Forty Years Ago: The Most Significant Music Album Ever and Unfortunate Questions of Blackness
August, 1967 was the height of the summer of love. It was, too, the crowning month of an amazing year of music. In sixty-seven Pink Floyd released their first album. The Stones would release their 7th, 8th and 9th albums. The Monterey Pop Festival redefined live concerts. Plus there was a little album from the Beatles that was dropped to, oh, a bit of notice.
Also, the most significant music album ever was released in the US.
On August 23rd of that year America was introduced to the absolutely astounding debut record from 24-year-old Johnny Allen Hendrix. Jimi, to the world. At a time when both musicians as artist, as well as studio recording techniques were evolving at an accelerated pace, Hendrix possessed a singularity. As a self-taught guitarist -- left-handed, no less, on a flipped Fender Stratocaster as opposed to a true left-handed guitar -- he was an unparalleled virtuoso. Beyond his sheer ability, what made Hendrix Hendrix was the absolute fearlessness of a nuke scientist he owned when it came to mixing and blending styles. Rhythm and Blues, free Jazz, Soul, Rock... A cocktail he called the melding of Earth and Space -- Earth being the music itself, Space being a psychedelic approach to phrasing, playing and recording. Added to all that was Hendrix himself -- the hair, the clothes, the casual attitude toward life and the obsession for creating perfect music.
Hendrix's musical philosophy is put on raw display in an album that is track by track nearly flawless. On the US version (the tracks and track order are different on the UK version) the album opens with "Purple Haze," does a hard tumble into "Manic Depression," slips into the most famous rendition of Billy Robert's "Hey Joe" . . . Side Two begins with the soulful "Wind Cries Mary," then launches into what is the greatest straight ahead rock piece ever written: "Fire." The album closes with "Foxy Lady" and "Are You Experienced." In between and among all that is a tour de force by a man who was born to invert expectations of music and who played what how.
And that is the prime significance of Are You Experienced and Jimi Hendrix. There were, of course, no shortage of black music stars particularly at that time when Motown was in full flower. However there were few, if any, prominent black rock stars. To the contrary, the modus operandi of rock had been for white acts -- be it Pat Boone or Elvis, the Beatles, or the Stones -- to lift from black R&B, repurpose the music and sell it to white audiences. Hendrix flipped the script, took the rock format, re-infused it with Soul and Funk and gave a visage of color to Rock and Roll.
The influence of his artistry was powerful and pervasive. A direct line can be drawn from Hendrix to nearly ever guitar icon of the era: Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend and Eric Clapton (who would remain close friends with Jimi for the remainder of his life). It was Paul McCartney who got the Jimi Hendrix Experience -- Jimi's ultra-lean band with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell -- into the Monterey Pop Festival. At the festival it was Stones' Guitarist Brian Jones who introduced The Experience.
Unfortunately, no matter that Hendrix "stole back" black music and openly acknowledged and credited countless R&B legends as being of influence to him, like many blacks who live how they please Hendrix was often accused of not being "authentically" black; of being a sellout for his style of music, for not having black band mates and for dating white chicks. Basically he was given crap for being himself rather than the kind of black that others perceive and dictate black should be.
You'd think in forty years such puerile questions of "authentic" blackness would have been long answered, then consigned to the Potters field of racial identity. Take a look at what nonsense Barack Obama still has to put up with, and you see that sadly they have not.
Perhaps even someone as unique as Hendrix could not change racial politics for all time. We'll all have to be satisfied with his having changed music forever.
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Hendrix was beyond black or white.
The closest was Ty Tabor from Kings X.
Arthur Lee too.
Just musicians beyond race who rocked.
Most black people moved on from rock music back in the 60s (with Aretha Franklin and James Brown around, can you blame them?) so asking when black people are going to make rock again is like asking Micheal Jordan when he is going to make another comeback to the NBA.
I'm more interested in seeing what's next than I am in going backwards.
p.s. putting that fraud Hootie in the same company as these great musicians is a disgrace.
Shame Shame.
Oh come on!!! I havent seen anyone mention Phil Lynott yet - Thin Lizzy!!!!
Fer chrissakes
Hendrix is the king though.
Another quick story since we are all sharing and feeling the groove.
I used to go to the Whiskey A Go Go all during the 60's and one night Hendrix came up on stage around closing time. Then he was followed up by Johnny Winter. I about died. The jam was sometimes out there, but when it was cohesive, it was beyond all normal reason. They did it quite a few times.
The KILLER night was Johnny Winter, Lee Michaels (Hammond organ), and Jimi Hendrix. The placed was packed and Mario (owner) left the club open until the sun came up because of the incredible music.
I've never been happier that I went to certain concerts and jam sessions than the ones I saw of Jimi. Even after seeing the original lineup of the Allman Brothers go until sun up as well.
The greatest music in the world.
"Are You Experienced" is a great seminal album, but I like the music he made later even more. Listen to "Pali Gap" or "Room Full of Mirrors" from "Rainbow Bridge" or "Drifting" or "Straight Ahead" from "Cry of Love." Like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi was going in a different musical direction before he died.
Stevie Ray Vaughan came the closest to anyone I've ever heard that covered Hendrix when he honored Jimi with "Voodoo Chile".
IMO, in his last album "Cry of Love", (and I think the title supports this), you can hear his despair that love and peace were being supplanted by polarization and separatism and violence. Listen to the words.
So...there may be a young genius lurking in a kindegarten somewhere, but so far, no one comes close to Jimi!
Meanwhile, Obama's ethnicity will never be as important as his character, which would be a much more interesting conversation than the amount of money he's raised or his degree of blackness. Remember Martin's words about being judged by the content of their character etc.
I was 12. The radio was tuned to KPPC, L.A.'s "Underground" radio of the moment. They were playing "Purple Haze." My nostrils flared in anticpation of the smell of a transformer blowing out, just like when the flyback transformer blew out on the T.V. right after Oswald got shot. I could not understand that sort of sound coming out of a properly functioning piece of electronic gear. That sound redrew all possibilities, like a merger of Hubert Sumlin and Stockhausen played on top 40 without missing a beat or the second coming of Charlie Parker as a game show host, like a new phoneme had been introduced to the languages of the world in that moment of the first hearing of that sound.
Thanks for an excellent post, John! It would be harder to think of a better example that destroys the "authenticity" myth. That myth will die hard...but the question "was Jimi Hendrix authentic?" is an easily-remembered riposte, and impossible to trump.
On the musical questions, it's certainly fair to call "...Experi
If you were to ask me what were the most significant musical albums ever made, I could probably narrow it down to a list of 200-300, and a surprising number of them would be from the 1960s. But pick just one of them to cite as THE most significant? I couldn't possibly narrow it down that small, recording history just too big a universe. Many of the albums that would be on my list were influenced by each other, and each is so unique and special that humanity would suffer for any one of those records not having been made. And when you're dealing with the music of the 1960s -- in terms of output, depth, quality, originality and cultural communication (which is, after all, what music is about) -- the field is simply too "ginormous" to try and catalogue and quantify, much less rank, all its riches. Better to simply try and listen to as much as possible, and marvel at the musical wonders of the era and the cross-cultural influences it has inspired in our contemporary world (including the phenomenon of Barack Obama).
I saw Jimi give a fantastic performance in Newark the night after Martin Luther King Jr. was assasinated. He did an amazing instrumental for Martin. I also saw him do the Star Spangled Banner at the Atlanta Rock Festival on the 4th of July. What a talent!
Yeah I get the chills when I hear Jimi doing the Star Spangled Banner!
you can keep Townshend, Clapton and even McCartney for that matter. those dudes are academics compared to Hendrix. and i think hip-hop acts like The Roots perform some badass rock music. i hope more black artists explore the rock music form. we all share a commonality, not just a singularity.
Who most often raises the issue of whether a person is black enough? blacks or whites?
There is no way to answer that.
But it should be noted that it was whites who first divided black music into its own category ("race" music) and kept it separate from "white" music.
Understanding the origins of these divisions is key to determining exactly how they have developed and evolved over time.
Certainly there was a time when Jimi would have been "too black" for most white audiences, so rather than pointing fingers, we should just accept that its time both blacks and whites moved beyond this nonsense.
With all due respect, Mr. Ridley-the question about Obama's "blackness" was last week's news! Why are you bringing it up NOW? I've seen you on MSNBC and have read your blogs here-and 99% of your commentary is about race. Stop being a Johnny-one-note and your stuff might be more interesting!!!
The most significant album remains Sgt. Pepper, black or white.
But, you know, salt and pepper...
Hendrix played a cover of Sgt. Pepper on the night the album was released, not too shabby either.
Whether he is "black" enough doesn't matter, but what he says and does does matter...h
Obama sounds good, but not good enough.
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