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.

Comments

[RAMHaiti]

Jimi started getting pressure from the black community and put together his Band Of Gypsies. I think I had about thirteen or so Hendrix albums. I liked different ones at different times but "Are You Experienced" was the first for me. Doing live RAM in Port-au-Prince fills the void left by people like Jimi. Sometimes when I listen to him now, his voice bothers me. It never used to. So far I've only put "My Friend" and the studio version of "Red House" on my iPod. No particular reason. I'ld say he was fundamentally a blues guitarist but he definitely travelled through Space. He also developed a great pop sensibility which one could easily acknowledge as a British influence.

Whats Black? Thats a funny question. I loved Sam and Dave (Stax?) but i would never buy Motown. I'ld listen to Motown on AM radio, but like I said i wouldn't buy it. I did buy Muddy Waters and Elmore James but that stuff never got on the radio. I loved some Aretha songs (You make me feel like a Natural Woman is on my iPod) but, once again I did't buy her albums. I don't know if i preferred Sly and The Family Stone or Jimi.

I think it was a white guy that invented the electric guitar. Things probably become most creative when different races and classes of people come together and work together.
I figure if you really want to play "Black" music, you had better learn some Ibo, Nago and Congo rhythms and songs, to name a few. If its from this hemisphere, it's probably some sort of Creole mix.

[FreedomCorpse]

The two most influential 'black' people in my life: Jimi Hendrix and our 'cleaning lady' Lu Lu. I raised in a rich white family with parents who didn't know how to show love to their kids. When I came home from school and Lu Lu was working at our house, she'd give me great big hugs and ask me how my day was and various things my mother didn't ask about. Lu Lu showed what love looked like and Jimi showed me the love of music and guitar. Thank you both Lu Lu and Jimi, I will never forget you.

[steamboat]

BTW, is everybody aware Jimi is also an ex-soldier? He served in the military before he and the Gypsies began doing their music.

[1will]

If it was hard for a black rockstar to not toe the line for official "Blackness" then imagine what it's like for a politician or judge.

[Mutaman]

I was lucky enough to see Jimi. 1968 in Madison, Wisc. I don't know if he was on drugs or not but it was a significant moment in my life. Seemed like a nice guy too.

"Are You Experienced" still sounds pretty good to me.

I didn't know enough people of color back then so I couldn't tell you if anyone was questioning Hendrix's "blackness". I do know that Miles said that when he put out "Birth of the Cool" with Jerry Mulligan and some other white guys, some blacks complained about it, but they were musicians who were pissed that they didn't get hired for the gig. Miles also said white people liked that white guys played on "Are You Experienced" and "Birth of the Cool" because "they always like to see white people up in black shit so that they can say they had something to do with it".

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful.

[jinjinpinti]

As a lifelong JAZZ devotee, I also love classical, opera and Broadway, but for the life of me, I simply can not HEAR Rock. It all sounds like NOISE to me. Yes, I can recognize the genius of Jimi Hendrix, technically, but I can also cry for what his defection to rock took from blues and jazz. I feel tremendous sadness and pity for all the masses of people who have never heard, REALLY, REALLY, HEARD great jazz. To think that Hendrix might have surpassed Mclaughlin, played with Miles, accompanied Eliane Elias and learned from so many astounding blues and jazz masters and instead sacrificed his blazingly beautiful talent on a pop music genre is more than I can bear. So I keep my few old Hendrix albums out of homage, but I don't spend endless hours enraptured in them as with my precious jass/blues collection.

[PTCruiser]

John Ridley is manufacturing history to support his arguments. I was an 18 year old black teenager in 1967 when Hendrix's album was released. I never met or talked to any black person at that time or since then who expressed any doubts or concerns about Hendrix being black.

My paternal and maternal uncles, for example, who were dyed-in-the-wool jazz fans and who were quick to sniff out inauthentic attitudes and postures thought that Hendrix, as one of them said to me one evening, was "one hip brother." Now since I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area perhaps black folk there were more receptive to Hendrix's music and persona but I don't think that black folks overall had any measurable antipathy toward Hendrix.

[Semuta]

Isn't it James Marshall Hendrix? Who is Johnny Allen Hendrix?

[fulano]

"one hit wonder"?
I can remember clearly hearing JImi Hendrix for the first time "Are you experienced"! As per the old cliche, "he blew my mind"! He was saturated with the blues and R&B and the melding of that with the rock of the late 60's created tremendous music. Unfortunately like many he wasn't with us for long.
All these years later he still sounds great and my teenage grandchildren are big fans of his after I, "turned them on" to Hendrix (and the late great Frank Zappa)
I still get the chills when I hear "Highway Child". You should have been there then!

[PD1769]

Just thought I'd remind everyone that Living Colour are alive and well today, still touring and recording 20 years after their debut was released.

Also, it's my opinion that two others "stole back" rock & roll for black artists before Hendrix did...Chuck Berry & Little Richard.

[PhillyQuaker]

Saw Living Colour back in 1989 I think it was, they opened for the Stones in Philly Steel Wheels Tour, they were amazing.

[BizDean]

The column was a tribute to Hendrix' music; Ridley's finale about black identity was just a throwaway. The music was/is awesome, and the music brings us together. Let's make that our take-away from today's blog.

[Bills1]

Hendrix obviously had a lot of white blood in him yet he is black. Halle Berry's mother is the whitest looking woman on earth but Halle Berry is black. Hendrix was embracing his whiteness and Halle Berry is her mother's daughter.

[swkidder]

An astonishing musician and a genuinely nice and unassuming person. The first time I ever heard him play was at a small blues club in NYC. BB King was the headliner with Buddy Guy as the "2nd act." That would have been more than enough, but Jimi dropped by to hear them play and brought his guitar just in case there was a chance he could jam with a couple of his "heros." What transpired was one of those magical nights you never forget - BB King, Buddy Guy and Jimi Hendrix beginning with the Blues and taking off from there. We lost him way too soon.

[neomonkey]

I don't know if Hendrix was the most significant artist at the time. There were so many. Sgt. Peppers was probably the most significant album.

Also, it all happened in 1966, not 1967, as the article states. Are You Experienced? was released in the Fall of 1966, as was the Cream and the Who. Earlier, in the summer of '66, it was Sgt. Peppers, the Doors, the Stones' His Satanic Majesty's Request and others.

And yes, I was there, in my early 20s, playing guitar in blues and rock bands.

[bar1ed]

im 58yrs. young - it was dlyan and the beatles that opened my eyes and heart to music. i try not to get into this whos the best thing. each artist has thier own vibe to show us all. by following my own vibe it has kept my eyes and heart open to groups like green day - the killers - my cemical romance - and a host of others. after 58yrs. its what has kept me feeling young, at least in the head !!!!!!