Was Hendrix that good or even a genius?

[Jipes***]

Nice post Jimi and that's quite agood way of resuming things even so some of the guitr signature from Jimi are actually derived from other black artists like the superb major arpeggio licks heard in Curtis Mayfield playing, big bends from Albert King and furious stage performance directly inspired by for example Lefty Dizz with the guitar back in the head or attacking strings with the teeth

But even so Jimi was a kind of evolution from the Black guitarist line from the Blues & Rythm'n' Blues he was certainly a true innovator in the sense that he could blend all this diverse elements into his own style which is the trademark of gifted artists.

His lyrics are also really poetic and very different from what the black artist were usually referring to.

[Duffy]

I remember when Hendrix hit the scene in the US big time. I was probably seventeen and hitting night clubs with bands - there were ways to get in- drinking age in New York was 18. We used to "dance" to songs like "Purple Haze" and "Foxy Lady". Hendrix had a vibe that was very cool and exciting. A lot of bands started playing his songs as soon as possible. He definitely was the right guy at the right time - but being the "right guy" is way difficult to explain and complicated.

Hendrix had connections with the right people, was respected by major muscians who would go to his shows and watch what he was doing. He had, of course, assimulated stylistic attributes from people like Buddy Guy and others, but he had his own very heavy dose of "talent", for which there is no substitute. He was also charismatic. A lot of people liked him and this made it easier to learn and draw people into his ideas. He wasn't some kind of student and didn't take some academic or highly structured approach to his development of skills. Vibes flowed thru and from him. He was a psychedelic personality. He could feel his music and feel where he wanted to go, and when he assembled the trio "The Experience" he was able to put what he had in his head across the stage. It was a symbiotic relationship - the whole was way greater than the sum. The tone of things, the songs, the vibe was unique to the interaction of the band. Hendrix had found his "place", special place, with The Experience. This is where he felt that he could get the ideas in his head right. That unique combination of musicians enabled him to actualize the ideas he wanted to express on stage and in records.

There is no simple explanation. The dude was tuned in to his environment, got "experienced", and was able to assimulate the vibes and combine them with his own vibes and create some awesome music - with the help of a lot of people, including The Experience, the engineers, producers, his muscian friends outside the band that he drew upon, his personal charisma that helped make things happen, and his monumental talent and ability to conceptualize his ideas, develop and innovate the music, write lyrics that resonated with the vibes of the times, and play the guitar with rythyms, leads, and incomprehensiblity that really turned people on and soaked into their heads as if they were dry sponges. This happened to a LOT of people. People knew that Hendrix was revolutionary to music, there was no question about that. This was unlike anything else and was exciting and very rewarding to listen to and dance to.

Some people didn't care for him, missed the boat, etc. But there were and still are people that lived during that time and didn't like the Beatles - how this could be is incomprehensible to me. It's like generation denial or something.

So in addition to all of his talent, influences, charisma, connections, muscian friends, and psychedelic influences, Hendrix had something else in his vibe that goes way beyond environment and heredity - a type of soul or spirit that permeated his existence and provided him with that something special that led to his unanticipated success and hugely unique accomplishments.`

If you would walk around Greenich Village back then you would see incredible uniqueness and all kinds of colorful hippies. The Fillmore East was, among other places, a cauldron of productivity and super great shows by other incredible acts, some backed by the awesome "Joshua Light Show", which was itself a super psychedelic presentation that locked up with the vibes of the music and got deep into the groove, accentuating the entire effect of the shows. Hendrix jammed there all the time with all kinds of musicians.

It was a time of super psychedelic vibes and Hendrix captured and emanated those vibes in a way that really fit in and turned people on, filling a void maybe, with his new and revolutionary style.

There was also a great number of other awesome musical acts at and around that time that were totally mind blowing; like Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull, the Beatles, Stones, Animals, Led Zepellin, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills and Nash, Santana, Elton John, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding company, The Allman Brothers, etc.

Hendrix lived in a time zone filled with incredible muscians and was immersed in a cultural revolution of unprecedented characteristics.

There may well have been genius in his ability to conceptualize and actualize his musical ideas, changing the landscape of music, inspiring people like SRV, and those to come.

[Pickngrin]

I vote a) Yes, that good; and b) Yes, genius. I can understand how some people quickly get their fill of Hendrix, but over the years I continue to gain a deepening appreciation for the breadth of talent he had.

[Bloozcat]

I'll never forget when I first heard Hendrix. I was stuck going to this all boys Catholic high school as a freshman that was a 40 minute bus trip from where I lived. The only thing that made the trip bearable was that the bus also picked up several really attractive girls who attended an all girls private school. They rode with us most of the way until the bus dropped them off at their school and we continued on to ours. In the afternoon the bus picked them up and we all rode home together. I would frequently sit with this one girl with long blond hair and blue eyes. One day she showed me this record and with a flirtatious smile asked if I'd ever heard it. It was Are You Experienced? To say that I was intrigued (on multiple levels) is an understatement. She invited me over to hear the album and I was stunned...by the music, that is (yes, and infatuated with the girl too!).

I had been playing guitar about two years at this point and was managing fine learning songs with three and four chords with a bridge. But, after hearing Hendrix I thought, how the hell am I supposed to learn that? It wasn't just the music, it was the sound also. I had no idea how he got a guitar and amp to sound like he did! Keep in mind that there wasn't any internet, no tabs, and most of the guitar lessons were not geared towards anything that resembled rock or blues based rock. It wasn't until I did start getting into the blues about a year later that I began to understand how Hendrix played what he did. Playing like him, was yet another story.

It is in this context, in this era of limited expression, that guys like Hendrix were suddenly appearing. Prior to Cream and Hendrix we didn't even really know what distortion was let alone fuzz, wah-wah, uni-vibes, octavias, etc. It was all new. No one had ever done anything like it before.

It's sort of like watching the space shuttle blasting off routinely from Cape Canaveral - an event that we here in Florida can see from our back yards. But it's not until you see what those astronauts back in Hendrix' time used to go to the moon that you can appreciate the meaning of 'pioneer'. Just as those astronauts were blazing trails in space flight, so were guys like Hendrix in the music world. It's easy to follow or imitate greatness once it's created by a genius. But, to be that original genius is what sets them apart from any who come after them...until another genius creates something else that is truly unique.

[Duffy]

I can relate to you Bloozcat. We lived thru the time when Hendrix rocked our world. It was something that in some ways you had to experience to really understand. Not to sound like I'm someone special or privledged - but it was a special thing and I was privledged to live thru it.

What blows my mind is that when Hendrix was rocking the house in NY and elsewhere around the world, Blacks down South were drinking out of different water fountains, riding in the back of the bus and went to segregated schools. Hendrix was at the forefront of cultural development in the world of music in many locations of the country and world, but racial discrimination was rollin' high over huge areas of the American South. To me this somehow unveils the hughe transformation that was taking place in America at the time. This is just one manifestation of what was going on. The Viet Nam war and the shift from being gung ho pro war to being shockingly and almost instantly against the war was an almost incomprehensible phenomenon I saw unfolding before my eyes. You had people that wanted to beat you up because you had long hair, that suddenly grew long hair and seemingly, "broke on thru to the other side". Hendrix was like "in front" of a lot of this stuff and was definitely one of the original hippies. Hendrix was part of a huge cultural revolution and his music and personality assimulated a lot of that change and he had a hughe audience to get his ideas across. Take his version of "Star Spangled Banner" as an example? Did you ever hear a version of "Star Spangled Banner" like that before Hendrix? Man, you could protest all week long, but one listen to that version of that song just dripped with the essence of Viet Nam. So he was also a great "communicator" in addition to his greatness as a muscian.

Aside from all the sideshows going on he played some incredible and never before heard rock and roll.

[otaypanky***]

Band of Gypsies, oof, that was an awesome night ~

Here's Jimi in the early days