Hendrix questions

[Dexter Rutecki]

I never played guitar, so some things that are probably readily evident to a guitar player are difficult for me to discern.

At the start of the Winterland (Rykodisc) version of Killing Floor, featuring Jack Cassady, during that (32 bar?) intro that Jimi plays really fast, is Jack Cassady playing? In other words, are those bottom tones coming from a bass, or Jimi's e-string (which was probably an e-flat string)?

Just wondering. Robert Johnson craziness if the bass part is Jimi.

[Dexter Rutecki]

I'm assuming all 27 people who've seen this either don't know or don't have that concert.

edit: now it's 40 of you guys, and still no answer. I thought maggots knew everything.

[vinzclortho]

have the disc, don't know, I'll ask my buddy who kills the guitar and is a huge hendrix fan. could take a couple weeks though, hardly ever see him. but I'll try to remember for ya.

[board]

That was all Jimi. he had freakisly huge hands and could strangle a small Fender Strat neck, because of this he could play notes on the low E sring with his thumb while still using a regular fingering ( us mortals have to place the thumb behind the neck ). JMH was on a plane of his own

[CantDog]

Originally posted by board
That was all Jimi. he had freakisly huge hands and could strangle a small Fender Strat neck, because of this he could play notes on the low E sring with his thumb while still using a regular fingering ( us mortals have to place the thumb behind the neck ). JMH was on a plane of his own

Also had freakishly long arms, his hands hung down near his knees. Also a huge wang, in Chicago there is some museum that made plaster molds of musician's dicks. Apparently the story goes that his was so big the plaster couldnt support its own weight and kept breaking off.

Dude, unless you have little girl hands, you should be able to get your thumb around the next of a strat. Getting your thumb around the neck of a classical guitar isnt all that difficult.


But yes, jimi was known for using his thumb to grip the low e. Most everything he did utilized this style, usually with the a string muted by the ring finger(or which ever finger was on the d string)


Dex you probably already know but for the slide solo on all along the watchtower he used a beer can to get the sound. PBS did a great documentary on Hendrix a few years ago, specifically about Electric Ladyland. Great show.

[Dexter Rutecki]

Originally posted by board
That was all Jimi. he had freakisly huge hands and could strangle a small Fender Strat neck, because of this he could play notes on the low E sring with his thumb while still using a regular fingering ( us mortals have to place the thumb behind the neck ). JMH was on a plane of his own

Just to make sure, board, you listened to it and those low notes are his guitar? My guess, just based on the register and how Cassady's bass sounds when the drums kick in, is that you're right. I just know I'm not qualified to know for certain. I knew he (as with many others) fretted the E with his thumb, but he really sounds to be playing a lot of notes with that thumb (while he's doing all that other stuff at the same time).

Cant, I have a shot (in some liner notes?) of Jimi using a Budweiser can as a slide--didn't know that was the Watchtower formula, though.



OK, Jimi trivia: at the Monterey concert that debuted the Experience in the U.S., what song's lyrics did he butcher and say, while singing, "It's OK, I know I missed a verse"?

[CantDog]

I think you'd better pawn it babe...



Heres one, at what show(venue) did Jimi Hendrix first turn " 'scuse me while I kiss the sky" into " 'scuse me while I kiss this guy"

[Dexter Rutecki]

How about, "Excuse me while I kiss that policeman over there"?

OK, harder one from Monterey (sort of). What song is "Rock Me Baby" based on?

[CantDog]

I always was partial to the Jeff Beck version, when Rod Stewart didnt suck.

But BB King recorded it, as did Muddy Waters. I've got the liner notes from a waters album that has it but cant find em...not sure if muddy was the first.


and my question sucks, I'm not sure if the time I'm thinking of is the first time Jimi sang it 'scuse me while I kiss this guy. But its in DC. I just read during the reagan funeral that the same door that jimi entered and exited through after shows at the washington hilton was the same door that reagan was shot outside of.

[Dexter Rutecki]

My question sucked the most, though, because I accidentally gave the answer instead of the question. I meant to use the Hendrix named version which is "Lover Man". Instead I asked about B.B.'s version, which he did play at Monterey, "Rock Me Baby". All fucked up. Oh well.
Never heard the Waters version of it, but I'd like to.

Jimi thought the 'kiss this guy' line was pretty funny, and used it a lot. I have no idea where the first one was, and I don't think anyone could really be certain about it (there are so many unpublished tapes out there, but who knows if a recording even exists).

How about the Beatles song Hendrix did the night at the Cafe Wha? that he was 'joined' onstage by Jim Morrison (who was in fine spirits, having had far too many spirits and other things)?

[CantDog]

Originally posted by Dexter Rutecki
My question sucked the most, though, because I accidentally gave the answer instead of the question. I meant to use the Hendrix named version which is "Lover Man". Instead I asked about B.B.'s version, which he did play at Monterey, "Rock Me Baby". All fucked up. Oh well.
Never heard the Waters version of it, but I'd like to.

Jimi thought the 'kiss this guy' line was pretty funny, and used it a lot. I have no idea where the first one was, and I don't think anyone could really be certain about it (there are so many unpublished tapes out there, but who knows if a recording even exists).

How about the Beatles song Hendrix did the night at the Cafe Wha? that he was 'joined' onstage by Jim Morrison (who was in fine spirits, having had far too many spirits and other things)?

After some searching I found that Lil Son Jackson wrote Rock Me Baby. Jeff Beck's group changed the name of the song and didnt give credit to the author(and it sounds identical to Hendrix's version)

Oh man, didnt they record that session and release it on a small label? I remember seeing the LP cover, it was red, or had something to do with red. Also remember something about death or being dead. I cant think of too many sessions that jimi and jim collaberated on. Wasnt Jim drunk off his ass on the recording too?



edit: heres what I am thinking about, although this was at the Scene Club:

"Jimi Hendrix & Jim Morrison 3/7/68



1 - Red House (The Red I was thinking)
2 - Wake Up This Morning And You Find Yourself Dead (The Dead I was thinking)
3 - Bleeding Heart
4 - Morrison's Lament
5 - Tomorrow Never Knows
6 - Uranus Rock
7 - Outside Woman Blues
8 - Sunshine of Your Love


The date, and even location, of this recording is disputed.


The lineup is said to include:
Jimi Hendrix: guitar & vocals
Johnny Winters:guitar
Randy Hobbs: bass
Randy Z: drums
Buddy Miles: drums
Jim Morrison: vocals, abuse, obscenities and mumbling


Comment I found on Etree:

It has been suggested that this music was liberated from a bootleg Hendrix concert in a London coffeehouse. Others believe it took place in "The Scene Club" in New York. Either way a number of Jimi’s contemporaries stood in during the set, including Jim Morrison, Johnny Winter and Buddy Miles. Jim Morrison is obviously intoxicated as he sings, "I wanna fuck her in the ass" repeatedly. "Morrison's Lament" features a hideously dosed Morrison throwing an acid tantrum while gentle Jimmy tries to calm him down and keep his groove. Despite of (or because of!) the heavy medication sizzling on these tracks there are a few moments of really great music. Sound is not the best and Morrison is mostly unintelligible. At one point Jimi points out to Jim that he has to sing "in there", obviously indicating a microphone. He must not have understood because his vocals are mostly very faint. Band sounds good most of the time. Definitely an interesting listen! "

(Grabbed that stuff from etree)

So the answer is "tomorrow never knows". Good question Dex, didnt know they played a beatles tune during that set. Also the lineup....Buddy Guy and Johnny Winters! Holy !

[Dexter Rutecki]

Huh, I always saw BB being credited with "Rock Me Baby", but I guess that was the second incarnation of the song, which Jimi turned into a third. Lil Son Jackson apparently called it "Rocking and Rolling" before BB reworked (covered and stole?) it. It's very tough to nail down authorship with a lot of these songs.

And yes, it was the Scene Club, I got it confused with the Wha?, also in the Village and where Jimi used to play (the Wha? is still there, but features cheesey cover bands--they do have a giant cut-out of Hendrix at the top of the stairs down to the basement club. I never thought the Wha? would still be there, and was shocked to find it while walking around the Village about 12 years ago. My brother and I had always been amused at Jimi's early career including performances at a place called Cafe Wha?, so I immediately telephoned him to tell him my discovery.). I think the notes you put up about the album "Woke up this morning and found myself dead" are correct, but it's worth noting a few things: sound quality is rather abysmal. My guess is it was recorded with a portable deck Jimi used to cart around with him, and while Winters plays on most of the album, his guitar was unmiked. During a very cool version of Red House, Winters plays a solo, but you could easily listen to the album and not know it. You have to turn it way up and listen carefully to hear Winters--it sounds sort of like bleed through from the other side of a tape, or like winters lost 95% power on his amp. Anyone who just wants to hear how Hendrix played rhythym guitar, though, would love this track since it's all you can hear.
Morrison stumbles on stage and basically just starts yelling stuff, a lot of it obscene, and you do hear Jimi telling him where to sing (the only recorded mic, I suppose). Morrison sort of complies.
"Tomorrow Never Knows", as I recall, is pretty well done and sort of makes me wish Hendrix had done more than just jam to it--either a live or studio full treatment would've been cool. Also, I think it fades out to end? Strange for a live album...maybe the tape ran out. I would've liked to have seen a 'real' version (more careful treatment) of "Sgt. Peppers", which on a Stockholm concert features a very cool, almost backward sounding guitar solo. That concert, BTW, is the only one I have that rivals the Scene Club for sound quality. I think it was recorded directly onto CD from a scratchy old LP!
And, I believe the note about no guitar effects being used is wrong [sorry, you didn't put that up--the liner notes I'm looking at say that, but I think they're wrong]. No wah-wah, but I think he had a distortion stomp box. I don't know, I'll give it a listen soon (probably been 5 or 10 years now).
If you dig Hendrix, as you seem to, I can recommend it though, as Jimi plays really well on that date. I can pass along a minidisc to you, if you like.

Two more things, Jimi sounds pretty sober (I don't think he tolerated alcohol well, actually), and it was Red Lightnin' that released it. No idea how they ended up with rights, or if they still have them (or if they exist, or anything else about them).

edit: oh yeah, it's Buddy Miles on part of the album, not Buddy Guy (too bad, but his guitar probably wouldn't have been audible, either).

[CantDog]

Bwah, quick glance at buddy and I immediately figured it was Guy. A little chicago meets nyc would have been awesome though.



Yeah, Jimi was what kinda introduced me to rock and roll, and the first artist I really attached myself to(especially when I started playing guitar). That really was a jumping off point for me that has lead to just about everything else I listen to now.

After everything I've listened to since, Voodoo Chile(the long one) and 1983 are still two of my favorite songs. I think if I could only listen to one album for the rest of my life, it would be a very close fight between Electric Ladyland and maybe Kind of Blue.

[Dexter Rutecki]

Yeah, nothing matches Kind of Blue. So beautiful and such a watershed. Electric Ladyland is great ("Little Miss Strange" just a favor to Noel and Fat Mattress?), but Kind of Blue is about as perfect as I can imagine an album being.
Unfortunately, I'm missing the second half of Ladyland, and have been for awhile. I got the 2 CD version back in the day when they couldn't fit 70 minutes on a CD, and CD two was stolen from me. Need to minidisc it or something. Unless someone can tell me a way to get that half of a CD...

[iceman]

I love Jimi, but Johny is still gettin' it done.

[CantDog]

Heres a little more Hendrix trivia, what was the name of the band that backed Hendrix at Woodstock?

[Dexter Rutecki]

Gypsy son and Rainbows! Or something like that. I think that band had several names, and the one they had when they went on might have been partially invented right there.

Name of the conga player?

edit: sun, not son, right?

[iceman]

I cheated and looked it up, but I never knew this: His band at Woodstock was called "Electric Sky Church".

[Dexter Rutecki]

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[Dexter Rutecki]

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[Dexter Rutecki]

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[iceman]

Interesting, Dex. Tell us more.

[Dexter Rutecki]

You'll have to wait for the 20 month old to wake up from her nap, with Mrs. Rutecki standing by to hit the submit button.
They think it's funny, or something.

Also, I just grabbed the liner notes, and the band is listed as Gypsy Sun & Rainbows. Jimi does say something about Sky Church still being around right before Voodoo Child is played, and that's the name he used for his band at a lot of concerts (post-Experience), but this was an expanded lineup.

From the liner notes:
Also on percussion is Juma Sultan. "There's a place in Woodstock called the village Green," Juma recalls, "it's right in the center of town on Tinker St. I was sitting there one day with my drums when Mike jeffery and Jimi came by. I'd met him just before he'd gone to England to for the Experience (1966), it was down in the Village, but we never played together then. Anyway, he just got in town and he invited me to come by and jam. So that night I went over to the house and just he and I played the entire evening. Gypsy Sun & Rainbows was his own individual thing. Guys get together, play, and then they go their own way, all the time exchanging ideas."

[CantDog]

Ok, if Jimi had not died, his next concert would have been with this person.(the show he missed because he was too busy binging on his girlfriends sleeping pills.)

[Benny Profane]

Originally posted by iceman
I love Jimi, but Johny is still gettin' it done.

Nice. A freind best descibed his recent playing as "like a sitar". He was lucky enough to get turned on his side at a crucial moment.