The Steel Guitar Forum

Jimi with a Jazzmaster. Just a couple years too early.

That may be the very one Michael Johnstone has held, posted pix and dialog of.

Here's Jimi talkin' to ya' with a handful of Machine Guns - www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyZHkv-jknQ&feature=related
Another Hendrix show I managed to blow tickets for...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=han2KehB3CY - Jimi's last great show.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpCw9IuDjtc&featured=related
Laying the sountrack to the end of America as we once knew her, when Americans stood up for right, questioned authority, and caused civil unrest against those deserving.

Yeah, Jimi played a Flying V sometimes too, and no doubt lots of others over the years. It doesn't alter the fact that after he really came into view, he played a Strat the vast majority of the time, and his sound became synonymous with it.

I don't know anything about sales figures or how many Strats were made or sold in a given year, but I think perhaps that Eric Clapton's move to a Strat may have contributed as much or more to the surge in the Strat's popularity as Jimi's use of Strats.

Jimi, it seems to me, was widely perceived back in the day as inhabiting a realm above that of the ordinary mortal guitar player, and many in those days may not have contemplated emulating him as a possibility, while Clapton's work (not intending any qualitative judgment) was more accessible.

And Clapton became strongly associated with what we then thought of as the "pre-CBS" Stratocaster (few had heard of the concept "vintage" for Fenders in the early Seventies), driving the mystique of the model which only much later of necessity grew to encompass late Sixties-early Seventies Fenders, which most at the time dismissed as junk, or at least second-rate. Jimi, of course, played a lot of different Strats, pre- or post-CBS, only partly because he destroyed a few in the early days of his success! I recall a magazine article that reprinted a sales receipt from Manny's in New York showing that he bought about half a dozen Strats on the same day. Being seen with different guitars all the time made the guitar itself not seem as critical a component in Jimi's thing, while Clapton's specific "Brownie" or "Blackie" was seen as a vital component of his sound.

Just my personal impressions of what was going on back then. I know that Clapton's then-surprising move from Gibsons to the Strat and the sound he was getting on his first "solo" album was what spurred ME to seek out a pre-CBS Strat--I was playing a Mosrite Ventures model and had never seriously considered any Fender--and only while shopping for one did I realize "So THAT'S how Jimi got all those great tones!!! It was the Strat!!!" (Duh...!)

Yeah, I think Jimi made the Strat much more than the Strat made Jimi. I was talking about perceptions, not reality.

I also agree that an awful lot of guitar players looked at Jimi as "not a mere mortal" in the guitar-playing world. Some may have said "Clapton is God", but I think to most guitar players of the period, the rarified world of rock-guitar deity started and stopped with Jimi.

There is no point in comparing him with Kenny Burrell (who I have heard Jimi said had the best tone of all guitarists - and I would not argue) or most of the jazz or country guitar greats - it's apples and oranges. I make no subjective assessment of quality - I love to hear them all for what they are.

On the Clapton connection to go back to Fenders - he articulated many times that much of the push to go back to simpler, rootsy material - and playing SONGS as opposed to extended jams - was hearing Music From Big Pink by the Band, and Robbie Robertson in particular. But I find it hard to believe that he was not also strongly influenced by Jimi in that direction.

I agree that Jimi wasn't particular about pre-CBS Strats. Of course, he was most well-known on late-60s large-headstock models, which is why those particular olympic white and black '68 and '69 Strats have completely gone through the roof. I know people who have paid utterly bizarre figures for Jimi-looking Strats from that period - far beyond what the model is intrinsically worth as a vintage guitar, as compared to other comparable models from the general period.

All this is just my take on it. For a player who some seem to believe can barely play a guitar, Jimi sure has gotten an incredible amount of ink over the years, regardless of where the writer stands on the issue.

1990
Jimi Hendrix's Fender Stratocaster that he used to perform his famous version of the "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, is auctioned off in London for $295,000.

This thread isn't nearly contentious enough:

Well I remember being knocked out by Clapton's sound and playing on the Bluesbreakers LP, around 1967. To me, he never sounded better. So I associate Clapton with a Les Paul, not a Strat...Jerry

I couldn't agree more about Clapton's Bluesbreakers sound, and playing. That's one of the greatest guitar sounds ever, by anybody, IMO.

This has been discussed before, and it's off-topic, but Clapton ALSO was a big influence, along with Mike Bloomfield, in boosting the popularity of the Les Paul, which was much less in favor at the time than the Strat ever was. So he did it twice!

Early 60's, Strats were associated with surf music. White boys playing blues brought the Les Paul back in the late 60's. Gretsch was considered "country."

Hendrix showed that a Strat could "RAWK!" But I think Buddy Guy may have been the major reason Clapton went to the Strat. Mid 70's, Jeff Beck switched from LP to Strat, Robin Trower was heavily influenced by Hendrix.

I would have to give Jimi most of the credit for the resurgence of Strats, and Fender. You simply could not play his stuff on any other guitar; the whammy bar was capable of tricks the Bigsby couldn't touch.

Two days ago I heard Buddy Guy interviewed on CBC radio. He stated that guys like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were chasing his sound, assuming he was playing something other than a stratocaster, which they associated with country music. When they finally saw him live, they were surprised that he used a strat, and soon after they switched. So says Buddy Guy.
Personally, I have no knowledge about it, but I thought I'd pass on the info from that timely interview.
-John

And according to Noel Redding, one night The Experience had studio time booked after a gig...Jimi, doin' his thang, hit his strat on something and broke one the the tuning keys off. Noel had just sold a tele to a friend of his so they rushed over to his gig and borrowed the tele to go do the session. Fire and some other tunes I don't recall were done on that tele. If you listen to some of them you can hear the bite of the tele.

And speaking of old out of production fenders and other geetars, how long has it been since you folks have seen one of these little jewels. I think Gene Fields designed the Starcaster...




And Gretsch certainly is country to me, but this particlar "Axe" will Country and Western or Rock......




And just for kicks here's the first geetar I ever got to touch...this isn't the same axe, it got stolen, but I bought a replacement for this part of Dad's, Ted Sharp, RIP, memory. He used to know when I'd been in the closet 'cause I'd retune the b string so I could play Taps...that was all I knew back then... don't know much more now! This old guitar is a Silvertone, but was made by Kay...the Jimmy Reed geetar...




Great day to all!
Rick

"Telecaster's have only two sounds, good and bad" - Jimi

Those Gretsch Chet Atkins Super Axe's are super and very unsung guitars that can do most everything.

That Silvertone is a beaut! Too bad you 'lost' the first, Rick.

Jimi playing a white Gibson SG Custom at the Dick Cavett Show in '69:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFZorStky7U (Izabella)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYkhTUd4 ... re=related (Machine Gun)

this man was in the 101st airborne, so when you write in your nasty hate mail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ZYUaRK ... re=related

As b0b said Hendrix' version of SSB was a statement about Vietnam and the times. I don't expect country old-timers to get that, they don't have to, but they need to leave it alone. Funny how little has changed in 40 years.

Old timers aren't the only ones who need to leave it alone.

Jimi without question was/is a divinely inspired representative of beauty and love. Period. What he accomplished during his time on planet earth, was perfect.

Barry Blackwood wrote:Old timers aren't the only ones who need to leave it alone.

Barry with the robot head...Like you said," To me it sounds like it looks "

Tell me, why do you "mutter? that we need to leave it alone? You've got the right to talk about anything you want...so do we! So mutter on, you can bet I will.

And yep, Drew, not much has changed, just the date on the calender...

Great day to all!! Oh yeah, and Peace!!

Speaking of Strats, and Clapton's famous "Blackie", I think it's pretty cool that it was put together from 3 different Strats he bought at Sho-bud in Nashville. At least that's how I understand it, I'm sure there's someone on the forum more knowledgable on the details (Clapton tells the story in his recent book but I don't have a copy where I can look it up). I've read elsewhere that George Gruhn had just bought out the Sho-bud retail store on Lower Broad and actually sold Clapton the Strats...

And of course that guitar was famously later auctioned for just under a million bucks...

Most folks are probably more familiar with the live Star Spangled Banner played at the Woodstock concert, but Jimi's original studio recording is really, just as brilliant. (Available on the new MCA box set).
All those twittering double speed overdubs, years before Robert Fripp came along and tried to get away with proprietizing the technique he came to call "Frippertronics"-Great timing and great use of feedback, if not quite as rocket-filled, it's really an amazing and awesome piece... Makes me think of Bach (more accurately, Walter/Wendy Carlos's Switched On Bach) in many ways, and to get away with mentioning Jimi and Bach in the same breath>? Just as awesome...