The Steel Guitar Forum

Even though I dont listen much to Jimi these days, my mind have been more or less in Country rock, I was amazed by this bold statement from Bobbe newsletter:
"I have had many of the younger crowd in country music tell me how incredible Jimmy Hendrix was when he played "The Star-Spangled Banner". I personally think he should have been arrested and put in jail for what he did to this great classic piece of Americana.

He played a bad, one note distorted lead line with no harmony through 12 wide open Marshall stacks. Most people who think this is great don't realize they could do the same thing in a single half-hour lesson if they had the same equipment."

Of course peoples taste is like a butt, its divided!
But to make the statement that:
"they could do the same thing in a single half-hour lesson if they had the same equipment"

Is just plain wrong. But I will be looking forward to seeing Bobbe put out a youtube video of him doing the same thing as great as jimi did with with bombs dropping and alarms going, all sound made by one guitar!

If Jimi would have liked the sound of a harmony part on there he would have played it, but there was no need. And I would say its almost a proven fact since young people come into Bobbe`s store to tell him how great it is, 41 years later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nO0F4ugss

(FYI, I have nothing against Bobbe, this is just a public response to a public newsletter.)

to seeing Bobbe put out a youtube video of him doing the same thing

me too, especially if Bobbe emulates the same in between melody line adlib stuff, teeth included...

What Bobbe said - in spades!!! IMHO, of course.

If Hendrix deserved to go to jail for his version then in my opinion you'd better make plenty of room for all the pop/r&b/rock/country stars who've butchered the song with bad singing, over-singing, and ego-tripping melisma...

Amen to what you said Pete.......Roseanne Barr (or Arnold) is one who comes to mind! I wish some of these pop and rock singers who do the SSB at some of our sporting events would just sing the d@mn melody instead of trying to add their own vocal acrobatics to it. The Star Spangled Banner does have a pretty melody and when you scat around the tune you're not singing it............JMHO JH in Va.

I agree with Pete. Here's my favorite butchered version ---> CLICK

Yea Bobbe! Bad is just plain bad, and that rendition by Hendrix was terrible!

I try to pick my heros wisely, and Hendrix is not one of mine. However, Bobbe Seymore is getting closer. Bill Duncan

I'll admit it, I have been a fan of Hendrix since I was in 7th grade, He is still by many accounts, the most influential electric guitar player of all time. That's probably due to the fact that he was experimenting and innovating. He has stated that he really learned to play guitar where? That's right in good 'ole Nashville, Tennessee. He played at a Nashville club called The Jolly Rodger while in the Army and stationed at Fort Campbell. If you listen to The Wind Cries Mary or Little Wing, you can hear some country guitar influence. He was also a great blues and R&B player who put in the time to learn to play.

I can understand why some don't care for his version of The Star Spangled Banner. At some points, even I find it hard to listen to. I think that was his point.

TC

Yeah, of course all are intitled to their own opinion, that goes without saying, but my point is this remark:

"they could do the same thing in a single half-hour lesson if they had the same equipment"

This is just plain ignorance, an established musician like bobbe oughta know that!
But hey, not a big deal, bobbe had the urge to write it, I had the urge to comment on it!

I worked the last few Hendrix shows as a roadie -- San Diego, Siks (sp?) stadium in Seattle and the Atlanta Pop Festival.

Jimi was an honest, kind and gentle man. Backstage he could play unreal acoustic Blues. He was a great human being who was murdered as far as I'm concerned. I liked him alot.

I also know Bobbe from buying a guitar from him.

T.C. Right on!"Castles Made Of Sand" is in the same vain as "Rainy Night In Georgia",And Some Curtis Mayfield stuff,Even "Little Wing" has some country licks.Having Hendrix arrested?how the hell do you arrest a man for being soulful and playing his heart out??Wasn't he a Paratrooper in our Army?That was his interpretation...besides he was Jimi Hendrix.

I watched a video interview with Jimi talking about his redition of the song. The reporter was commenting about the flack Jimi was taking about it and how offensive it sounded. Jimi responded basically as such: " Yeah, I do a different version, but America is divided over the war and stuff, there are a whole lot of people who don'f feel like this is their country anymore. Then there are people who hate the folks protesting the war, they tell 'em to get out, they aren't americans. So, I do this version of the SSB to help the Hippies to feel like Americans, and to try to stay conected to this great country, it's like their version, they ARE americans and need to stay with it."
Not exact, but surely the spirit of his intention. Pretty noble, to tell the protesters that they are still part of, and to tell the establishment folks that dissent isn't unamerican.

I love Jimi! But he's out of tune

As far as I'm concerned that version was shear genius. Its a matter of creativity.

Somehow I can't equate sloppy, inept playing as creative. Before I unclick the button that sends me an e-mail every time somebody posts to this thread, I'd just like to point out that I was around during the 60's, in high school, college and in southeast Asia trying to keep from getting my rear end plastered all over the landscape. This latter adventure was right at the high point of Mr. Hendrix's popularity and I was in Monterey at the time of the famous guitar burning episode - fortunately, I found something better to do with my time that evening. It was my observation at the time, and I remain convinced that a large portion of the rock n' roll and even pop music of the day was a product of the California drug culture - druggies writing and performing music that only other druggies could understand. And the playing of the era was absolutely absurd, probably because they were too stoned to know what they were doing - go back and listen to guitar solos from Big Brother backing Janis Joplin and the Doors. And if you want to talk about groups like the Mamas & Papas and the Beach Boys - all those records were recorded by the "Wrecking Crew" - one of the best bunch of studio players who ever lived and they had to keep it simple because the groups had to learn the stuff to play on the road and they just weren't capable of doing anything hard. I spent all those years listening to country and jazz because that was the only place where I could hear undistorted guitars - Wes Montgomery, Johnny Smith, Grant Green, Don Rich, Chet Atkins and studio players like Bob Bain & Tony Mottola and Nashville guys like Pete Drake and Lloyd Green. I just cannot imagine in my wildest dreams placing Hendrix and his ilk on the level with these people and the blues greats like Misissippi John Hurt and Blind Blake. I think it got to the point that to 'be in' you had to recognize and accept these people as "creative" and "on the cutting edge". Well, I was never real interested in whether anybody thought I was 'in' or not and I'm certainly not going to start now by elevating or accepting the musical equivalent of Ms. Barr grabbing her crotch, especially when it has to do with our national anthem.

Skip Ellis wrote:I just cannot imagine in my wildest dreams placing Hendrix and his ilk on the level with these people and the blues greats like Misissippi John Hurt and Blind Blake.

I think the thing that placed Hendrix on a level so much higher than those primitive guys was his great ear and wonderful note selection. That allowed him to make blues-based music so much more interesting and expressive than the guys who could only play the same few notes.

Hendrix was a musical Horizon.

Jimi played dead-on note-for-note selections from the R. Johnson catalog. To dismiss what you cannot hear as dope stuff -- well -- what can I say?

I played at a club last weekend where they showed a video "Live From The Isle Of White" on the band break and it was the best live Hendrix I've ever seen,Mitch Mitchell on drums,Billy Cox on bass and Hendrix was on fire,I had seen him live when I was a kid and he was wasted,if you get a chance check this one out,he's very coherent giving cues to the band,and his technique is nothing that can be learned in half an hour...at least not by me.

O.K.
Who's going to be the first Pedal Steeler to light their axe on fire?!
I think it'd be a good way to distinguish (extiguish?) a good version of Mansion On The Hill from all the rest, come convention time.

Music can be a form of Escapeism... Especially in the 60's

Consider the fact that "The Beatles" released their first album on Nov.22, 1963. The same day that Kennedy got killed.

Dallas Taylor (Drummer of CS&N) once told me that "Crosby,Stills and Nash" only "made it" because their hit "Marrakesh Express" sounded like the recently broken-up "Beatles" and people wanted another Beatles.

Definition of "Escapeism":
Originating in the time of Confucius and closely linked with Taoism, it includes all activities, hobbies, and moments (for example, self-realizations and other forms of enlightenment) that induces a state of detachment, euphoria, occasionally memory loss, and can also often leads to adventure.
Escapeism can also be defined as a philosophy or "way" of life. The Escapeist philosophy can be defined in four parts (all of which have infinite potential to combine to fit each individuals' path):
1. The inclination to break free from confinement or control.
2. The ability to successfully avoid dangerous or unpleasant things.
3. A mastering of the art of escape to somewhere or from somewhere through certain rituals or activities specific to each individual.
4. A partiality to or impulse for temporary distraction from reality or routine.

Escapeism is not a religion, it does not involve any kind of deity, but rather a path of life and/or state of mind which exists as means of promoting compelling experiences which allow the individual to enjoy a transient, yet genuine and fulfilling euphoria.

Here we go again. I think this is mostly about different cultures not understanding what makes each other tick. I can't really compare Jimi, more primitive blues players, the Wrecking Crew, straightahead jazz players, classic country players, or anybody else. They each do their thing, and you either like it or not. It just happens that I like an awful lot from all of these, but there is other stuff I don't. The fact that any of us likes or dislikes it doesn't write the book on that subject.

To my tastes, I go with Bobbe far enough to argue that Jimi's SSB is hardly his high water mark from a musical point of view. Frankly, the composition itself doesn't lend itself to that, IMO - its greatness lies elsewhere. To me, taken for what it is, Jimi's Woodstock performance is just that, what it is - a cultural icon of a particular time and place, and a reminder that even these people, many of them feeling outcast from American society, were still part of it. It has meaning for those who relate to that, and none for those that don't. It can only be considered in its own context.

Further, I didn't hear Bobbe tank Hendrix in general. Jimi played a huge range of music. Some was angry, distorted, and angular. Some was melodic, harmonic, and beautiful. Like all great art, Jimi reflected what was going on around him. People are going to take what they will from any and all of it. But to simply dismiss it all as druggie crap - well, let's just say that I disagree strongly.

As far as Jimi not being comparable to the blues and jazz greats - in a lot of ways, he's not comparable to anybody. Jimi could play blues like nobody else - which is what any great blues player does. Being a great blues player is not about technique - it's about bringing something new and emotionally interesting to it, and he does, IMHO. Trying to rank-order Robt Johnson, Gary Davis, John Hurt, Blind Blake, Muddy, BB, Jimi, or others is pointless. But lots of blues and jazz greats have sung his praises. I have generally believed that if Jimi had survived through the 70s, there's a good chance he would have thrown in with somebody like Miles and the history of jazz-rock would be quite different now - and I'd expect it to be much more interesting. No matter how unmelodic or simpleton other rock music became, Jimi continued to come up with interesting new melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas. Again, there was a wide range to his approach, but if you think some of this stuff is so simple to capture, I suggest you go get yourself a Stratocaster and try it yourself - I'm sure we'd all like to hear what you come up with. I think you'll see that even with the warts from unfiltered live recordings, he played some pretty remarkable things. To me, his best work was in the studio, where he was a genius - again IMO. Remember also that he was only 28 when he died.

At a certain level, Jimi was a study of excesses - that was a big part of the times and he was not immune, unfortunately. No point in trying to evaluate him on a button-down traditionalist scale. He upset the entire guitar-playing world for almost anybody born after 1945 or so, pretty much irregardless of style. Listen to contemporary guitar players with impeccable chops and taste like Charlie Hunter or Junior Brown, and you'll hear that influence very directly.

There are many, many sets of musical rules. Sometimes they are useful as boundaries to live within. Sometimes they are useful as boundaries to be broken. But sometimes getting too deep into them can be a straightjacket. Jimi was one of the guys that taught a generation these simple lessons. He's not the first or only one to do that - that's been going on for centuries. Like it or not, art will always evolve, because people and human intellect evolve beyond anybody's rules. Or devolve. Depends on your outlook.

My opinions, naturally.

Let’s skip the innappropriate political discussion here and focus on the music. I think the blinders some people developed in the '60s for political and social reasons have overly colored their view of Hendrix as a musician. I agree with Skip and most music critics that many of the popular young rock musicians of the '60s were unseasoned youths without impressive technical skills. But, from the beginning, rock'n'roll was more about the beat, the exuberant emotions, and the new sounds than about technical whiz; and '60s rock certainly continued that. The young fans didn't care if it was limited technically, it was new and fresh and raw and "their" music. But a few, like Hendrix, rose way above that.

Hendrix was not a fresh young kid with limited chops. In addition to his Nashville roots mentioned above, for years he played mainstream, and very good, R&B guitar behind top artists such as Little Richard. He was a long time pro with exceptional chops long before he went to England and branched out into his revolutionary psychedelic blues/rock. He was also a fanatical gear-head who pushed equipment into new territory. What made him so unique was that he so remarkably blended wild innovation with his pro virtuosity in a way that all the green young rockers knew they could not touch. That's the verdict now of several generations of rock guitarists and music critics, who overwhelmingly place him in the top pantheon of rock guitar. And no amount of intolerant pot-shots from people with conservative musical tastes will change that.

The heroes on Skip's list are all technically brilliant players, but conventional – sometimes to the point of being glib, clichéd and boring. In jazz, he lists Wes Montgomery, but no one like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, or Rahsaan Roland Kirk. I'm guessing he doesn't like post-Stravinsky modern classical music either. Likewise, Bobbe is technically brilliant, but I have never heard him play anything that wasn't very conventional (but I still love him dearly for what he does, and Wes Montgomery too for that matter). And some of the best stuff people like Drake and Green did was simple but effective.

If some people only like technically smooth conventional stuff, so be it, it's a free country, and I don’t hear anyone advocating jail for them and their heroes (well, except for Kenny G maybe). But, for them to put down more adventurous and wilder stuff simply because it is not technically smooth and conventional the way they like, just comes across as intolerant, unperceptive ranting about something they obviously never gave a serious listen to and so lack any subtle appreciation of - sort of like intellectual snobs who say they don't like country music, but have never really given a serious listen to the wide variety of different sounds and levels of technical skill in the genre.

There have been few true musical conduits, if any, like Jimi. That he came along when he did and did it all his way for us, is one of the greatest events in modern history.
I feel sorry for anyone that never has the opportunity to experience Hendrix, and pity those who do but don't appreciate it.

His rendition of 'The Banner' at Woodstock is beyond discription, and has to the 'let it all hang out' moment of all time, ...rivaled only by himself at other times...

"I thought it was beautiful" - Jimi

America the Beautiful. That's the one.