In this Radi'o'Paper I pick up mainly the tunes before I was born, not the ones I have heard as brand-new. It is not only because for several years I have neither heard new ones on the radio nor bought them but because I am anxious about their pressed and condensed mood, though I think today's music is fantastic for its sound projected by the technique of performance and recording. In old days the methodology of recording had been groped in the dark and occasionally the sounds were not so polite or well-situated or clear as now. Despite it, I am still infatuated by these oldies because they act on music with what technique cannot revive such as some gaps or some wastes or some vague savors. It's true you can enjoy packed sounds which are easy to listen if you eliminate such extras. But you are likely to let them fall from your ears in a moment and to be less impressed. In these circumstances one example which occurs to my mind at first is the difference between pre-disco like beer of good body and bitter taste and post-disco which pursues sharp and easy flavor. Jimi Hendrix's recordings in the studios should have been the latest ones including frequent adding of effects on guitar, however, I think these techniques are not for making sounds clear but for searching overflowingly vague savors.
Especially in Japan he is often told as a shortened nickname 'JimiHen', and he is thought as 'Extraordinary' above "Three greatest guitarists of the late 60s and 70s", Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page (of course, there are some who are no less skillful than them). If you have never listened to his tunes you may have once heard his legends such as "He picked guitar with his teeth" or "He fired his guitar during on the stage". There are many freaks who cannot be satisfied with only copying phrases of dear JimiHen, play guitar just in his style and dress themselves in the same hair style and attire and start and keep talking about him till dawn on the one hand. On the other, there is a Japanesque renditon of Purple Haze Ondo (ondo is a kind of dance) by a unit HIS which consists of the artist Haruhumi Hosono, the rock singer Kiyoshiro Imawano and the traditional enka singer Huyumi Sakamoto (this appears on their album "Nippon no Hito") or there is a funny cartoon named after him. While he is often idolized like an apostle, it seems to me that owing to his somewhat odd appearance he tends to be treated like a toy. He once had been a session musician and backed various artists. He is said to have played rhythm guitar on some of Little Richard's Vee Jay recordings from '64 to '65, appeared on "Talking 'bout Soul", however, he did so modest works that they are hard to be made out for a non-investigator like me (though I Don't Know What You Got feels like his work). Since around '60 Little Richard had already expressed his neutral image apparently with powdering and so on, JimiHen is like him in the aspect of dressing. According to the interview with the Isley Brothers about the reminiscence of JimiHen, written on the liner notes of three disc compilation "It's Your Thing" covering their career from the late 50s to the 90s, since '64 or '65 he had already attired himself in colorful things just like hippies in the future, and he denied their offering to wear stage-clothing with la-me which had been usual for R&B. JimiHen joined in their Testify or Move Over and Let Me Dance and they let him play rather freely. Although the latter should have been written and produced by the Isleys, it is particularly played as if it were the rendition of one of the later JimiHen sides, in the style of singing during speaking and in the progression of codes under the melody. Ernie Isley, who joined in the brothers as guitarist, seemed to be influenced largely by JimiHen in his teen-age school days, so he played hard like JimiHen in some Isley tunes in the 70s.
I have told about the outside story so far, though, here comes JimiHen tunes themselves. Now I want to get away from it for a while since those who hear various kinds of music shallowly like me cannot talk deeply about the figure like JimiHen who are told by too many. For the folks who had experienced the contemporary artists of that time, those who talk about the songs of the time when they were not still born are thought as impudent and rude. Once upon a time I found the Who's best played at a snack bar and talked to a man who was a baby-boomer and put his life mainly on music, "Well, I have heard this song before". And then he replied, "If you don't know the Who's so-and-so, you should be Bem, Bella and Bello (I must make its annotation : they did the leading parts of the late 60s' animation movie "Bem the Spectral Man", who read the famous line "I wanna join in the human race as soon as possible !" and who had a slight resemblance to Adam's Family of the outside of Japan). I don't know it's because I had been damaged by this, however, I feel like seeking minor sides which never be on the air more frequently than major ones. So what I got JimiHen's album for the first time was a recently released best "Experience Hendrix". I am one of poor guitarists and I have never thought of copying JimiHen. And then I surrender to the gush of images like a flood when I carefully listen to his tunes again.
Not to mention Purple Haze, Stone Free, Hey Joe or Fire on his debut album which I have heard on the radio at times, Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, Crosstown Traffic, Little Wing, Voodoo Child, Castle Made of Sand and Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock and so forth. His guitar's riffing and phrasing are based on the blues but are cut from the code progressions and fly at his will. His less-melodious reading is put mainly on speaking often heard on the blues, but sometimes shows his singing spirit. The more important feat of his sounds, however, is to work on the audience like drugs which shake and ignite their minds, while the older songs have clear sounds even if they are complicated jazz. After him there appeared various kinds of expressions which competed with each other for radicalism or loudness ; nevertheless, when JimiHen revealed himself for the first time the audience may had thought as if someone had arrived from the universe. His sounds, which never allow us to dance and enjoy easily but let us addicted to the comfort, are self-sufficient as if he happened to have been a black R&B session man. It goes without saying that I will dig deeper his albums and lives.
Since then, I have listened to them, anyway. On "Are You Experienced ?" and "Axis : Bold as Love" and "Electric Ladyland", the flood of sound weaved down by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, featuring Noel Redding's bass and Mitch Mitchell's drums, is talking to you like "Come on and drown yourself more" and alluring you to turning up the volume. As for those difficult and strange tunes between ones you often hear, they seem to take much time to be digested inside my body. Such kind of feeling full should be JimiHen's dishes with vague savors. On "Live at the Filmore East", the sound of Band of Gypsys with Billy Cox's bass and Buddy Miles' drums seems tamer, because of the modesty of Buddy saying like "I make so bold as to sing" and of JimiHen's groping of the way of cooking. The visual condition of the DVD of "Live at the Filmore East" reflects the thankful and the least disposable clarity of sound capturing his period when he show interests not only the blues but R&B and soul music. The sound of "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" with Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchel and his fellow is like shooting fireworks and suddenly finished without notice.
I cannot miss his live performances when I talk about JimiHen, so I have watched some DVDs. It's true that he put his guitar on fire on "Live at Monterey" and it's also true that he did abnormal Star Spangled Banner on "Live at Woodstock". There should be none who burnt guitar before JimiHen, however, there should be some who did tricks of picking guitar with teeth in the R&B field (on "Fire & Fury Story", you can find such a photo of Wild Jimmy Spruill who backed big hits like Wilbert Harrison's Kansas City or Dave "Baby" Cortez's Happy Organ). His expressions and behaviors suggest that these kind of legends should be done by JimiHen for entertaining the audience. The witnesses were struck dumb, however, and they should have been so excited that we cannot experience at present, when various kinds of productions are done and taken into account. At Woodstock Pete Townshend of the Who also broke down his guitar, and it seems to me that he should have been angry rather than entertaining. This kind of difference between them is funny. (2006/02/05)(2008/02/24)