freak show Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Well, as some of you know, we've had a bit of a Hendrix-debate lately. At some point I had come across a short essay on the internet written by Pete Townshend about Hendrix, and I thought it might be of interest to some of you: "I feel sad for people who have to judge Jimi Hendrix on the basis of recordings and film alone, because in the flesh he was so extraordinary. He had a kind of alchemist's ability; when he was on the stage, he changed. He physically changed. He became incredibly graceful and beautiful. It wasn't just people taking LSD, though that was going on, there's no question. But he had a power that almost sobered you up if you were on an acid trip. He was bigger than LSD. What he played was ****ing loud but also incredibly lyrical and expert. He managed to build this bridge between true blues guitar — the kind that Eric Clapton had been battling with for years and years — and modern sounds, the kind of Syd Barrett-meets-Townshend sound, the wall of screaming guitar sound that U2 popularized. He brought the two together brilliantly. And it was supported by a visual magic that obviously you won't get if you just listen to the music. He did this thing where he would play a chord, and then he would sweep his left hand through the air in a curve, and it would almost take you away from the idea that there was a guitar player here and that the music was actually coming out of the end of his fingers. And then people say, "Well, you were obviously on drugs." But I wasn't, and I wasn't drunk, either. I can just remember being taken over by this, and the images he was producing or evoking were naturally psychedelic in tone because we were surrounded by psychedelic graphics. All of the images that were around us at the time had this kind of echoey, acidy quality to them. The lighting in all the clubs was psychedelic and drippy. He was dusty — he had cobwebs and dust all over him. He was a very unremarkable-looking guy with an old military jacket on that was pretty dirty. It looked like he'd maybe slept in it a few nights running. When he would walk toward the stage, nobody would really take much notice of him. But when he walked off, I saw him walk up to some of the most covetable women in the world. Hendrix would snap his fingers, and they followed him. Onstage, he was very erotic as well. To a man watching, he was erotic like Mick Jagger is erotic. It wasn't "You know, I'd like to take that guy in the bathroom and **** him." It was a high form of eroticism, almost spiritual in quality. There was a sense of wanting to possess him and wanting to be a part of him, to know how he did what he did because he was so powerfully affecting. Johnny Rotten did it, Kurt Cobain did it. As a man, you wanted to be a part of Johnny Rotten's gang, you wanted to be a part of Kurt Cobain's gang. He was shy and kind and sweet, and he was ****ed up and insecure. If you were as lucky as I was, you'd spend a few hours with him after a gig and watch him descend out of this incredibly colorful, energized face. There was also something quite sad about watching him. There was a hedonism about him. Toward the end of his life, he seemed to be having fun, but maybe a little bit too much. It was happening to a lot of people, but it was sad to see it happen to him. With Jimi, I didn't have any envy. I never had any sense that I could ever come close. I remember feeling quite sorry for Eric, who thought that he might actually be able to emulate Jimi. I also felt sorry that he should think that he needed to. Because I thought Eric was wonderful anyway. Perhaps I make assumptions here that I shouldn't, but it's true. Once — I think it was at a gig Jimi played at the Scotch of St. James [in London] — Eric and I found ourselves holding each other's hands. You know, what we were watching was so profoundly powerful. The third or fourth time that I saw him, he was supporting the Who at the Saville Theatre. That was the first time I saw him set his guitar on fire. It didn't do very much. He poured lighter fluid over the guitar and set fire to it, and then the next day he would be playing with a guitar that was a little bit charred. In fact, I remember teasing him, saying, "That's not good enough — you need a proper flamethrower, it needs to be completely destroyed." We started getting into an argument about destroying your guitar — if you're going to do it, you have to do it properly. You have to break every little piece of the guitar, and then you have to give it away so it can't be rebuilt. Only that is proper breaking your guitar. He was looking at me like I was ****ing mad. Trying to work out how he affected me at my ground zero, the fact is that I felt like I was robbed. I felt the Who were in some ways quite a silly little group, that they were indeed my art-school installation. They were constructed ideas and images and some cool little pop songs. Some of the music was good, but a lot of what the Who did was very tongue-in-cheek, or we reserved the right to pretend it was tongue-in-cheek if the audience laughed at it. The Who would always look like we didn't really mean it, like it didn't really matter. You know, you smash a guitar, you walk off and go, "**** it all. It's all a load of tripe anyway." That really was the beginning of that punk consciousness. And Jimi arrived with proper music. He made the electric guitar beautiful. It had always been dangerous, it had always been able to evoke anger. If you go right back to the beginning of it, John Lee Hooker shoving a microphone into his guitar back in the 1940s, it made his guitar sound angry, impetuous, and dangerous. The guitar players who worked through the Fifties and with the early rock artists — James Burton, who worked with Ricky Nelson and the Everly Brothers, Steve Cropper with Booker T. — these Nashville-influenced players had a steely, flick-knife sound, really kind of spiky compared to the beautiful sound of the six-string acoustic being played in the background. In those great early Elvis songs, you hear Elvis himself playing guitar on songs like "Hound Dog," and then you hear an electric guitar come in, and it's not a pleasant sound. Early blues players, too — Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Albert King — they did it to hurt your ears. Jimi made it beautiful and made it OK to make it beautiful.“ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kimbabig Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I really enjoyed that, unfortunately I never saw hendrix live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Good stuff. Thanks for posting! P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Versatile Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Thanks for an interesting post... I just bought my first Who CD They were/are a terrific band and Pete always had intelligent things to say about his and others' art I agree with the generally held view that The Who were one of the best live bands ever.... V Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbreslauer Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Thanks for an interesting post... I just bought my first Who CD They were/are a terrific band and Pete always had intelligent things to say about his and others' art I agree with the generally held view that The Who were one of the best live bands ever.... V I like The Who's live recordings, particularly "Live at Leeds." brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVOL! Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 "I feel sad for people who have to judge Jimi Hendrix on the basis of recordings and film alone, because in the flesh he was so extraordinary. He had a kind of alchemist's ability; when he was on the stage, he changed. He physically changed. He became incredibly graceful and beautiful. It wasn't just people taking LSD, though that was going on, there's no question. But he had a power that almost sobered you up if you were on an acid trip. He was bigger than LSD. This is the part that really speaks to me. On stage this man became an animal or god or both. That switch that some people have. Off stage you'd let yourself be run over by a Yugo. On stage you'd destroy a Mac truck with your bare hands. I remember feeling quite sorry for Eric, who thought that he might actually be able to emulate Jimi. I also felt sorry that he should think that he needed to. Because I thought Eric was wonderful anyway. Perhaps I make assumptions here that I shouldn't, but it's true. Yup. Although Clapton could have taken a queue from Hendrix and kept the dirt, attitude, and fire in his playing. Post Cream it was all downhill; from the cocaine fueled excess leads of Derek and the Dominoes to the geriatric playing in eighties up through today. The Cream reunion made me sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjay777 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Townshend was really enamored by Jimi. Most people only wanted to see him as a mythical figure. Cool story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grampa Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I did see Jimi live and it was as Pete says. Insanely and wonderfully magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaxson50 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Great post..What we tend to forget is that players, even those we think of as "great" or "the best" are also fans of other players. Jimi was a fan of other players, just as Moore is. Why is it that some people get the silly idea that we can only appreciate one player? That we must declare one as the best, the greatest, the walking one and only...it is pure muck...according to some I guess we are fools to even waste our time going to hear a new band, or a never before heard of player, how silly... Maybe it is the same mind set as those who are fans of one sports team and not the sport... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Versatile Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I like The Who's live recordings, particularly "Live at Leeds." brilliant. The CD I just got is a recent 'best of', a double with one of studio hits and the other a selection of live tracks(16 in all) It cost £5 and is so good I can't stop playing it...the live tracks with Keith Moon are a revelation...he was a mad genius...and Pete is a truly great guitarist/songwriter.... V Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzag Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Great post..What we tend to forget is that players, even those we think of as "great" or "the best" are also fans of other players. Jimi was a fan of other players, just as Moore is. Why is it that some people get the silly idea that we can only appreciate one player? That we must declare one as the best, the greatest, the walking one and only...it is pure muck...according to some I guess we are fools to even waste our time going to hear a new band, or a never before heard of player, how silly... Maybe it is the same mind set as those who are fans of one sports team and not the sport... This is a good post. I don't have a problem with someone saying they don't "get" another player. What I do have a problem with is someone saying they don't deserve the praise they get, esp. a rock icon like Hendrix. If I do think Hendrix was one of the greatest players to ever live, I don't expect to get total agreement, but someone saying they are only "good" because they're dead is ignorant. The very fact that Hendrix was held in such high regard by his contemporaries, who are themselves considered great, is significant in itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I think too it shows how different folks heads work. Thanks to an odd career choice, I've had the opportunity to watch some really famed pickers and frankly the only one that had me absolutely in awe wasn't a rocker at all, but flamenco's Carlos Montoya many years ago. Some classical pickers and rock pickers and even country pickers of various sorts have had me in awe of technique, but... not the kind of awe brought by Montoya. Then I got thinking... I never saw Chet Atkins in person, but his vids are so incredibly smooth and how in the world did his head find those chords and fingerings and... But such reactions never were so psychedelic as the bit on Hendrix. Perhaps I've always been too intellectual about stuff and mistrusted when emotion overruled intellect in music and elsewhere... Ever read T.S. Eliot on poetry "criticism?" His point was that the best art came not from the immediate emotion but on reflection of the emotion. Byron and such were quite popular poets in their day even as Hendrix and Cream and Who were popular in theirs. But... at what point was it as good as "art" as some other material such as BB who reflected past emotion rather than an attempt to create or recreate it internally? m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grampa Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I think too it shows how different folks heads work. Thanks to an odd career choice, I've had the opportunity to watch some really famed pickers and frankly the only one that had me absolutely in awe wasn't a rocker at all, but flamenco's Carlos Montoya many years ago. Some classical pickers and rock pickers and even country pickers of various sorts have had me in awe of technique, but... not the kind of awe brought by Montoya. m I saw Montoya in the mid 60's and I agree. The way he connected with his guitar was very much the way Hendrix did. Not "clean" playing but so so soulful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S t e v e Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 all the greats of today love hendrix, my idols cite hendrix as thier main influence...wish i could but i can't i'm a loner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigKahune Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Freak show - Thanks for a great read. B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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