bill Graham was displeased with. He seemed to feel Jimi was showboating rather than playing. Nonetheless the second shows on both nights are IMO stronger than the first ones, at least as heard on recordings. The first New Year's Day show did feature that performance of Machine Gun along with Who Knows from the original Band Of Gypsys album.

-Dave-
 

wileypickett

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I think it was the first New Year's Eve show that Bill Graham was displeased with. He seemed to feel Jimi was showboating rather than playing. Nonetheless the second shows on both nights are IMO stronger than the first ones, at least as heard on recordings. The first New Year's Day show did feature that performance of Machine Gun along with Who Knows from the original Band Of Gypsys album. -Dave-

Nope Dave -- the Graham / Hendrix story is about the New Year's Day 1970 shows. See the gjmalcyon's *Rolling Stone* link above, from which I copied this quote:

“I will never again see a performance by a guitarist-vocalist with that intensity, with that total emotional impact,” says promoter Bill Graham of Hendrix’s second set on New Year’s Day. “It was like an adagio dance. The guitar was the snake, and he was the snake charmer.”

(Thanks for posting that link gjm -- I'd not seen the article before.)

Glenn
 

Quantum Strummer

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Ah, my bad. I found a piece on the net claiming Machine Gun on the Band Of Gypsy album was from the first New Year's Day show, and shoulda checked this with other sources (and my own copy of the four shows). The piece is wrong: Machine Gun is from the second NYD show.

-Dave-
 

adorshki

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Bump for new content:


Any time I see “Hendrix on acoustic” I expect to see the old 12-string take of “Hear My train a-Comin’ “ from Experience and A Film About Jimi Hendrix

THIS is the most exciting new Hendrix material I've seen or heard in years, thanks to our buddy Nuuska over in the Song Title Game thread.
Sounds to me like a mashup of "Stone Free" and "Izabella", maybe he's just playing riffs off the top of his head.
If so, further evidence of his genius.
But it looks period correct for about early-to-mid '69 when "Stone Free" got a re-release and "Izabella" would have been in development for Band of Gypsys, maybe?.
 

Guildedagain

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I love me some SRV, but it's hard to argue against Jimi being the best Blues guitarist ever.

https://youtu.be/PbwUH_eJ2fk

It's amazing. Him playing a black Strat is unusual too. Trip how he tunes on the fly, obvious him or his guitar guy didn't stretch the strings out enough before the show. Nowadays people are lost without their Snarks...

I have the strap he's wearing, called "Stained Glass", came in a blue and red variation. I think I have em both, Clapton used to favor this one also.

Anybody else collect vintage straps?

Haha, he introduces Spanish Castle Magic as being recorded in 1773 at the Benjamin Franklin studios ;-))

Saving the rest for later, too many chores, day's flying by...


But thx, this is awesome.
 
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jcwu

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maybe he's just playing riffs off the top of his head.

https://youtu.be/PbwUH_eJ2fk?t=114

"We're gonna play nothing but oldies but baddies tonight.. because we haven't played together for six weeks, so we're just going to jam, see what happens tonight.. hope you don't mind, we're just going to mess around, just jam, see what happens... (almost inaudible) you wouldn't know the difference anyway..."
 

Quantum Strummer

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JJ was a master at coming up with simple but cool & catchy licks & riffs. IMO the ability to both know what you're doing and keep from over-complicating it isn't that common.

-Dave-
 
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