Jimi Hendrix vs. Stevie Ray Vaughan

[intet_at_tabe]

Welcome to all rock/blues/jazz guitar solo interested fans.

There has been said and written so much about the guitar legend James Marshall Hendrix, born in Seattle, USA - 11.27.1942, better known to the musical world as Jimi Hendrix. JH suddenly appeared in England in late 1966, invited by the former bassist from the english group The Animals, Chas Chandler, who saw him in the USA. The next four years Jimi Hendrix changed what we all thought could be done on a stage before Jimi Hendrix visually, soundwise or on an album playing the electric guitar solo. Thoug Jimi Hendrix was completely genuine and raised from the old blues guitarists like B.B. King or Albert Collins, Jimi Hendrix was also self taught and left handed. After his all to soon departure from this world in 1970 all rock/blues fans would expect guitar solos from any guitarist in the future to match at least what Jimi Hendrix was able to do. Musicians and especially guitarists still talk of and discuss Jimi Hendrix, the incredible talent of his.

His biography and discography can be found on www.wikipedia.com or simply Google his name or The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

My interest in Jimi Hendrix and his different bands and the reason to why, I bring this thread up with his name, realising there might be one or two unforseen problems on a site like this is - that so many later guitarists around the world in the blues- and the rock/heavy rock/metal rock music later on tried to copi Jimi Hendrix and his genius playing the guitar, innovative and always breaking new frontiers.

This is in particular the reason to why, I open this thread and here by ask all of you for your help. There must be a lot of you, who have heard or perhaps attended a concert, where the individual guitarist might have reminded you of Jimi Hendrix. So if you guys out there pipe organ masters and any regulars on MIMF have any recollections of musicians, albums or concerts, where someone throwing a wild loud guitar solo, which reminded you of Jimi Hendrix, then let´s hear from you.

Perhaps you even have a current link to the individual guitarist, his group, the record or the concert where you saw it. Let´s find these guitarists, discuss them and bring them the credits they possibly need, carrying on from the legend Jimi Hendrix 1970.

How about the late american blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan?

There are no limits here speaking musically!!

intet-at-tabe

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Some back ground facts about Jimi Hendrix and the new open and free invironment in London, England in 1966.

So why did Jimi Hendrix have to move to London, England instead of making himself a career in his own country the USA? Facts are, he had left the US Airforce, with no job in hand and he received an invitation from Chas Chandler (The Animals).

England in those days around 1966 was the´ place/the center of rock & roll in Europe. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were already skyrocking to stardom. New groups like The Kinks, Traffic, Donovan, John Mayall and the Blues Breakers (starring one Eric "slow hand" Clapton among others) emerged like fresh flowers from the soil. EC later to be the first acknowledged SUPER GUITARIST in the world from the rock band The Cream.

But also London town, with the district of Saville Road, the english BBC Radio and Radio Luxembourg abroad which broadcasted the new rock & roll music had seen the "light" and the whole changing musical invironment in England and London in particular, were open for new inspiration, new management. The Beatles (Liverpool) and The Rolling Stones came from the labour class. New social reforms some 20 years post the WWII also infected youngsters to express themselves in education, the arts, in writings and the music. There were youngsters around Europe and in the USA, who did not want to follow in the usual foot prints of their parents. They all wanted to be able to decide for themselves for another kind of life than the usual jobs in the coal mines and the huge smoking factories in the middle/north of England and in the midwestern in the USA. The intire youth movement, the longer hair among men, the loose hanging clothes we wore in those days, Blue jeans acchieved an almost uniorm alike statusamong young people, the Flower Power movement, "make babies, not war". Young people suddenly had a new voice, who rebellioned towards the conservative conformity way of life: "Get an education, work for the society, pay your taxes, create a family and keep your mouths shut"-philosophy was attacked at this time in London, England and Paris, France. Inspiration from foreign countries far away in the east like India, the middle east, South America, Africa and the USA etc.etc. Drugs were new to the western way of life then. It was all part of the city London, when Jimi Hendrix arrived in the autumn 1966 with his guitar and not much of anything else - except an unspoiled incredible musical and guitar playing talent, however so far unknown to the world.

There were other indications to why Jimi Hendrix left (had to leave the USA). He already made friends with drugs and the facts of having huge depts, because of the drugs abuse. He was coloured, he was not scollered (educated) in music or on the guitar and his chances for a career in rock & roll, post Elvis Presley were next to none at the time in the USA, where the Civil Rights movement were on the march for better relations for all citizens.

Chas Chandler (manager for Jimi) had two musicians ready for Jimi Hendrix at his arrival to England. Noel Redding (el. bass, vocals) and the former jazz drummer Mitch Mitchell. They formed the group we all came to know as - The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Due to the owerwhelming participation and responses - Anyone?

 

[intet_at_tabe]

In honor of a long time member with huge integrity to show him I meant what I said about my weird imagination.

Telephone call from the emerald beyond:

"Intet-at-tabe, I told you. They don´t remember me".
"Com´n Jimi, of course they remember you".
"No. No one responds".
"It will come. You have to remember this is not a typical site for rock guitar soloists. Most of these guys have organs and pipe organs for 1. instrument. Some of them were not even born".
"Really?".
"Sure thing Jimi. Don´t give up. Eh man! I remember you from the beginning, like it was yesterday. You were the originator of the whole freakin´ guitar solos project in the UK. Listen Jimi. Where would Clapton, Martin Lancelot Barre, David Gilmour, Pete Townsend, Jimi Page, Jeff Beck, Richie Blackmore, Frank Zappa, Carlos Santana be, had it not been for you".
"There were so many other very good guitarists in England at the time".
"Right! Sure thing Jimi. But you opened up the gates and made it legal".
"Hmm..."
"Don´t worry Jimi. Show these people some respect, they´ll be around".
"Intet-at-tabe. You´ve always been loyal. I trust in you".

 

[Frederik Magle]

Ah, but Jimi is not forgotten (writes this while listening to Purple Haze)!

It's very interesting reading your post (more like a short article). Although I know some of his music, I didn't know much about his history.

Regarding Stevie Ray Vaughan, what are your own thoughts on that? Who can even begin to compare with Hendrix when he's at his best?. But with that said, I do think Stevie Ray Vaughan has something on his own to offer. He's obviously inspired by Hendrix - where do you think that's most apparent?

(Voodoo Child playing now)

Btw, this thread should have a picture of Jimi Hendrix :

 

[Muza]

Im sorry, intet -at-tabe, we were not ignoring you, just dont have enough knowledge on the subject to respond. But as Frederick said, Jimi is not forgotten - no way. As a matter of fact, I was listening to one of his cds the other day - the performance at Berkeley. Its a good one!

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Frederik, welcome to you, sooooo happy to see you.

Purple Haze and Woodoo Child are both Hendrix standards and very good tunes, by many Hendrix addicts titled not only typical Hendrix songs, but the man himself. The difference of course that Woodoo child, beginning with mysterious rifs on the guitar. If you listen closely you will notice that he almost all the song through carries on soloing having the organ soloing as well teasing with the guitar. Where most other guitarists would do the same 4-5 chords, have the interplay, ten seconds solo guitar or piano and then vocals again. This was new in England someone from abroad breaking down the borders of what was legal for a guitarist in a song with lyrics. The lenght of the song in minutes was another new thing. His appearence on the stage, like a mad man in strange costumes.

I believe it was Hendrix, who made Bob Dylan´s song "All along the watchtower" famous, also because Dylan was a sing and song writer, not a very good guitarist or harmonica player for that matter, some times more of a protest singer. But definitely not a class A guitarist with bluees roots like Hendrix. But as a poet Dylan comes in first.

Stevie Ray Vaughan IMHO has done some of the very best copi songs and the only guitarist IMHO who could actually play like Jimi. Like Hendrix he had the blues in his blood, you can easily hear it on his guitar and in his voice, when copying Hendrix. Try to listen to an album called "In Session", Stax Records 1983 by Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan. Albert King used to walk on his feet from city to city in the USA, sing on a street corner or outside the local stables with his hat on the pavement, make a buck or two for food and housing, and the next day he would be on the road again. Though Albert King was much older than SRV, the respect among the two of them, which one can hear on this album, is so obvious.

SRV had his own band Double Trouble for many years, his brother Jimmy on rhytm guitar, Tommy Shannon on el. bass and Chris Layton on the drums. On his regular song list while playing live, he would play songs like Voodoo Child and the medley Little Wing/Third Stone From The Sun and Manic Depression, and people would think it was Hendrix playing the guitar. IMHO he was that good a guitar player. As human beings/men they couldn´t have had more identical profiles. SRV also turned to drugs in an early age, and wasted to much of his talent doing so. Sad though. He manged to get clean, and he could still play that awesome guitar to his own surprice.

Frederik would you please enter the picture of Jimi, like you suggested.

Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Muza, don´t be sorry or say it´s not that Hendrix had been forgotten.

I had one of these ideas - this time about Jimi Hendrix, I get from time to time, like I wrote on my recollection on my birthday, some of the guests remembering from earlier in my life - Not always succesful. I thought it was a great idea, because we, Jimi and I have been pals for years on end. But it does not mean it has to be a great idea for anyone else. This is not a Hendrix site or a site for electric guitar soloists, not that you guys wouldn´t be able to talk about it.

I asked for permition to try it out, I managed to get in the right place, write it and I could see I managed (1. step), and I am still cool and still here. Don´t worry, be happy, and I did complement you on your entry from the consert.

So you´re equally welcome like I told Frederik, so stick around Muza. Perhaps I should have offered a prize?

Remember, not even Rome was built in one day, I still have to learn to write much shorter entries.

Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[rojo]

Jimiiiii!

Now who doesn't like Hendrix? I think he's idolized by many and respected by all. Jimi changed everything on the guitar.

(Question though- why is this thread a 'vs.' thread? It seems to be more of a Hendrix glorification thread... which is fine by me. Nothing against Vaughn though; he's pretty fantastic as well. :grin: )

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Jimiiiii!

Now who doesn't like Hendrix? I think he's idolized by many and respected by all. Jimi changed everything on the guitar.

(Question though- why is this thread a 'vs.' thread? It seems to be more of a Hendrix glorification thread... which is fine by me. Nothing against Vaughn though; he's pretty fantastic as well. :grin: )

rojo

Thank you and welcome here. There is no emoticon for hugging, so I can only complement you on your remark "idolized by many and respected by all". That is today. In 1967 he was not. Many people from the established invironment, also within the music industry took him for a revolutionary - on all accounts.

The "vs. thread" as you call it, was my idea to find these guitarists around the world, who had Hendrix as their role model playing the guitar. The ones, I mentioned earlier from Clapton and then 20 years ahead or so to Stevie Ray Vaughan. SRV whose musical career came much later than both Hendrix and Clapton. Clapton like most of the other great solo guitarists in the late 1960´s and the beginning of the 1970´s, who was also influenced for years by drugs. Remember The Cream - Clapton, Jack Bruce (el. bass, vocals) and Ginger Baker (drums).

One from the old guard in blues John Lee Hooker (USA) once gave an interview talking about Eric "slow hand" Clapton, saying: I never heard Clapton play anything, but the blues.

Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Frederik

I forgot to mention Chass Chandler´s strike of a genius. CC had seen Hendrix play live in N.Y.C., and knew then that he could make something great with Jimi. I believe that´s why he chose Redding for the el. bass but in particular Mitch Mitchell for the drums.

Mitchell was known for his great drumming in London playing smaller clubs, he could almost sit in on anything - musically speaking. What Hendrix needed to improvise on the stage was a drummer, who had his roots in the blues, but in jazz as well. Mitch Mitchell fulfilled that role in the Jimi Hendrix Experience much better than Chass Chandler, or anyone else would have expected. You can hear it on Woodoo Child for instance, MM almost making a drum solo, and yet not, only to match what the organ and the guitar do.

Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Try each and everyone of you to find the songs "Hey Joe" and "House of the rising Sun" with Eric Burden and The Animals, the band where Chass Chandler used to play el. bass. Then compare it to Jimi´s editions. Then you´ll notice the difference. The approach to both songs in Jimi´s edition are quite different from anyone else, who have had these two songs on the menu.

One of the most disgussed issues aroung Hendrix has always been his lack of high tech. instruments. He had the guitar, a wah wah pedal, used by his foot to change the sound of the strings, some amplifiers and speakers. That was it.

Guitarists all over the world in 1970´s-80´s-90´s and still to day in 2008, can´t figure out how he could either play like he did, nor figure out the sounds he could make with such lack of keyboards on the floor connected to the guitar. Hendrix´gear was very simple.

John Scofield, Mike Stern and Pat Metheny from jazz music, excellent prof. jazz guitarist. They all have tons of extra equipment on the floor. Pat Metheny once said: Had it not been for Jimi Hendrix, I would never had become a guitarist, probably never been a musician at all. Jimi Hendrix got me into playing the guitar, though I never figured out how he managed playing the way he did in the late 1960´s.

Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[rojo]

The "vs. thread" as you call it, was my idea to find these guitarists around the world, who had Hendrix as their role model playing the guitar. The ones, I mentioned earlier from Clapton and then 20 years ahead or so to Stevie Ray Vaughan. SRV whose musical career came much later than both Hendrix and Clapton. Clapton like most of the other great solo guitarists in the late 1960´s and the beginning of the 1970´s, who was also influenced for years by drugs. Remember The Cream - Clapton, Jack Bruce (el. bass, vocals) and Ginger Baker (drums).

It's probably just me; I find it sounds like JH and SRV should be duking it out or something. :lol: But now I get where you're coming from.

Hendrix used a lot of feedback techniques, if I'm not mistaken. I assume he was an innovator in that department?

Thanks for the hug.

 

[intet_at_tabe]

It's probably just me; I find it sounds like JH and SRV should be duking it out or something. :lol: But now I get where you're coming from.

Hendrix used a lot of feedback techniques, if I'm not mistaken. I assume he was an innovator in that department?

Thanks for the hug.

rojo ,

Please do me a favour and explane to your musical untalented danish Hendrix addict (but never for the drugs though), what you mean with the "But now I get where you´re coming from"???. You completely lost me on this one.

I believe it would be fair, however disgusting, to say in general looking back, that the whole music invironment and music buisnesses in London and at "Roxy and elsewhere" equals in Europe and America since the middle of the 1960´s until today more or less accepted drugs and the wild parties connected to the back stage get-together after a concert to be a "natural" part of great musicianship. Though, as we all know a lot of these notabilities in rock music, passed away early in each their lives. Think of Brian Jones (Rolling Stones), Jim Morrison (The Doors), Janis Joplin (Oh Lord, give me that Mercedes Benz), Larry Taylor (Canned Heat) not to mention Syd Barrett (former guitarist and vocalist in Pink Floyd), who took one acid-trip too many, never to become "normal" again. Which also goes for the lunatic Ossie Osborn (former singer in Black Sabbeth).

Think of Keith Moon the first drummer with the Who, who in 1968 were banned to visit the city of Hamburg, Germany for the rest of his natural life, having smashed to ruins the intire top floor in a hotel after a concert stoned out of his wits, drunk like a skunk, throwing 27 TV-sets from different rooms out the windows from the 16th floor??? That´s madness and the real danger with drugs mixed with alcohol.

I do agree with you rojo that the feedback technigues were invented by Hendrix, but it was probably Carlos Santana who benefitted from it, and made it his own later on. Only think of a tune called "Samba Pa Ti", it could be from the album "Lotus - Live in Japan", awesome guitar and cymbals sound on that album.

Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[rojo]

Sorry intet, I just meant that I understood your explanation.

Yup; it's a shame that we lost so many so young...

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Sorry intet, I just meant that I understood your explanation.

Yup; it's a shame that we lost so many so young...

Cool rojo!!

"When you play the horses you´re bound to lose sooner or later" regarding drugs and alcohol. The addiction always controle the addict, never the other way around. Now you have a great sunny weekend!!

Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[rojo]

True; addictions are dangerous.

About the sunny weekend, I'll certainly try! :grin:

 

[intet_at_tabe]

True; addictions are dangerous.

About the sunny weekend, I'll certainly try! :grin:

rojo and everyone else. After a short break, yesterday occipied all day with my lawyer let´s continue the journey from the late 1966, when Jimi Hendrixs suddenly appeared in the Swinging London musical invironment. An outcast from America.

However before we continue this journey, we have to look at a very important english undergrown group at the time with the name The Yardbirds, where three of England´s most famous guitarists in rock and blues later on went to the 101 class playing the guitar as teenagers. Jeff Beck, Erik Clapton and Jimmy Page are the names.

The most interesting and well known of these three exquisite guitarists being Eric "slow hand" Clapton, not really an englishman, but born on Jamaica in the Caribean and his brother in blues played on the guitar, his american collegue Duane Allman, from the Allman Brothers band, and one individual male almost 2 meters tall, albino born in the south of America in Texas with the name Johnny Winter.

You may think that nothing happened in the evolving music department in America, when Elvis Presley, the KING of rock & roll topped the polls musically and throughout a lot of movies, acting a soldier or a beach lion. The KING in America from the early days of rock & roll in the middle of the 1950´s with Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, in England Tommy Steele from 1955-65 were stars like Paul Anka, Perry Como, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra each of them made a huge career in soft jazz with lyrics accompaigned by a Big Band. For instance the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, long time backing for Frank Sinatra and Paul Anka songs, before The Carpenters "Close to You" and "Raindrops keep falling on my hair" from the movie with Robert Redford and Paul Newman were screened. Paul Anka, who actually wrote and composed the song "My Way", which became identical to Frank Sinatra.

Intermission,
intet-at-tabe

 

[intet_at_tabe]

The Yardbirds was not really a group in the beginning, more like a musican´s kollektive where nothing was planned, and everyone being able to do a few chords on an instrument, were as good as the next guy.

You have to remember, when The Beatles first appeared in 1962/63 John Lennon and George Harrison could hardly chisel their own guitars. Paul McCartny told this years later on an interview about the early days, when a guitarist only had to be able to play a few 4-5 chords to perform and make a demo on an oldfashioned taperecorder to a musical company.

Eric Clapton entered the Yardbirds in 1963, at this time his idols were Robert Johnson. Chuck Berry and Little Walter, who all of them had their basis in guitar playing in the american invented - the blues an extended musical art form from the Negro Spirituals, songs sung by African American slaves in the cutten- and suggar plantations in the south of America, long before The United States Of America had it´s birth in 1776, when new americans (former europeans) through out the british, after the french/british war on american soil.

In 1965 EC, already well known in London, England. He left the Yardbirds to enter Mr. White Blues in Europe, the band John Mayall´s Bluesbreakers. Here mr. Eric Clapton became famous in only one year for his guitarplaying, mostly his solos on older blues songs from americans, composed by his long time friends (today) Mr. B. B. King and John Lee Hooker, both of them black american musicians. Particular on one song called "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" a blues standard which Eric Clapton made his own.

John Mayall knew listening to EC´s guitar: This guy is going to go the whole way and become the guitarist of an entire generation, which EC did.

In the US at the same time Duane Allman (el. guitar), a wild young man, whose personal interests were concerned mostly about drugs, beers, guitars and fast bikes and his brother Greg Allman (organ, keyboards) had had their teenage experiences in different groups, before they decided to form The Allman Brothers Band. Blues/Rock musicly often performed by a band with two lead guitarists or two drummers, southenors from the USA. More precisely Nashwille, Tennesee. The equater of the later different directions in music Country and Blue Grass music.

Duane Allman had the very same talent as Eric Clapton, and the two of them years later formed a group playing against one another, dueling on the guitar soloing as an artform in rock music on George Harrison´s Bangladesh album. An album, the first in the world of it´s kind - To support the hungry people of the Bangladesh. The first aid concert in the world - musically speaking.

The songs on this album that made both Eric Clapton and Duane Allman famous were Clapton´s song "Layla", (written by Eric Clapton in honor to his Lady at the time, George Harrison´s former girlfriend Patty) and George Harrisons song "While my guitar gently weeps". Some of the best f...... el. guitar I´ve been so lucky to have listened to in my life.

Unfortunately Duane Allman, intoxicated by boose and drugs died on his bike later on.

So while Jimi Hendrix, an outcast from the USA, not approved of by his own, so to speak colour, made stardom in the UK and Europe, two other el. guitarsist were leaning on Hendrix.

A third one quite unknown at the time both in the USA and England at the time i 1967 Johnny Winter from Texas, USA was headding for a huge surprice in the musical blues/rock buisness.

End of today´s lecture. Best regards,
intet-at-tabe

 

[John Watt]

Hendrix misinformation and lack of information

Hey! This might be a widely participated and the worst thread I've tried to read here, and I'm one of the few guitarists I know playing a '64 Fender Stratocaster through a Marshall amp with effects while Jimi was alive, trying to play and sing and sound and be like him. Please, please, see my concert review in "music reviews" that says more than anyone else here, so far. Terry Walsh, a great jazz-classical-rock guitarist from St. Catharines, was at the club Hendrix jammed at afterwards, playing bass with him. He should be here with his astute commentary.

What needs comment here:
Dylan went back into the studio to rerelease "All Along The Watchtower" using Hendrix's take on his chords. Dylan went electric. 'Nuff said.
I heard Jimi Hendrix say onstage he did not use hard drugs. A Canadian judge believed him. There were no evidences of needle marks on him when he was autopsied. Two different but identical autopsy copies I saw showed he died of suffocation of vomit after being placed upright in an ambulance in Germany. Evidence of wine and sleeping pills. His previous kidnap and "rescue" at gunpoint, and the relevance of his being days from contract expiries, one he fought hard to finalize, releasing his only live album to fulfil, are still just speculations.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer created a rotating and "hurricane" effect with quadaphonic sound systems in arenas, needing transport trucks. They started to sound live like some Jimi.
Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Pete Townsend and Jimi Page, to name a few, started using Fender Stratocasters after Jimi died. In Page's case, it was publicized he used a Telecaster in the studio to record the first two Led Zep albums, playing '58 Les Pauls, S.G.s and double neck S.G.s onstage. Facts.
In The United States, various morals motivated groups created various products to portray Jimi Hendrix as an evil man for the hold he had on his fans. From his death until the Hendrix family legally gained control of his estate, there were more fakes than real. Anyone with a Strat and stack thinking they sounded like Jimi recorded. They still sold. From the number of Hendrix imitators after his death to what is now displayed on the official website, this social phenomena may outpace Elvis imitators in industry size.
Ask Pat Methany or quote any number of old guitar mag polls, to see an incredible number of musicians say they first decided to play guitar because they saw Hendrix. I'll tell you why. He had all the publicity. He looked so good. He sounded so.... and he made it all look so.... easy.... giving it all away. You wanted to be him, because he made you feel the love, Axis; Bold as Love, that is.