Favourite Jimi Hendrix Experience Bassline?

"You Got Me Floatin' " is the most fun for me. You get to use an odd, treble-middy, bridge pickup sound. And you don't have to have James Marshall himself in your band to play it since the bass is so "guitarish" sounding and up front.

"Machine Gun" can be a gas if you have an amp with the cahones to club people over the head with the lows.

 

The break in If 6 was 9

 

Crosstown Traffic(played on a Hammond B3 by Dave Finnegan, Noel had left by then) & Manic Depression

 

It's interesting that this thread came up because we just learned a couple Jimi songs last practice: Manic Depression and Hey Joe. The bass lines are pretty cool on both songs, although Hey Joe gets a little repetitious, other then that unison lick.

We're already doing You Got Me Floatin', which is a blast to play as there isn't a lot of structure during the solo sections so you can pretty much go off and do what you want. We're also considering doing Cross Town Traffic, which is one of my favorite Jimi Hendrix songs, although I don't know the bass-line yet...ooh! I'm supposed to work on that this weekend.

 

Fire, on Mothers Milk .

 

i second that

 

Third Stone from the Sun.

 

Izabella

 

My bass teacher said that there's a different bass line to Purple Haze which is pretty bomb, cos Hendrix played it.

However, I haven't heard it anywhere cos all my Handrix albums are live albums (I just couldn't get into the recorded stuff, but the live stuff is seriously bomb)

But I'm told the alternative Hendric bass line to Purple Haze is quite hard ie real hard.

 

Third Stone From the Sun, Power of Soul, Fire

 

Little Wing....I like the SRV version, also.
Doc

 

"All Along The Watchtower" is my favorite. "In 1983 (A Merman I Should Want To Be)" has a nice solo. "The Wind Cries Mary" has a nice use of diads; tasteful simplicity all around.

 

I knew that Dave Finnegan played basslines on his Hammond for some of Electric Ladyland, but had Noel Redding really left by then? I didn't know he walked out in the middle of the sessions.

To be honest, a lot of Experience lines are hard to pick out - the low end tends to be all mud. Of what I can hear, I happen to like Fire and 1983 as well.

 

All Along The Watchtower!
The following are also brilliant:
Spanish Castle Magic
Voodoo Child
Purple Haze
Hey Joe
The Wind Cries Mary
Born Under A Bad Sign
Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead

 

Machine Gun
Voodoo Child (Slight return)

 

That's a toughie. Redding's role didn't really allow him to do much other than anchor the song very fundamentally to let Jimi, well, be Jimi. Even so, a lot of the bass parts seem a bit mechanical. My vote? Probably the basic but swingy "Third Stone from the Sun," which is probably why it caught Jaco's ear as well (as part of his "Slang" solo on 8:30), "If 6 was 9," maybe "Wait Until Tomorrow," if you can get over the ultra-wimpy back-up singing (and "Click bang, what a hang, your daddy just shot poor me" has to be the funniest lyric ever). Now Billy Cox, that's a whole 'nother matter. But you asked about the Experience, not the Band of Gypsies.

 

I tend to agree and I think Hendrix technique with a lot of droning lower strings at huge volume almost makes the bass redundant in a lot of things I've heard. Certainly the most famous cuts are usually those with the worst or least audible basslines - they're still great music though, but I think that Hendrix just always takes centre stage and 100% attention whatever he's doing.

I mean "Voodoo Chile" is just all droning guitar strings in lower register and very little bass!

In the 70s I remember that lots of my friends wanted to be JP-J, Jack Bruce, John Entwhistle etc. but nobody wanted to be Hendrix's bassplayer!

I learned all Led Zep's basslines but gave up pretty quickly on Hendrix stuff - no guitarists could do it justice anyway!!