Jimi

What could I possibly write about Jimi Hendrix that hasn't been written before? Looking at his brief life and even briefer recording career, and the number of books and articles that have been written about him, you'd have to say that he probably has the highest ratio of words to career time of any artist around, with the possible exception of the Beatles. (And, like the Beatles, the scavengers have foisted huge amounts of posthumous slag on uninformed record buyers.)

My favorite Hendrix-related quote, which I can't find and have to recall from memory, came from a review of a Cream album, where the reviewer was talking about Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton's relative overdubbing abilities. "Beck is actually better than Clapton at fusing together four guitar overdubs," the reviewer opined. "Hendrix is better than both of them. He does it all at once."

In fact, reviewers of Hendrix's first album searched the band photos in vain, looking for the second guitarist. There HAD to be at least two to make all of those lovely guitar sounds.

Which reminds me of my second Jimi item. Like most rock artists, Jimi couldn't read (or write) music. All music publishing houses that published rock music had folks on staff who would listen to recordings and write out the notes and chords the artist was playing (and also write out the lyrics when they weren't supplied by the artist, occasionally leading to some  hilariously inadvertent errors).

The transcriber who was given the first album by the new Jimi Hendrix Experience listened to the feedback laden disk repeatedly, then stormed into his boss' office. "It's music," he told his boss, "but not music I can transcribe." The problem: many of the sounds didn't lend themselves to the usual neat notation of notes on a staff. Much of it couldn't be classified as notes in the traditional sense at all.

In high school I once blasted Jimi's version of The Star Spangled Banner as the introduction to some long forgotten American history presentation. I got sent to the principal's office. It was worth it.