There is probably little anyone can add about the rock legend who died forty years ago today. About twenty books have been written about him and virtually every note he ever recorded has been marketed on over one hundred albums.
I have no great story to tell of that day, just a sad day riding subway to school during the first week of sophomore year. A heartless story in the New York Daily News about drowning in his own vomit in a London hotel and suicide not being likely but not ruled out either. I knew that Electric Ladyland was on 8th Street but didn't think to skip school and go pay my respects. Similar to today's newspaper interview.
When Jimi Hendrix took that fatal overdose 40 years ago today, rock star deaths were still shocking. A high school friend broke the news to me as we rushed to homeroom, but I had almost no frame of reference for such loss. I wasn't yet in kindergarten when Buddy Holly's plane went down. The only precedents I could remember were the sinister deaths of Bobby Fuller and Brian Jones.
There might be little left to add after forty years in the spotlight but thanks to blogging "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."
No history lesson here. Many know the stories of Jimi Hendrix having a little style clash as one of the opening acts for "The Monkees" on their first American tour and there are all sorts of true and not so true stories about this man who was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington. You can read his history in any number of books or the many news articles today. Or you can check his Wiki page where I found a fun fact today "Hendrix's first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue, Seattle's Temple De Hirsch. After too much wild playing and showing off, he was fired between sets."
After recording only three studio albums during his lifetime, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland in just a two year period and one live album by 1969 he was the undisputed headliner at Woodstock, the concert that defined a generation. On September 18, 1970 he was gone.
One newspaper today offered 10 essential Jimi Hendrix recordings you might play to celebrate his life and to pay my respects I thought I would do the same.
- All Along the Watchtower(1968): This must be the most famous cover song of all time. As famous as Jimi Hendrix seems today "All Along the Watchtower" was the only song he ever recorded to make it into the Top Twenty in the United States. One memory I have of Jimi Hendrix is that after he covered this already famous and mysterious folk song, Bob Dylan began playing his own song Jimi Hendrix style. Bob Dylan's words
"It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day." In the booklet accompanying his Biograph album, Dylan said: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."
- Red House (1967): Long before the bassist for "The Animals" Chas Chandler saw Hendrix in a New York and gave up playing music to promote the Jimi Hendrix experience, before Chandler took young Jimi to London to persuade the Beatles, Peter Townsend and Eric Clapton to see his outrageous flashy performance, Jimi Hendrix played back up with many great bands. One of them was B.B. King but Hendrix also payed his respects to many of the great African American blues guitarist while adding some of himself to the music. "Red House" was inspired by Hendrix's first love Betty Jean Morgan and the New York apartment where Hendrix first met Keith Richard's then-girlfriend Linda Keith who then introduced Chas Chandler to Jimi. "When his label left it off the U.S. version of his British-recorded debut album, Hendrix protested. He was apparently told America doesn't like blues." That soon changed.
- Little Wing (1967): Another Jimi Hendrix style love ballad, this one unlike any that had ever been played before. "Little Wing" is played using the unique chord/melody guitar style that Hendrix developed during his early career stints in rhythm and blues bands. Sounding like not one but two guitarist Little Wing represents a Psychedelic-Blues fusion. The song has been "covered by many, but n-o one else can touch Hendrix's own version of this taut, melodic love song."
- Wind Cries Mary (1967): Hendrix made his first appearance in America as a head liner and it was a cover tune that brought attention to his flamboyance. He stepped it up a notch when he played The Monterrey Pop Festival on the song Wild Thing and had sex with an amplifier then set his guitar on fire before smashing it to pieces. But this song from the same evening that many remember as the B-side to "Purple Haze" was just as impressive.
- If 6 Was 9 (1967): When Axis: Bold as Love hit America this song described as "acid-fueled blues" that would be featured in the movie Easy Rider was just what a generation in growing political unrest needed. It was once the "social and cultural dichotomies" between the hippies and the "white collared conservative" business world of the establishment. Those politics of Jimi Hendrix still fit today, don't they?
- Voodoo Chile (1968): The song from third and final album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience Electric Ladyland was made up of a medley of verses based on Muddy Waters' songs and was recorded at 7 AM in the landmark Greenwich Village studio that has the same name as the album. Jimi Hendrix Steve Winwood, Jack Casady and whoever else wanted to jam spent the night playing "Voodoo Chile" at The Scene Club. When the club closed, Hendrix invited everyone in the club back to the studio to formally record "Voodoo Chile". The Woodstock recording shows many of the guitar innovations of Hendrix and his raw rock influence that was mixed with Muddy Waters.
- Crosstown Traffic (1968): Being a New Yorker this song that features a makeshift kazoo made with a comb and tissue paper has always ranked high on my list. And this VH1 Classic with the hometown traffic is always worth watching.
- Purple Haze (1967): There isn't much to add about this most famous and recognizable flight song for LSD. "Excuse me while I kiss the sky."
- Drifting (1970): My Don McLean "American Pie" story, the song that hit me hard from his first posthumous album. Less that six months after the death of Jimi with Janis Joplin already gone and Jim Morrison soon to follow I walked with two friends to Spinning Disc on Fordham Road the day The Cry of Love was released and we listened to these haunting lyrics.
- Angel (1970): Also from the The Cry of Love. Another example of where Hendrix was going to go with his music and more haunting lyrics coming from someone we had already lost.
And as a bonus, Jimi Hendrix did finally manage to make some sense out of the Star Spangled Banner.