rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

'Scuse Me While I Dismiss This Guy: Why Jimi Hendrix Ain't Shit

      It's been getting a little too friendly here at prb lately so I figured I'd better get to curmudgeoning, which is after all what I do best. I know it approaches heresy (and there's a laughable concept if ever I heard one!) for a guitar player of my advanced years to NOT worship at the altar, so to speak, of Jimi Hendrix. Well, heresy's one of my favorite activities along w/long walks on the beach and cuddling so here goes.

     On the bootleg 'Early Hendrix' we find our left handed mutant hero playing rather pedestrian r&b w/a pickup band called Jimmy James and the BlueFlames. Recorded in May of 1965 at NYC's Cafe Wha?, a time and place important for many reasons, the most important, to me at least, is that the Velvet Underground were plying there actually original trade not 7 blocks up and over at the Dom on St. Mark's Place. Before this Hendrix played w/saxophonist King Curtis and the mid period Little Richard, in both cases playing rather traditional and pedestrian r& b. Sure he had the 'playing w/his teeth' and 'playing behind the back' tricks at that time, but so did T-Bone Walker back in the late 40's/early 50's and he (T-Bone) played a stellar combo of jazz and blues that was never trad or pedestrian.

     But, lo and behold, just a short 1 and a half years later, Jimi's all tripped out and psychedelicised, setting guitars on fire and becoming all sorts of famous by combining the aforementioned T-Bone tricks w/the kind of feedback wail and freeform, noisy improv that were Lou Reed's stock in trade in those halcyon days of the Velvet Underground, before Lou heard footsteps and fired John Cale.

     At this time, Reed hired guitar tech Bill Lawrence to install various 'effect boxes' in his Gretsch Country Gentlemen; fuzzboxes, tremelo, crude harmonizers and delays. All this before Jimi and Roger Mayer made the Fuzzface, Octavia and Univibe essential parts of any guitarists toolkit who wanted to be taken seriously in the late '60's.

     I don't think it's too vast a leap to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Hendrix, on an off nigfht from a King Curtis gig or something, wandered into the Dom and perhaps saw Lou Reed reinventing the electric guitar and thought to himself "Hmmmmmmmm." I'm just saying it strikes me odd (and grossly unfair) that 2o hits of acid later, Hendrix is crowned King of the Modern Electric Guitar - to the point that he still routinely winds up on the cover of Guitar Player 2 to 3 times a year while Lou is, well, Lou Reed respected for past work and not much else.

     Which makes me think that the main reason Jimi (and to a slightly lesser degree of adulation Stevie Ray Vaughan) has been so lionized is the fact that he is dead. DEADDEADDEAD!!!! So we never had to sit through his 'roots' record, his 'world music' record or his, by now,de riguer recordings from The Great American Songbook. Folks always say that if Hendrix were alive today he'd be 'so far beyond everyone else it wouldn't be funny'.

     I think if Hendrix were alive today he'd be just as boring and anacronistic as Clapton, Page and, yes, even Lou Reed. And that wouldn';t be funny either.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 02:41 | link | comments (6)

Comments:

#1  13 April 2008 - 03:31

 

oh tim. on this one i feel we must agree to disagree because hendrix is IT in my book. always has been. one hundred percent carnal. he's felt more than heard. experiential. pure. intimate. alchemy. ecstasy. can't say how he would have aged but to this day, nothing moves me like hendrix. and i do like good guitar players. especially blues. oh that i do. and whatever it is about the hendrix, it's not about the hype or the icon and it's not because he's dead. it's because of what goes on in the body and soul when i turn him up loud.

limine

#2  13 April 2008 - 23:33

 

limine: and I get that, I do. This is just a personal axe of mine I felt like grinding. Maybe the next post will be positive. I sure hope so.
tb

timbyrnes

#3  14 April 2008 - 09:12

 

gotta go with limine on this one, kid. you are just pointing to bio facts -- and not really discussing the music. it's pretty hard to ignore his musical gifts listening to the music, regardless of how or why you suppose he got there. he got there nonetheless. where he would be today is a non-issue, of course.

howard

#4  18 April 2008 - 22:37

 

Howard, yr of course right, but it's the history or bio facts that I'm concerned with here. Snotty title nonwithstanding, I know that Hendrix was a great guitarist, I'm just pointing out that Lou Reed was there first. A fact totally ignored by the guitar press for like what, 40 years?
And as to where he'd be now, what you see as a non issue I see as a safe bet.

timbyrnes

#5  01 May 2008 - 17:20

 

so tim....since you brought up SRV....

what about the other old time greats, who are still alive?

bb king.... buddy guy..... eric johnson (same age as SRV....).... they are still doing what they do, and doing it well....

i will agree that clapton has become stale, page seems to only be able to live off led zep..... though i suppose it's not a bad living.

would you say the same of lennon? would he be just as irrelevant if he were here today?

larryl

#6  04 May 2008 - 03:44

 

Lennon was already irrelevant, as far as I'm concerned, when he died. I loved Double Fantasy, but it was already nostalgia, no? As far as other guitarists, E. Johnson's been repeating himself for at least ten years. At least Kevin Shields had the good sense to disappear after reinventing the instrument. Richard Thompson still kicks ass and is interesting but beyond that eh!
tb

timbyrnes

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