Psychedelic Watchtower

Blues music was the foundation upon which Jimi Hendrix leaped from. In his early days he would idolize T Bone walker and Buddy Guy. Hendrix developed a natural taste of Chicago Style and 12 bar blues. Red House shows Hendrix’s passion for the old school blues he grew up on, and learned to play guitar with. Although Hendrix would never say the blues were boring or an outdated style, he detached himself from the traditional blues scene and moved to the bohemian, artist-heavy Greenwich Village in New York.

It was there Hendrix started to realize that there was more to blues music that has yet to be untapped. To help him untap, so to speak, Bob Dylan would become a big influence on Hendrix.

As Hendrix moved from a backing guitarist of traditional blues artists to front man of his own band there were transitional hiccups that had to be overcome. For example, Hendrix was always a shy person, and his tendency to recoil into himself was felt in his voice, which he criticized and ridiculed constantly. Bob Dylan, at the time, was already a well-established act and his coarse, drawling voice gave confidence to many musicians, not just Hendrix. Girlfriend Linda Keith “would play him song after song by Bob Dylan, subtly showing him that it was not the actual quality of the voice but the tone and sentiment of the delivery that counted.”

As homage to Dylan, and to acknowledge the breadth of influence he had, Hendrix did a tribute of All Along the Watchtower (from Dylan’s John Wesley Harding 1968). Hendrix didn’t stray too far from the original song (hence a “tribute” song, and not a “cover”) the biggest change was replacing Dylan’s harmonica with electric guitar. To show that Hendrix too, could have influence, a later version of Watchtower played by Dylan live has an obvious Hendrix influence, as Dylan’s guitar has replaced his harmonica.

Jazz music also plays a big part in Hendrix’s catalogue. Songs like Third Stone from the Sun and Up from the Skies have strong freeform jazz sensibilities, alluding to Buddy Rich style drums at the beginning of the tracks.

Manager Chas Chandler also had an impact, perhaps limiting Hendrix’s creative abilities. Chandler did give Hendrix his start and as an ex-member of The Animals his pop sensibilities were apparent throughout Hendrix’s first two albums.

Electric Ladyland was Hendrix’s first true “psychedelic” album. Although Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold as Love were both saturated in experimental and freeform fusions of rock, blues, and jazz, the tracks were very often also layered with catchy AABA schemes and averaged around four minutes in length, catering to the pop rock radio crowd. Electric Ladyland sees the departure of Chandler and a much more experimental take on the above mentioned fusions, as well as longer songs, such as the almost 14 minute 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to be).

Hendrix’s influences go beyond the musicians (also worth mentioning are the guitar heroes like Steve Vai and Eric Clapton and the London psychedelic blues scene) and stem from his passion for science fiction (which are obvious in the music of EXP, or the lyrics of Third Stone From the Sun).

Jimi’s upbringing also plays a big part in his lyrics, song like 51^st Anniversary offer a biographical slant on his childhood.

Wave that Freak Flag high

Dissecting a song can be a dangerous but rewarding task. It’s useless to argue your song analysis is more right than another’s. Music has a message, and it differs for every person. In looking closer at song meanings, though, you can start to see patterns develop. You get a better glimpse into the songwriter’s head, and if careful enough, can find a common theme or subject matter that no fellow analyst can deny.

Hendrix, to me, firstly represented the common counterculture. His thoughts on marriage and relationships also surface frequently, and he did this by writing about himself.

If 6 was 9 is Hendrix’s most straightforward and obvious attempt at capturing the attitude of the counterculture. He mentions the resistance the hippies encountered by the “White collar conservatives” who hope “my kind will drop and die,” in the second verse.

The song can be taken as a rally cry to all the hippies /counterculture /Vietnam protesters to unite against “the man” and “wave [your] freak flag high.” To an extent his tactics worked. It’s as if the title If 6 was 9 was a foreshadow to the year 1969, when the counterculture made their pilgrimage from middle America to Woodstock, NY for one final, over-the-top blowout where the cause was at its peak.

Whether Jimi was taking on the role of everyman in the song or if the lyrics he wrote were exclusive to his life is not important. What is important is that he embodied the counterculture and helped define it, so he was able to so clearly articulate the feelings of era. He lived that life; therefore he’s a justified storyteller or preacher of his material. His background checks out.

Much like If 6 was 9, Stone free reflects on the free spirit of the ‘60s through the eyes of a drifter, a transient who roams America and meets attempts to conform with resistance. “Everyday in the week I’m in a different city/If I stay too long people try to pull me down/They talk about me like a dog/Talkin’ about the clothes I wear/But they don’t realize they’re the ones who’s square,” he wrote.

Women too, were not enough incentive for him to stay put: “Listen to this baby/A woman here a woman there try to keep me in a plastic cage/But they don’t realise it’s so easy to break.”

Those eight lines capture the core of the counterculture’s campaign. The same attitudes were apparent in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, written a generation earlier. The book, which is an account of Kerouac’s encounters as he travels America, laid down the foundation for the ‘60s. Hendrix took what the beat generation created and rolled with it.

His attitudes toward relationships is probably best revealed in 51^st Anniversary.

“Ten years they’ve been married/And a thousand kids run around hungry/Cause their mother’s a louse /Daddy’s down at the whiskey house,” states one verse. Those lines are a revealing look into Hendrix’s unstable childhood. The song is a bitter take on relationships. There are several other songs (including If 6 was 9) that reiterate Hendrix’s disdain for marriage.

“So you, you say you wanna get married/ Oh baby trying to put me on a chain/ Ain’t that some shame/ You must be losing your, sweet little mind,” states 51^st Anniversary. The song also includes a march-style drum beat during the line, “And then you come saying So you, you say you wanna get married.” This could be in reference to the wedding march theme, but the march is so rigid and military-esque that it’s probably Jimi’s satirical protest against marriage.

Hendrix realised the potential of his power. He knew his words would be listened to and he did not want to waste them. He didn’t cater to his fans and write songs for them, but at the same time he didn’t waste their time. He stayed away from the trivial and wrote what mattered to him, it just so happened millions felt (and feel) the same way.

You Gotta Diversify

I am always interested to read what seems to be annual “best albums ever” lists in Rolling Stone and other trivial fodder magazines. I usually never agree with them, and they change their minds often. The lists are not definitive; they are made for debate and discourse, which is always a healthy way to keep the exponential knowledge of music in check. The one constant between most of these publications, critics, and “industry experts” is that Pet Sounds, Sgt. Peppers and Are you Experienced? are almost always in the top ten, if not the top five.

It’s not a matter of musical taste, but of a deeper sense of the music scene as a whole, in a historical context, and a present one, that determines where an album like Experienced should sit.

 

 Are you Experienced? was revolutionary for its time. It was a catalyst between the “freaks” and the mainstream. Because several of the songs were radio friendly it enabled the average radio listener to be exposed to an entire subgenre that would soon become the norm.

Songs like “Fire” are accessible for obvious reasons. The catchy and repetitive “Let me stand next to your fire” chorus could be sung by anyone, and will get in your head and stay there. The straight forward pop rock song, along with a classic solo about 1:28 in is a way for wary or hesitant listeners to familiarize themselves with this “new sound” and from that hopefully they would discover some tracks on the album that were not so radio friendly.

Because Purple Haze is a short but powerful burst it also acts as a transition song for the drug culture Hendrix was involved with. Third Stone from the Sun would be a good b-side to Purple Haze. It is a longer-than-radio-cares-to-play tune that is inaudible at times and is embedded with psychedelia and sound experimentation, probably a more true or honest take on what Hendrix and company were feeling or going through at the time. Jazz elements also appear (especially the drumming at the start) and in a way psychedelia and jazz go hand in hand. They are both experimental, they are (or at one time) considered fringe genres, they were oppressed and met with resistance from the mainstream, but when they broke through they revolutionized music.

Hendrix took what he knew, 12 bar blues like Highway Chile, Rhythm and Blues like in Stone Free (which also has elements of funk in it, and can be directly linked to The Red Hot Chili Peppers who closed their ’99 Woodstock set with a version of “Fire”) and crunchy straight up classic rock formula songs like Foxy Lady and meshed them all together to create a unique and diverse album.

Hendrix was just mimicking the earlier generation who discovered that if you combine blues, R&B, and country music you could have rock and roll.

I’ll spare my opinioned thoughts on today’s artists who try and mesh rap with rock and get nowhere (Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock), or how dance and rock is becoming a more popular mash up (Death From Above 1979, LCD Soundsystem…the new Velvet Underground?…Okay that was a bit too far).

The exciting possibility is that Are you Experienced? Will one day be pushed down to number 20 on the best of lists. The album proves that you can have elements of radio friendly music without changing your beliefs or mantra. I’m dreaming when I say we might see another album of this importance in our lifetime, but the as a music fan I want to discover artists that transcend genres and put meaning and soul into their craft, which will eventually carry over into the consciousness of the listener and, like Experienced did, change the world.

Pop Goes the World

The Monterey Pop Festival will go down as one of the greatest or most important festivals in rock history. It is considered the first of its kind and was the first time the world was introduced to the 60’s counterculture movement in such a condensed, spastic furry of intensity and vigour that even some of the “Hip-oise” audience was shocked and left speechless.

You can see it on the audience’s faces throughout the movie, during the eerie, dream like voices of the Mammas and the Pappas to Janis Joplin’s performance with Big Brother and the Holding Company, which catapulted her to iconic levels.

There’s no denying heavy drug use may have played a part in the dumfound faces of the crowd, as even David Crosby openly talks about acid, but what makes the lineup of artists at Monterey some of the greatest artists is their ability to transcend outside influence and distractions, whether that be alcohol, drugs or recording contracts, and put everything they had spiritually and mechanically into the performances.

The lineup managed to capture the 60’s zeitgeist in a one-weekend festival. The free flow of drugs, the decision to make the festival free, but mostly the music, is what The Summer of Love was all about.

            For Jimi Hendrix Monterey was his audition to the mainstream. It was his chance to prove to America that he was worthy of their record players. He would not only prove that, but he would turn the rock world on its head and take stage performance to a new, untapped level.

 A hardcore music nerd (not much unlike myself, or probably you) could argue that The Who were also taking the “destroy everything in sight” mentality during their frantic sets, and thus Hendrix and The Who indirectly helped perpetuate each other’s career, showing that it was not just one lunatic who seemed to be making love to his amplifier, but a whole generation (i.e.; My Generation) that would express their anger towards government, Vietnam, or their girlfriends and the repression of the new thoughts, and ideas, through the destruction of the stage. Their instruments represented the resistance the counterculture experienced.

To look back on it now, it seems silly. I recall seeing punk band (the term punk is used loosely here) Blink 182 play at the Saddledome and guitarist Tom DeLong smashed his pink guitar and threw pieces of it into the audience, not unlike Hendrix did at Monterey.

Hendrix was making a statement. He was protesting and celebrating at the same time. Blink 182, well I don’t get what they were trying to do, except emulate a mentality that has long since past. (That’s not to say the 60’s mentality is not lost on newer generations, it has just morphed into different variations of the time and we live in a society were smashing a guitar no longer proves much, especially when the band has nothing to say.)

            It’s hard to ignore what festivals did for music. I watch the movies and dream of being there. But it is also hard for me to watch too. The 60’s happened so fast, and the festivals went even faster. After Monterey there was the most popular one: Woodstock. It was a disaster. No money was made, people tore down fences and the weather did not cooperate. (And there was bad acid being passed around, which, I realized was the butt of a joke in Wayne’s World 2 when Garth gets up in stage at a festival and says “There is bad red rope licorice going around, please do not eat the red rope licorice.”

            Altamont was also a disaster, with rumors that the Rolling stones hired the Hells Angles as security. Three people died (not necessarily because of the angles) during that festival.

            My favourite festival movie came out in 2003. Festival Express is the most unique in that it was a train loaded with musicians (Joplin, The Band, Buddy Guy) that traveled across Canada to play three dates. But that too, was a financial disaster, and there would be more run-ins with authorities. (The best was during Sha Na Na’s version of Rock ‘n’ Roll is here to stay juxtaposed with clips of mounted police clashing with the concert goers).

            Perhaps the most depressing is the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival when an unruly fan gets on stage and more or less harasses Joni Mitchell, before she rebounds with an amazing rendition of Woodstock. Isle of Wight, too, was plagued with people who thought the festival should be free.

            The festivals of the 60’s were timeless. They embodied a feeling of the moment. It sparked a mass awareness of what was happening in Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village, and in England. But, as all the festivals happened near the end of the 60’s, you also get a sense that is was coming to an end. As soon as a “promoter” becomes involved, money becomes an issue and the innocence of the early to mid 60’s was morphing into a “how can we make money off of this” mentality.

            The Isle of Wight Festival is the hardest to watch as the 70’s arena rock bands (Supertramp, Jethro Tull) started to creep into the lineup and to me that is the first sign of the conservative 70’s starting to gain precedent on the freewheelin’ 60’s.

Monterey, being the first of a string of festivals, and the first real showcase of Hendrix, The Who and Joplin, among others, should be considered the most pure, or authentic look into the 60’s zeitgeist.

 

Under the Influence

Jimi Hendrix did not become a star overnight. He struggled to find his own voice early on in his career backing up a flurry of revered musicians like Sam Cooke and B.B King. It was in the dingy blues clubs that Jimi really began to shape his future sound. Often going off on tangents and to places no one had taken the guitar before, Hendrix soon found, that although his foundation was blues oriented (after all he did grow up idolizing Buddy Guy and Otis Rush) his take on the classic sense of the word was skewed.

It took the shy Hendrix a circle of true believers like his manager Chas Chandler, to really boost his modest ego and convince him that he has a place in the currently chaotic soundscape of the 60’s.

Hendrix met his encouragers with some resistance, but ultimately would follow suit and begin to explore his vocal abilities with “Hey Joe”.

Girlfriend/friend Linda Keith “would play him song after song by Bob Dylan, subtly showing him that it was not the actual quality of the voice but the tone and sentiment of the delivery that counted,” wrote McDermott and Kramer (p.7).

Dylan was busy turning the world upside down by switching to electric guitar. Some folk purists booed Dylan and the Band on tour, but Dylan “Transcended the bullshit” (to borrow form The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, another artifact of the 60’s drug-infused counterculture) and kept making music for him and him only. I think Hendrix would come to adore Dylan’s efforts and ideals, especially considering they were both Greenwich Village residents.

That little piece of New York was a haven for free-thinking artists and starving musicians. It was the east coasts’ answer to Perry Lane and Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. The environment Hendrix was living in before he went to England was an explosion of creativity and internal release.

 

The cultural climate of the early to mid 60’s was in a transition. The Watts riots sparked an equal rights movement that eventually flowered into a mentality of peace and love. People were searching for a change in politics, entertainment, and generally life. In England people embraced the down-home southern blues that America had been embedded with since the Great Depression (or arguably earlier).

Bands like Cream tried to emulate the blues sound and infuse it with the new emerging electric sound. The Who took it a step further with their flamboyant, over the top stage antics. Of course Jimmy Page’s contributions to blues-rock should not go unnoticed either, not many people could take a violin bow to a guitar and make it sound good. It seems the only person, however, that could have linked American Blues in its classic form to the new sound of swirling guitars and reverb was Jimi Hendrix. He is from were it all started.

“Hendrix exuded the very passion and conviction that British audiences loved in America’s best blues and R&B, and combined this with a stage show only Howlin’ Wolf and T-Bone Walker had shown flashes of and a new electric sound that Buddy Guy had only hinted at.” (McDermott, Kramer p. 23)

.

 

Hendrix was at the beginning stages of his career in the spotlight, but he didn’t change his beliefs or ideals to get there. He knew he didn’t fit in with the straight-ahead monotony of standard blues clubs, and began to distance himself from them. He already dressed “weird” for the time. His boots and leather were a statement in itself that he was going to be different. Hendrix did not fold to the pressures of the media, which took to him. In a sense, Hendrix was the biggest reason he rose to rock royalty at the rate he did. Sure, he was shy and standoffish at times, but he knew what he wanted and where he was going, not in terms of record sales or press interviews and fame, but musically.

This was a time for Jimmy to discover himself, so to speak. Only he could really find his sound and only he can play guitar like that. It’s a tragic thought to think what it would be like if he was born ten years later, or earlier. All the factors that helped Hendrix become who he is pale in comparison to the influence he had on himself. This statement might sound grand and pretentious, but there are so many other artists out there who are in the right place at the right time, have the people to back them, and have the drive to perform and work ethic to go on the road and promote, but how many of them are even close to what Hendrix has done? Hendrix’s biggest influence is himself.