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Why Jimi Hendrix is so Important

#201
mellowinman, I was in high school when Hendrix was on top. I played his "Are You Experienced" album to death. I think you wrote a beautiful eulogy for one of the most significant guitarists of all time. Thank you. I could not have said it better. I think that to really appreciate the Jimi Hendrix experience one had to have been alive at that time. It was a different world then. No computers or synthesizers. Only distortion, feedback, reverb and echo. Jimi was a master of it all. He is often imitated but never duplicated.:):cool::bassist:
 
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#207
When I was a kid, I used to go over to a friend's and listen to his older brothers' LP's: The Who, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, ELP, CCR, Yes, Mountain, Cream, etc., and Hendrix. I loved all that stuff, but there was something really special about what Jimi was doing. It was wild, it was angry, it was soulful, it was delicate and dangerous. I'm certainly not alone in that it really said something to me that nothing else did.

Put me squarely in the "agree with the OP" camp.
 
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#209
From the" for what it's worth " department ...
When Jimi was first brought to England, everyone who was anyone either played with him or went to see him. I mean McCartney, Clapton, Townsend , all the people who were already influencing the music scene were soon to be influenced by Hendrix. No you tube, no internet, only word of mouth and the rock press of the day. He was awe inspiring and his output was staggering.
 
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#210
Dana R Gregory said:
mellowinman, I was in high school when Hendrix was on top. I played his "Are You Experienced" album to death. I think you wrote a beautiful eulogy for one of the most significant guitarists of all time. Thank you. I could not have said it better. I think that to really appreciate the Jimi Hendrix experience one had to have been alive at that time. It was a different world then. No computers or synthesizers. Only distortion, feedback, reverb and echo. Jimi was a master of it all. He is often imitated but never duplicated.:):cool::bassist:
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I was born almost ten years after his death. If I hadn't "discovered" Hendrix when I did, I probably wouldn't be making music today. Are You Experieced was given to me by my friends father after he played it for me on his amazing new home audio system, so I got the FULL effect. He saw how much I dug it and gave it to me. It's probably the first album I owned that even had a live band on it (except for the Monkees tape my mother bought for me when I was 5).

It made a HUGE impression on me and literally changed my concept of music at the time. Until that moment, music was something I heard in the background or sang along to in the car with my parents. I 'felt' music instead of just hearing it from that point on. It wasn't the "deepest" music, emotionally or philosophically, yet I feel it opened the door to my embracement of other musical experiences that were, and that I probably never would have thought about had I not heard the album played through THAT sound system that day.
 
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#211
interp said:
Everyone has a right to their opinion about Hendrix, of course, but personally I only value opinions of those who were around and listening to rock music in the period just before and during his rise to prominence.

I might have a strong opinion about the influence of Duke Ellington on jazz, for example, but it's not worth much because I have zero personal experience of the musical and cultural environment in which he arose.

This is why it is pointless to compare Hendrix to anyone who came after him.
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First, you don't know which TB'ers were around and which weren't. Second, by your logic once a generation is dead, future generations can never study and understand the impact of their actions. We might as well throw out all of the history books and fire all of the history teachers and quit worrying about such nonsense.:eyebrow:
 
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#212
One thing about Hendrix; he's a window into his age, the Sixties, and that morass of influences driving music forward towards OUR time on Earth. He didn't just appear out of nowhere. He was a man of his time, a man who soaked up what was going on around him and then put his stamp on it. We're so lucky that everything came together so that his musical genius could be realized.

I was lucky enough to see a guy named Screamin' Jay Hawkins when he was out here, a while back. They billed him as "the man who played Reveille at the dawn of rock 'n' roll." He was as wonderfully brilliant as he was ancient and his show really was something else. Some say he was a noteworthy influence on Jimi and this is not hard to believe. Screamin' Jay was all about showmanship and flamboyance, he was about commanding the stage, and the spectacle. This was the secret world Jimi emerged out of. The real world.
 
#213
mellowinman said:
When Jimi died, I was seven, and my favorite artist was Beethoven.

:snaphappy:
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Mellow,... i was about 12-ish when i heard the line, " 'cuse me while i kiss the sky"!!! I F'N FREAKED-OUT RIGHT THERE IN MY "PF FLYERS"!!! :roflmao:
not only that,... there were 4 or 5 other kids playing and we all stopped and ran towards the radio. the teenager with said radio began explaining who Hendrix was and that he was playing that night at Joyous Lake in Woodstock. i begged my mother to let me go, but i was under age. :bawl: (talk about instant influence)
I WILL NEVER FORGET THAT DAY
 
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#214
pacojas said:
Mellow,... i was about 12-ish when i heard the line, " 'cuse me while i kiss the sky"!!! I F'N FREAKED-OUT RIGHT THERE IN MY "PF FLYERS"!!! :roflmao:
not only that,... there were 4 or 5 other kids playing and we all stopped and ran towards the radio. the teenager with said radio began explaining who Hendrix was and that he was playing that night at Joyous Lake in Woodstock. i begged my mother to let me go, but i was under age. :bawl: (talk about instant influence)
I WILL NEVER FORGET THAT DAY
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Wow...my first open mic was at the Tinker Street cafe, right up the road. Darryl Jennifer of Bad Brains once vouched that I was of age at a 21 and up show at the Joyous Lake and got me in to see Conehead Buddha, lol. My ex girlfriend used to waitress there. I think in the 60's, the Lake may have been Tinket Street Cafe, or vice versa, eventually both venues were under the same owner. I also saw Rigor Mortis (Entwistles band) and the Sugar Hill gang at the JL. Small world.
 
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#216
king_biscuit said:
First, you don't know which TB'ers were around and which weren't. Second, by your logic once a generation is dead, future generations can never study and understand the impact of their actions. We might as well throw out all of the history books and fire all of the history teachers and quit worrying about such nonsense.:eyebrow:
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First, the question of which TBer's were around and which ones weren't is irrelevant to my simple expression of greatest credence to those who were around.

Second, if you think I was implying there is zero value in studying the past, you are simply mistaken. My saying that I give the greatest credence to someone who lived through a particular era or event is NOT the same as saying that I give no credence to any other sources.

That would be an absurd and illogical conclusion.
 
#217
interp said:
First, the question of which TBer's were around and which ones weren't is irrelevant to my simple expression of greatest credence to those who were around.

Second, if you think I was implying there is zero value in studying the past, you are simply mistaken. My saying that I give the greatest credence to someone who lived through a particular era or event is NOT the same as saying that I give no credence to any other sources.

That would be an absurd and illogical conclusion.
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While you may or may not feel that way, that was clearly not what you stated in your last post. I will take the liberty of quoting that post again with emphasis:


"Everyone has a right to their opinion about Hendrix, of course, but personally I only value opinions of those who were around and listening to rock music in the period just before and during his rise to prominence. I might have a strong opinion about the influence of Duke Ellington on jazz, for example, but it's not worth much because I have zero personal experience of the musical and cultural environment in which he arose."


Hmm...
 
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#218
As someone who has spent a lot of time in my life studying history, I definitely value it very much. Nevertheless, even in the case of someone like Hendrix, I have noticed a tremendous difference, in general, in the attitude of those who listened to him in the 60s as compared and contrasted, for instance, to people who started listening to him in the 70s and 80s. It reached the point that I simply stopped getting into discussions with people from different eras because their perceptions varied so much. I have no interest in arguing about Jimi Hendrix. I'd prefer to just listen to his music and let it go at that. And I'm talking about people who actually like him, but just in different ways and for different reasons. Imagine how heated it can get when the "discussion" is between people who do like him and people who don't. Having said all this, of course, there are always exceptions to everything I've said; I am fully aware of that.
 
#219
king_biscuit said:
While you may or may not feel that way, that was clearly not what you stated in your last post. I will take the liberty of quoting that post again with emphasis:


"Everyone has a right to their opinion about Hendrix, of course, but personally I only value opinions of those who were around and listening to rock music in the period just before and during his rise to prominence. I might have a strong opinion about the influence of Duke Ellington on jazz, for example, but it's not worth much because I have zero personal experience of the musical and cultural environment in which he arose."


Hmm...
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I fail to see your point.

I was under the impression that I have the right to decide for myself how much value I attach to anyone's opinion.
 

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