Hendrix

Band of Gypsies sounds pretty perfect to me. A great live recording.And please, don't mention Hendrix and that noodling nothing Vai in the same post. Hendrix = great, life enhancing music, Vai = pointless display of anodyne virtuosity. IMO, of course

Kevin

Electric Ladyland sounds pretty good in the original CD issue, I presume the later versions are even better. I think the 'Axis...' original LP is good, 'Are You Experienced' not so.

The 'Hendrix in the West' live compilation sounds great, but is long unavailable. Other releases I have of the bits of the source material really haven't stimulated.

Paul

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Vai = pointless display of anodyne virtuosity. IMO, of course

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Couldn't agree more, there's lots of fast guitar players but they lack feeling and soul. Hendrix and Vaughan had it in abundance, IMO.

I think the term you're looking for is fret wank
Martin

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Originally posted by kj burrell:
And please, don't mention Hendrix and that noodling nothing Vai in the same post

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I agree on Vai, but no one mentioned Vai ... GML cited Hendrix and Vaughan, as in Stevie Ray.

New glasses, perhaps?

Jimi was apparently a real audiophile and his original recordings are superb. Sadly he was badly exploited after his death and there was a load of inferior crap released over the years taken from umpteenth generation masters. I think his family has control now and what's being released is back to the originals which sound superb. There's also some live stuff from Woodstock, Isle of Wight and the Fillmore which is electrifying.

PS who/what is Vai?

Do not agree at all on Vai, they used to say the same thing about Hendrix.
Vai is a dedicated musician who just happens to have the most awesome chops.
He would have blown Jimi's mind.
I once explained to an old guy probably a Marvin, Weedon fan that Jimi could make the guitar sound like a dive bomber, someone screaming etc.
He replied "But can he make it sound like a guitar".

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New glasses, perhaps?

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Oops Off to specsavers. Still, gave a chance for a little rant and, as Freud pointed out with his theory of paprpraxis, there's no such thing as an error.Or have I got that wrong?

btw: I know very little about Vaughn. Did he play with Bowie at some point. Is he worth discovering or has his moment passed?

Kevin

You want a well recorded live Hendrix track???

just listen to "Hey Baby" from "Jimi plays berkeley". You can FEEL the texture of both Jimi's guitar and Billy Cox' bass. Awesome.

Best Regards,

Rich

I'm another fan of 'Hendrix in the West', one of the first records I ever bought. I recently rediscovered this from the collection after a mention by Andy Weekes. Little Wing is just fabulous: the blues, the soul and the spirit of Hendrix distilled in three minutes. In 70's vinyl form at least it is great in Hi-fi terms too but that's hardly the point.

duncan

Email: djcritchley at hotmail.com

Why on earth has it not been reissued, the version of Red house on there is unbelievable.

And while we're talking about "Hendrix in the West", he plays "Johnny B. Goode" like Chuck Berry must have wished he'd played it! (Rather like he did with Dylan's "Watchtower").

"In the West" is best. But then "Nine to the Universe" is rather adventurous too.

Regards, CB

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Do not agree at all on Vai, they used to say the same thing about Hendrix.

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I don't know how old you are Central but Hendrix is the one guitarist who I've never heard a really bad word said about him or his playing. All the other guitarists of that era eg. Clapton, Page, Beck, Alvin Lee, Zappa and so on are and were slagged for Soulless guitar wank from time to time, but IMHO opinion this was never levelled at Jimi either then or now.

Yours in Music

Syd

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Why on earth has it not been reissued, the version of Red house on there is unbelievable.

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They nicked the recording of 'Little Wing' from an Albert Hall show that was filmed and where the reproduction rights were owned by somebody else. Loads of court action and money stuff followed. So I suspect that's why 'In the West' is fairly rare.

You can get the entire Albert Hall concert on CD nowadays, but the sound just isn't the same. Perhaps the 'nicked' version involved some tapes that the owners of the recording didn't actually have?

Not that sound is that important, but I never really enjoyed Electric Ladyland from the auto-coupled reissue vinyl I own, whereas from CD it sounds great and gets regular plays.

Paul

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Originally posted by syd:

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Do not agree at all on Vai, they used to say the same thing about Hendrix.

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I don't know how old you are Central but Hendrix is the one guitarist who I've never heard a really bad word said about him or his playing. All the other guitarists of that era eg. Clapton, Page, Beck, Alvin Lee, Zappa and so on are and were slagged for Soulless guitar wank from time to time, but IMHO opinion this was never levelled at Jimi either then or now.

Yours in Music

Syd

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Syd, 48 if you must know, not saying a bad word myself, but he had his detractors in his day who sort of levelled the same thing, some of the guys are saying about Vai.

Thanks everyone, at least I now know what to go for.

George

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btw: I know very little about Vaughn. Did he play with Bowie at some point. Is he worth discovering or has his moment passed?

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Kevin, If you like Blues/Rock guitar you should really check out some Stevie Ray Vaughn, He unfortunately died in a helecopter crash in 1990, but any of his studio albums are a reasonable place to start, (Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, Soul to Soul, In Step, The Sky Is Crying), and no he never played with Bowie.

The remastered CD of Electric Ladylady isn't bad, but my favourite Hendrix material is 'The Jimi Hendrix Concerts' a selection of superb live recordings from 68->70, the sound being pretty good also (only got this on vinyl, don't know what the CD's like)

'In the West' is awesome, if only for the two tracks mentioned @Little Wing' and a sensitive version of 'Red House'.

On a good system Little Wing brings grown men (of a certain age, no doubt) to tears, it captures in those all too short few minutes the total essence of someone totally at one with his guitar. It's like being mentally connected with Hendrix!

The Band of Gypsies CD is pretty good, but avoid the Simply Vinyl release, it sucks the emotion out of the music somehow. I can remember being played Machine Gun from the CD at Nick Lees' house and not recognising it as the same music I had on vinyl album at home!

Vaughan was also excellent and probably captures the essence of Hendrix better than any other guitarist, whether playing Hendrix covers or his own material there's a sense of feeling there that's more rare than it should be.

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I wonder why people like Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan were not recorded very well.

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You must be kidding w.r.t. Vaughan - many of his albums are stunning recordings!

Andy.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

What an excellent guitar player, saw him live at the Reading festival in 1983. he was a late replacement for Survivor who cancelled. He was absolutely brilliant. Saw him again in 1988 at Manchester Apollo. His albums, as already mentioned, are well recorded and well worth buying.

Oh, and by the way he did perform with David Bowie both in the studio (Let's dance, I think) and live. Bowie was the one who discovered him

Music is Analogue and always shall be

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I don't know how old you are Central but Hendrix is the one guitarist who I've never heard a really bad word said about him or his playing.

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Well, my mother didn't like him

Of course, just made me even more interested. My fav song is the long jam version of Voodo chile on E Ladyland. The song more or less brakes up somewhere in the middle and then J starts it up again with a heavy blues intro. Makes my hair stand out.

JohanR (at 46)

I think you are all being a little hard on Steve Vai. It may be flash 80's glam rock stuff, but it had its place and he was very good technically. For The Love Of God is still good.

Rasher you talk about him in the past tense, he's still here you know.
Check out his new DVD live at the Astoria.

Steve Vai and Joe Satriani are both superb guitar players that unfortunately are not brilliant song writers and thus compensate by showing how well (or how fast) they can play the guitar.

If either had spent a long time in an established group (yes I know Vai played with Whitesnale a bit), I think some of their indulgences would have been tamed, and they would probably be appreciated more (rather than as just being technically brilliant)


Sorry about the Bowie comment, I remember now he did play on Let's Dance and this was a few months before his own debut album. I seem to recal though that it was Mick Jones who did a lot to publisize Stevie in the early days IIRC.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TomK:
Jimi was apparently a real audiophile .


True. He was well known to Lowther UK, as he favoured Lowther cabs for his own listening, but needed very frequent re-cones for the drivers as he played them too loud.

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Rasher you talk about him in the past tense, he's still here you know.

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Yeah, sorry. I think of him very much as having had his day.