To say he "revolutionized" rock music is a rather gross understatement, at least from my personal view as a 35-year scholar of all things Jimi. No sir - a more correct and very strong case can be made for the notion that JMH revolutionized popular music as a whole, and then spread it all around the globe. I needn't point out that his legacy today is nearly as powerful as his work was whilst he was alive, right up until the moment of his tragic passing.
Be that as it may, this posting is a perfect vehicle for me to illustrate Jimi's perpetual power with both general and personal instances.
First up is this succulent morsel:
"Foxey Lady" is of course another one of Jimi's signatures, close kin to "Purple Haze" I analyzed a while back, and equally familiar to several generation's worth of people across the globe. However, this particular version bears much closer scrutiny. As you can clearly see / hear during the first thirty seconds, this Foxy Lady is chock-full of Jimi's inimitable musical mannerisms. Too chock-full, as it turned out.
Right at the 33 second mark, Jimi seems to have gotten himself into a bit of onstage trouble; the myriad distortions and physical manipulations he rammed through his axe up to this point, have rendered the white Fender a wee bit out of tune. True-blue trouper that the Lad was, he promptly seized an opportunity virtually no one else was even aware of. As Mitch and Noel effortlessly maintain the furious groove, Jimi first lapses into a single-chord drone, and quickly tunes up on the fly, within his ongoing drone. The initial effect is that Jimi simply muffed a turnaround, and was patiently waiting to rejoin the current in proper fashion when he could - the general public being more or less ignorant of the true root of tuning issues, than most musicians would be.
Jimi drones on for ten seconds, then effortlessly rejoins Mitch and Noel with an absolutely mind-shredding lick at the 43-45 second mark that literally screams "I MEANT to do all that!" I had to listen to it perhaps 75 times in succession initially, just to grasp the sheer audacity of what Jimi had done, it was SO subtly potent. Here, I should point out one small but crucial fact. This video is the "officially sanctioned" {by Jimi's Estate} document. The complete unedited video - which SHOWS Jimi working his special magic described above start-to-finish - can be seen in the "Hear My Train A Comin'" DVD from 2013. Which has been one of my most prized possessions for the last 3 years.
There's even more, though. Jimi's delectable musical "cake" here is made even more so by Noel and Mitch, who quite simply kick just as much ass - if not slightly more than - their wildly-talented band mate and frontman. A virtuoso ain't worthy of the title at all, unless they surround themselves with compatriots of similar caliber, and Noel and Mitch definitely fill their roles brilliantly, in this instance.
From the sublime to the ridiculous only takes one {mis}step; which is a perfect segue to the personal aspects. I've long since eschewed any need to explain why I love the man and his work so much, even though we play vastly different instruments. I've spent as much time researching and studying his basic biography as I have researching and studying his music. Ergo, it is entirely proper and fitting to insert the next illustration:
This anomaly finds Yours Humbly surrounded by no less than thee, count 'em THREE musicians of quite high-caliber, indeed. Like Jimi, I can't really do my thing properly without a measure of help from the outside. My band mates here give me all the brilliant inspiration I can handle, and then some! True to Jimi's philosophy, it's all about living in the moment - the past and future simply don't exist. Carpe diem, in other words.
Wellsir, we "carpe-d" and "diem-ed" until the proverbial cows flew home to roost {sic}. And had a right jolly old time of it to boot, IIRC. If nothing else, like JMH, we took the music WAY beyond the point where we first found it, which has probably all but guaranteed my fate of meeting my doom at the brain-chomping teeth of a certain Muddy-Zombie I've heard whispered rumors about........
Am I worried?
HELL to the no, Cats and Kitties - in the end, I'm still locked within Jimi's overall mindset. The story of life is Hello and Goodbye, until we meet again.
Diggez-vous?
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