Jimmy Hendricks is one of the most influential guitarists of the XX century. He invariably enters all the lists of the greatest rock performers. The Rolling Stone music magazine has twice in its history published a chart of the best guitarists of all time. In both versions, Jimmy Hendrix is in the first place. The most influential experts in the field of guitar music called him the most influential artist, whose recordings still continue to inspire a new generation of musicians to create their own masterpieces.
Jimmy Hendrix Biography Childhood
James Marshall Hendricks was born in Washington State in 1942. When he was 9 years old, his parents divorced, and his father took custody of his young son.
While studying in elementary school, the boy often picked up a broom and imagined that he was playing the guitar. He did this so often that teachers had to write a letter to the support society for poor families asking them to give funds to buy a musical instrument. The organization refused them. However, the boy soon found a ukulele instrument in the garage and learned to play by ear. The first songs he performed were compositions from the Elvis Presley repertoire.
Military service
In the early sixties, Jimmy Hendricks was arrested for car theft. The guy was given a choice between prison and the army. Hendricks preferred the latter.
During the service, he participated in amateur performances. There, the guitarist met bassist Billy Cox, who was amazed at the young musician's playing technique. He later described this manner as "a cross between John Lee Hooker and Beethoven."
Career
Returning from the army, two musicians assembled a group that performed mainly cover versions of songs by famous musicians. Jimmy Hendrix was soon noticed by major producers. He became involved in the recordings and concerts of such musicians as Isley Brothers and Little Richard.
When the famous rock and roll singer and pianist fired Hendrix due to the fact that he attracted great attention of the audience during concerts, the hero of our article gathered a new group, which became known as The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
The team was spotted by English producers and invited to London to record their first album. A disc called Are you experienced? instantly flew to the top of the English charts, and only the new Beatles record, Sergeant Pepper's Club of Lonely Hearts Club, drove him out of first place.
No less success was expected and the second work of the musician.
Many songs from these albums invariably appear in all collections with titles like "Jimmy Hendrix. The Best."
Third album
In 1967-68, Jimmy Hendrix (photo of the musician can be seen below) was busy looking for a new studio in New York. His second album, Axis Bold As Love, was at the top of the charts. Songs from him were constantly played on the radio.
The musician made a lot of rough recordings in London, and this material had to be finalized and recorded in a professional studio. Warner paid the artist in advance for his next album. The company also allocated funds for studio rental. But in New York in those days, all the places where you could make high-quality recordings were reserved
Jimmy Hendrix also needed a sound engineer. The guitarist often said: "When you are with a good sound engineer, you feel like a man." One of his friends introduced the musician to a young specialist named Gary Kelgren. This engineer worked on two Velvet Underground albums and one Frank Zappa CD.
His trademark was a psychedelic device called phasing. It somewhat resembles an echo when one fragment of a composition is duplicated after a short period of time. For the first time, Gary began using it to record Eric Burdon's anti-war anthem Sky Pilot.
New studio
It remained to find a suitable studio equipped with modern equipment. Since all such places were booked several years in advance in New York, Kelgren told Jimmy Hendrix that he wanted to build his own studio. He dreamed of a room that was not like the other recording studios of that time.
Gary wanted to make it more like a living room. Hendrix also did not want to work in a normal room. He wanted to create something like a small concert hall where you can record records, like the club where he often played jams with Jim Morrison and Eric Clapton.
Another obstacle appeared on the way to recording a new album. I needed an investor who would invest money in building a studio. In the end, such a man was found. It was the philanthropist Charles Revson, who helped to stage the production of the musical "Hair".
Original choice
When choosing a place for the future studio, the guitarist and his associates followed the example of Andy Warhol, who equipped his art workshop in an old abandoned garage. Jimmy Hendricks and Kelgren bought a dilapidated building in downtown New York, turning it into a studio called Plant Records. Not only Jimmy Hendrix's albums were recorded in it, but also many other musical masterpieces, for example, Don Maclean's single American pie.
The most modern equipment was purchased for the studio. The focus of the musicians was the mixing console, which Jimmy Hendrix spent a lot of time personally participating in mixing the album.
Since there was a concert hall nearby where bands such as Traffic, Jefferson Airplay and many others performed, the guitarist often brought his musician friends to the studio to play jams with them. Bassist Noel Redding recalls that the process of working on the album Electric ladyland was more like a party with musicians.
One member of the Jefferson Airplain group said: "The work on the songs usually went like this: we quickly looked at the sheet where the chord sequence was written, and then immediately turned on the tape recorder. Even 15-minute songs were recorded live from the first take."
Idol
Work on Bob Dylan's song All Along The Watchtower was less spontaneous. This single was intended for the radio and required a brighter arrangement. Jimmy Hendricks was a big fan of Bob Dylan. He recorded many songs of this author. But before the Electric Ladyland album, these cover versions were not part of the artist's official discs. When the guitarist in 1967 heard Dylan's new record, the song All Along The Watchtower made the greatest impression on him.
Jimmy Hendricks immediately went to the studio and began work on his own version of this work. The composition, the first version of which was recorded in England, was countless times reworked. Hendricks constantly changed the composition of the musicians, trying to find the perfect option. He also recorded many solo variations from this song.
Professional approach
The recording of the album only resembled a party with the participation of musicians because of the large number of people who were simultaneously in the studio. Colleagues recall that Hendricks was extremely serious about his work. Jimmy made the musicians from his group repeatedly rewrite the parts, each time finding in their game some flaws. There are cases when Jimmy himself picked up the bass guitar and without preliminary rehearsal recorded the part of this instrument.
The uniqueness of these cases is that Jimmy Hendricks was left-handed and the lead singer of Experience was right-handed. So, Hendricks had to play an inverted instrument.
He showed industriousness when processing the material. Sound engineers recalled that Jimmy could spend more than $ 2,000 a day on tape for recording. Jack Adams says: "We put each song together for ten hours."
Work on the disk, as a rule, took place at night. The musicians gathered at 7 pm and worked until 5 in the morning. Then there was a break for food and sleep, after which the recording process resumed.
Jimmy Hendrix's songs from Electric Ladyland's album were originally recorded in stereo. Previous artist discs were published on mono-plates. From the first version of the Electric Ladyland album, publishers removed many stereo effects that Hendricks and engineers at Record Plant Studios worked so hard on.
However, despite this, Jimmy Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album was highly praised by music critics and is on many of the lists of the best albums of the 20th century.
Studio Record Plant exists today. Its specialists record both in a stationary room and with the help of mobile equipment, which is suitable for concert albums. Many outstanding albums of the seventies and eighties have been created at Plant Records. In it, the musicians of the Eagles group worked on recording their most successful album - Hotel California. In the same studio, John Lennon participated in mixing the song Walking On A Thin Ice on the last day of his life.
After the release of Electric Ladyland, Jimmy Hendrix dissolved the band Experience and formed a team of the best English musicians, called Band of Gypsies. With this composition, he performed at the famous American rock festival Woodstock, which took place in 1969.
During this concert, Hendricks played an improvisation on the theme of the American anthem.
Unfulfilled plans
After a triumphant concert at Woodstock, Jimmy Hendricks decided to start recording a new album. His relationship with sound engineers and producers who worked with him on the previous disc went wrong.
Therefore, Jimmy built his own studio. This is his brainchild received the name in honor of the album Electric Ladyland. But fate decreed that Jimmy was destined to work in the studio for only one month. In 1971, he died of heart failure, which was a consequence of taking drugs.
Jimmy Hendrix Quotes
Many of the guitarist's remarks are widely known. Here are a few such sayings:
My guitar is my intermediary, and I want everyone to get inside me a little ... Music and sound waves are a cosmic phenomenon, especially when they vibrate from one person to another.
Life should be joyful. If your life really means something, then happiness will be necessary. Everyone has something to give the world. Your body is as unimportant compared to your soul as a single fish compared to the whole sea. I believe that we will live again and again until we finally expel all evil and hatred from our souls.
The soul should rule the world, not money or drugs. If you can do something of your own, just do it great. A guy can dig ditches and enjoy it. Be yourself and just give God a chance.
Music is a spiritual thing in itself. She is like the waves of the ocean. You just can’t cut one perfect one and take it to your home. She is constantly on the move. Music and movement are an integral part of the human race. I do not think that I am saying any abstract things. This is reality. What’s not realistic is those people who sit in colorless cement hives, make speeches, tear themselves for every last dollar, shake themselves over millions in their wallets, and constantly play war games and make bets. They lose themselves in selfish attempts to be higher than another person in any form. Look at the pimps and congressmen. All this I can better explain through music. You seem to mesmerize people, and they return to their natural absolutely positive state, as in childhood. And when you immerse people in this state, you can convey to their subconscious mind what we want to say.
Life after death
“Will I live tomorrow?” - Jimmy Hendrix sings in one of the songs from his first album. History gives a positive answer to this question. Thanks to this guitarist, the word "posthumous" entered the vocabulary of rock fans. This happened thanks to the numerous songs of Jimmy Hendrix, which were published after the death of the guitarist.
Previously unknown studio recordings, fragments of radio broadcasts with the participation of a musician, versions of songs with the addition of sound effects, and vice versa, where they are removed - all this was periodically released on records, the stream of which continues to this day.
In 2010, fans of Jimmy Hendrix music had an unexpected surprise. The employees of one of the companies decided to publish unknown recordings of the musician not as collections, but as albums with all their inherent attributes - the original cover, name, bonus tracks and so on. There have been three such discs to date. The latter was released this year and is called Both Sides Of The Sky.
Listening to these publications is no less interesting than records released during the life of a musician. This is due to the fact that the main creative method of Jimmy Hendrix was improvisation and the constant search for a new sound.
So, the composition of Mannish Boy Muddy Waters, which was included in the album released in 2018, was played in the style of Chuck Berry (characteristic ringing guitar riffs) with the addition of numerous guitar effects.
This disc once again shows how huge the legacy Jimmy Hendricks left to rock music fans.