As is my wont, it's time to gleefully upset the ol' apple cart, Cats & Kitties. Rather than the obvious blog about Erie's Patron Saint, I'm going off the board to focus on another very special anniversary that's near and dear to me heart.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of my Main Man Jimi's signature song, which goes something like this here:
I was all of 13 years old when my Great Friend Paul B. turned me on to this classic ditty. I'd been drumming for six years by that time, and was tentatively developing a bit of solid technique when Jimi literally roared into my life and violently stomped all over my reticence. I can still vividly recall the wonderful buzz that totally gobsmacked me like a bolt from the blue, that first time.
Quite simply, Purple Haze firmly welded together all kinds and styles of music into one small but enormously tasty package that instantly blew my mind. Once the initial shock wore off, I finally knew which musical path I'd be following until "the end of time {pun deliberate}." As such, I began a mega-crash course into not only Jimi's music, but the roots of it all to boot - the whole PhD study of BB King / Elmore James / Robert Johnson / Howlin' Wolf schtick.
What's more, at the same time I also had the great good fortune of becoming involved with any and every band / orchestral situation my high school offered. Concert band, symphonic, marching, jazz lab, avant-garde - you name it, I took it. Just as Jimi demonstrated with PH, I too fully embraced music's myriad genres, whilst keeping my mind and ears wide open for anything new coming over the horizon. Within a year I had gone double-bass, and was fast building up a musical reputation that would later serve me very well indeed.
Ironic item - over the last thirty-odd years as a performer, I've probably played PH in concert nearly as often as Jimi himself did! And stone me if it doesn't always - and I mean always - come across as fresh and new, despite its' age. Graceful and way dignified, dig?
And so it goes........
Happy Blarneystone Day, you naughty Boys & Girls. I shall be with you anon.
Oh yeah, almost forgot - ERIN GO BRALESS - er, ah, I mean BRAGH!!!
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