Hendrix: Classic or Dud?

I can't even imagine which track might have sounded similar.

i think it was "Who Knows". don't think there was any singing at the time.

christgau once called hendrix "a psychedelic uncle tom"

¯\(°_o)/¯

ugh

Ugh for real...

Been seeing the 40th Anniversary edition of Electric Ladyland around, anyone know what the deal is with that thing?

Is Xgau Dying?

3 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

***** 40th Anniversary Release of Electric Ladyland
31 Dec 2008

By The Bass Man "Thebassman" (Hayling Island) - See all my reviews

Excellant release under the control of Authentic Hendrix, the Hendrix family business that controls all releases for the great man and a superb job they do too and this release is no exception.

The quality of releases just gets better and better,

I would recommend avoiding any retail material that is not released by Authentic Hendrix and most serious collectors of Hendrix material know this and all should report any dodgy recordings and releases to Authentic Hendrix where they can take the appropriate action.

You won't go wrong with this 40th Anniversary set.

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The Bass Man u r a feeb and a snitch

"the Hendrix family business that controls all releases for the great man and a superb job they do too and this release is no exception."

not so superb artwork though (outside of the original albums).

The person who recommended the 2 versions of Driving South from the BBC sessions upthread: OTM

love love love the first two Experience albums- all liquid r&b choppy rhythm guitar, and Noel & Mitch are fully involved. Just get a real sense of fun and energy that IMO was missing later.

buying up all the hendrix i could was one of the first things i did when i started buying vinyl. experienced/axis/electric ladyland, followed by live in the west, band of gypsys, then that trio of lps that people are sometimes iffy on because of the overdubs (war heroes, midnight lightning, crash landing). really love nine to the universe, too.

anyway, i saw that christgau comment and thought it was, um, "interesting".

hendrix is great...one of my favourites. i have reservations as positing him as the best of the best, but his classic songs, cut for cut, measure up against any other musician/band...

Crosstown Traffic
Castles Made of Sand
Manic Depression
Burning of the Midnight Lamp
Love or Confusion
Angel
Spanish Castle Magic
If 6 Was 9 (classic partly bcz of its formative influence on Ian Mackaye)

even the Bobbie D. cover isn't that bad...Jimi doesn't cover it so much as set it on fire (haha what an original trope)...

re Hendrix-Xgau-Uncle Tom...Lester Bangs kind of makes the same point (among some others) in his little "postmortem-interview" piece a while back...

a while back = before I was born

I'm the last person that would sit down and decisively listen to Hendrix for any reason given upthread, but tonight it was time to finally get around to listening to the BBC Sessions discs. I still reflexively tune out during anything that's Classic Rock Radio Blocks, but damn the versions of "Drive South" are pretty blazing. The trio is like a revved up Pebbles/Nuggest/Sugarcube Flashbacks garage rock and maybe that's the best way to approach it rather than some sort of untouchable Canon.

Anyway, Lemmy swears by Hendrix and I'll take his word for it. Guess you really did have to be there.

...or just here and listening to the albums and live shows, which are more than enough.

tarden / dave q is OTM when he mentions 3rd Stone From The Sun at the top of this thread.

We never did find out if gareth ever 'got' Hendrix, did we?

Em HATES classic rock, especially really boy-friendly wanky guitar stuff like The Doors & Led Zep. She used to hate Hendrix. Then she actually listened to him a few times. Now she finds him unbearably sexy. It's terrific.

I can only say he wrote some of the most spaced-out, sad, beautiful songs ever. And yes, his music is terribly sexy.

I've heard All Along the Watchtower a million times but it still sounds fantastic on the radio. The guitar parts are imprinted on my brain - this is a good thing.

Watchtower shreds. Every time. I love it live most of all, just the way they set that groove down and Jimi flies all over it. So great.

I love the 'Third stone from the Sun' demo (on the purple box set) when Jimi & Chas are giggling their way through the dialogue in the opener. I think that's what I find most classic...not just the guitar and the voice but the personality, when he talks in those live openings he just seems so...likeable. Also I lol at his 'yeah dig baby', 'hey yeah dig brother'...he's so groovy. But the thing I love most aside from Jimi as singer & guitarist is just how right-on Noel & Mitch were with him. The things that make Jimi's songs so great are, yes, Jimi...but without that tight groove holding it all together, they'd be nowhere.

Little Wing is still my most classic favorite. Or Midnight Lamp. Or In From the Storm. Ugh. Okay I can't pick one, forget I said anything.

I can't listen to Burning of the Midnight Lamp without re-playing it, like, six times. A perfect amalgamation of Percy Sledge and Amon Duul II. Hendrix is the best.

Xgau, who was in the audience, reacted against Hendrix' Monterey Pop performance, burning the guitar etc, but he also has a lot of often favorable, always well-considered comments on the albums(even though I don't always agree). Check his collected volumes of Consumer Guides and robertchristgau.com Think I might have to get that new Hendrix box set due next month.

what's this new box set? i get lost when it comes to hendrix reissues.

Somehow I never really listened to Electric Ladyland as an album until this week. Gee it's good. :)

what's this new box set? i get lost when it comes to hendrix reissues.

This thing. I just heard about it today. Looks pretty great, actually. I could live without the R&B stuff on Disc 1, and the DVD, but the other three discs all sound awesome.

"Xgau, who was in the audience, reacted against Hendrix' Monterey Pop performance, burning the guitar etc, but he also has a lot of often favorable, always well-considered comments on the albums"

God, who gives a flying fuck what that guy thinks. Do YOU like Hendrix? that's all that matters.

And personally, i like when shit gets lit on fire.

the thing about Hendrix--and I read a lot of this upthread and totally disagree with Gareth and Ned Raggett about Hendrix, by the way--uh, there's never been a Hendrix CULT, Ned, because Hendrix was already POPULAR in his heyday; as a 6th grader I knew his stuff and realized already that he related to soul and r&b, stuff I was familiar with already in concept, growing up here in the heart of the chitlin circuit; and Hendrix makes the Velvets look pretty effete. And I love the Velvets. I'm not sure just what would put you off unless it's the actual soulfulness of the enterprise, the oh-so-casual ripoff and simultaneous rejuvy of all rock cliches, more or less. Even stuff that's just a groove or where neither song structure nor sonics SEEM to make an avant-garde statement or whatever, like the second track of Axis, sounds good to me. "Crosstown Traffic" and the other big tunes sound great to me, and I really like the way he was doin' all them curlicues on blues guitar in his last months, cf. "Hear My Train a-Comin'" (not even in the big feedback extravaganzas, which sound utterly controlled to me anyway, but in the subtle commentary, the back-porch shit he does). He was such a fastidious guitar player, so concerned with the bon mot, and you can hear that shit. But again, I guess I ultimately hear it as a kind of soul music and that's why I don't understand Gareth or Ned. I mean, sure there have been a lot of people playing electric guitar since 1950. Hendrix was merely the last and most advanced, and most heroic, example of soul music and of blues, and yeah I think Sly and Miles and Mayfield and all that were great. More or less sums up black music aspiration to that point. Rock history jams it all down your throat, I know what Christgau was trying to say with "black Uncle Tom," but see, that's just his guilty white conscience. It's soul music, Bob, shuck and jive are what should be freeing your skinny ass, get some pussy for Chrissake, like Jimi...like that. After all, Hendrix' music is real positive and sunny (also outer-space and aquatic), so you're supposed to feel good when you hear it, which I always do.

righteous, brother, righteous.

yup.

I'm really shocked that Ned wd have a problem w/ Hendrix. Seems that would be right up his alley...

Bill, the only reason I mentioned xgau was because he'd been quoted several times on the thread, and his takes (def plural) on Hendrix shouldn't be reduced to "Uncle Tom", especially when he led me to some Hendrix albums, like Blues, that I would have missed otherwise. Like it says in A Film About Jimi Hendrix, Hendrix knew he had to follow the Who, knew most Americans hadn't heard him much live (and of Are You Experienced? was out yet, that was an album that had to grow on you, compared to the hype, and not the kind of presentation that would grab a stoned, possibly skeptical audience.) Thus the lighter fluid etc., but also he was very genial, a bit nudge-nudge-wink-wink, inviting his new thousands of friends in on the joke, off-handledly--but that was also a set-up/foreplay for the boom-boom. I've still got the vinyl somewhere, with the gist of his set (later complete on CD). That's one side, the other is equally dynamic greetings from Otis Redding ("So this is the love crowd,huh?")

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/the-jimi-hendrix-experience-are-you-experienced-round-24-grahams-choice/

Would have turned 70 today. (Yeah, I know, Noel Redding--love the song, though.)

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

Love the graphics on these 70th Anniversary pedals

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/599228_10151335732774453_229179289_n.jpg

One of the few of that generation of dead before their time musicians I'd be really curious to hear alive today. I'm sure he would have put out a string of dubious guitar synth records in the '80s, but by now ... who knows what he'd be up to? Jazz? Electronic music? Experimental stuff?

Co-incidentally I saw 'ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER HENDRIX YEAH! :-)' written in the dirt on a white van today.

This is a thread

Classic. The man changed the way rock guitar was played, and listened to, forever. There are guys who came after that can play faster, cleaner, etc. etc. but not with the same level of emotion and abandon... and humour. Most subsequent guitar gods were just way too humourless in their approach. And he's still got the best stage moves ever.

Nothing shabby about his songwriting, some of his lyrics are beautiful.

Classic. For 'Little Wing' alone. Beautiful . Just for the guitar

Another new album coming out in March too.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience are undoubtedly classic, and not just for Jimi's much-publicised and praised guitar skills either - there's as much appeal for me in Mitch Mitchell's drumming, the psychedelic production on those records (which make for great headphone experiences), and Jimi's voice. Indeed, Jimi's voice isn't going to win any awards for technical proficiency - but it has a great rhythm and phrasing to it. And 'Little Wing' and 'The Wind Cries Mary' are fucking beautiful songs.

Best starting album for someone who knows nothing of Hendrix?

Seems obvious, but Smash Hits? One of my first albums as a teenager.

I'd just start with Are You Experienced? and go forwards from there, to be honest.

Xp Yes, Smash Hits or Are You Experienced would be a good entry point.

cool--thanks!

love love LOVE LOVE Band of Gypsys. That record is a monster guitar album. Definitely my favorite of his. Favorite Experience record Electric Ladyland. the man could do no wrong. Would've aged finely and it's a real hole not having him around for 42 years.

It's very difficult for me to imagine what Hendrix would have went onto do had he lived... I imagine his output may have got more "soulful", but beyond that I can't really think of what he would have done. The idea of Hendrix in the '80s to me is just unthinkable!