--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This is a subject close to my heart. Talking about what made Jimi > special among so many talented guitarists. Some great points so far > so here are my 2 cents. > > Jimi was a legendary monster practicer of his instrument. Same with > Stevie Ray. People who lived with them say they played guitar all > the time. They had monster chops as a result, and it was a basis > of how they could physically react in expressing emotions so > fluidly.
That's it exactly. With Jimi, it wasn't as if he was holding the guitar; it was more like the guitar was an extension of his body. He never had to *think* about what notes to play or how to play them; they just came through him and through his fingers to the strings and became music. It was really something to see. The first time I ever saw Jimi Hendrix he was sitting cross-legged backstage at the Monterey Pop Festival, playing his electric guitar without it being plugged into any amps. I didn't have any idea who he was; he hadn't played yet. But I was just *mesmerized*, man. I hadn't seen anyone that FLUID in the way he played the guitar *since* seeing Segovia. I just sat down and watched him play for a few minutes, listening to the tinny sound of the strings without any amplification. The next night I got to hear it piped through monster Marshall amps, and my first impressions were borne out. > Jimi got deeply into his amps and electrical gear. He had > his wawa pedal re-circuited to shift the frequencies giving > it a fatter sound. Electric guitarists have to have a bit of > electric gear nerd in them to get a unique tone. Garcia was a nerd guitarist, too. His guitar was *massively* customized electronically to produce what became his characteristic sound. Phil Lesh's bass, too -- every string had its own pickup and its own amp, so he could get different effects on each one. > Jimi spent hours playing the feedback that his amps made when > he faced his guitar to his amps. I have seen plenty of people > doing a feedback bit when playing Jimi, but only the best > actually play feedback with the same spontaneous joy that > Jimi had. He wasn't doing an effect, he was chasing certain > tones that made him feel a certain way. Exactly. Again, the issue is *control*, having practiced so much that the guitar and one's proximity to the amps you're generating feedback from is down to a science. It *wasn't* random, like some of the people you see onstage trying to emulate it; he was as firmly in control of the feedback sounds as he was of the ones his fingers created on the strings. I liken it -- perhaps oddly -- to watching a great Formula 1 race driver do his thing. It has been said (and with some accuracy) that driving a mod- ern Formula 1 car on concrete is like driving a high-powered sports car on black ice. The cars have so much power that the driver can spin his wheels going down the straightaway at 120 miles per hour just by tromping down on the accelerator. The amount of *control* you have to have to keep one of those beasts from getting away from you is beyond most drivers' ability to even conceive of. That's what Jimi was like playing with feedback. > Jimi's favorite bluesman was Slim Harpo I've heard, but he was a > student of the old masters. To play Jimi you have to do what Jimi > did, master the Delta blues in it's most primitive form. Jimi > playing Hear My Train a Comin http://youtube.com/watch?v=je9O-VdrZ0E > is such a great demonstration of what Turq was calling his "feel" > for his guitar. Great find, Curtis. Jimi on acoustic 12-string; that is something I'd never seen before. > If you are trying to play what Jimi played, you are missing > playing how Jimi played. EXCELLENT insight. That's it exactly. It was the FLOW of Jimi Hendrix that made him special, how the music chose to come through him at a given moment, not the notes themselves. > I think drugs for Jimi was part research in consciousness, trying to > find new feelings to express, and part survival in the grinding life > of a performing musician. He hated that people began coming to his > shows to see him break or burn a guitar. He was a sensitive soul who > got ground up by the rock star machine. He deserves having us spend > this time speculating what made him so special, he really was. Yup. Same with Garcia. As Jerry said so often when fans related to him as if he were some sort of god, "I'm just a guitar player, man."
