Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
>>New question: Steven, did you have any contact with the former Sandy
Fisher, who was a studio engineer at Ladyland? 

No.
  

    
>>In "Black Gold" you mention Jimi, near the end, talking with Arthur
Lee about cutting an album together.  

There's about two hours of sessions recorded in 1970. I'm really
surprised that nothing has been released so far, but many of these
recordings are still tied up with legal disputes. Arthur told me that
he said some was there filming it too.


>>You also mention that he did share a concert with Sly and the Family
Stone.  Do you know if Jimi and Sly had much interaction? 

Unfortunately not in the studio. Someone recently sent me a list of
Hendrix reel-to-reel recordings that are being sold to those with deep
pockets ($3 million) -- more lost archives. One of the tape boxes is
marked "Jam with Larry Graham." Larry was the bass player for the
Family Stone. I bet that was a killer session. No offense to Billy or
Noel, but can you imagine Jimi with Buddy Miles AND Larry Graham.

Jimi and Sly both appreciated each others music. On the night of his
death, Jimi was supposed to sit in with Sly at a London nightclub, but
never showed up.
  

    
>> I read where Jimi's family chose to have a memorial service for
Jimi in Seattle instead of a big wake for him in NYC.  The reason given
was that the Hendrix family was afraid that the Black Panthers would
distrupt such a musical gathering.  Do you know anything about this
scenario?

Never heard about it. 
  

    
There's one track from that Arthur Lee/Hendrix session on one of the
Blue Thumb albums. I've got it at the bottom of a huge stack here, or
I'd give you the title. I think it showed up on the album that had
Arthur dressed like a janitor on the cover. 
  

    
The album was called "Vindicator." I wish I still had it, or had on
CD. A favorite of mine. There's nothing with Jimi on that LP, just a
great photo of the two of them together.

The only released track is called "The Everlasting First" and is found
on the CD "False Start."
  

    
It's out (as part of The Blue Thumb Recordings) on Hip-O Select, the
internet mail-order wing of Universal's reissue division. 
  

    
Coincidentally, I'm listening to Dave Matthews Band playing "Jimi
Thing."
  

    
Steve, I'm not going to let you off so easily on the influence of
Seattle on Jimi.  Let's think of it as a West Coast adaptation.  I
don't think it's an accident that the three black American artists most
prominent in the mostly white Psychedelic Rock explosion were products
of a West Coast upbringing––Arthur Lee (Los Angeles), Sly Stone (San
Francisco) and Jimi Hendrix (Seattle).  By no means did any of them
fully abandon the issues of being black in America at the time, but all
managed to transcend racial barriers to become successful in a largely
white segment of the music market.  

Sly's "Hot Fun In the Summertime" is a poignant satire of the inner
city riots that were afflicting so many inner cities across the US in
the mid-60s. 

Also, had Jimi tried to kiss a white girl in Montgomery, Alabama in
1959, he may have been lynched, not kicked out of school.  In any
event,he wouldn't have been attending the same school as white kids. 
In the early '60s African-Americans were still called Negros, by the
late '60s the term "black" was the acceptible phrase.  All these guys
had to deal with racism, of course, but the magnitude of the problem
was not the same in all parts of the U.S., and the West, culturally, in
the 60's still embraced the potential of a "new beginning."   

Racism was not absent from the burgeoning hippie movement of the late
Sixties, but institutionalized prejudice was one of many things for
which "the establishment" was being harshly criticized by the youth.  I
see Jimi being very adept at moving between worlds.  

Again, in the West there was still a spirit of "starting over" of
self-reliance and rugged individualism that Jimi seemed to pick up on. 
He wasn't going to let conventions of society/race/musical tradition
get in the way of his exceedingly strong desire to make it as a
musician. Part of his own identity as an American black man, was to
wear his freak flag high, not by adopting a confined sense of Black
Power or turning his back on his blackness, but by being, as much as he
could, his own man.

As a guitarist, even in the early '60s Jimi was exploring and creating
new ways to use amplification while playing guitar.  This seemed to
give him a unique sound that, later, happened to mesh with the music of
psychedelia, that was blatantly borrowing from American Blues and R&B.
 His backfeeding and use of distortions elevated his growing talent as
a blues and Soul guitarist to new heights.

Steve, do you see Jimi's uniqueness musically, as stemming foremost
from these early experiments with amplification uniquely merged with
his blues and R&B guitar playing?

Also, as for Jimi as a songwriter, I'm curious if you know of anyone
who has ever compared Jimi's own song lyrics from before 1966 (if there
are any), with those he wrote afterwards? ["Black Gold" states that
Jimi first took acid in Greenwich Village in 1966.  Jimi favors imagery
with strong colors and vivid sensory detail. This psychedelic flavor
certainly seems as though it would have been influenced by the tripping
Jimi experienced.]  
  

    
My favorite factlet from the book so far is that when 'Electric
Ladyland' first charted, Billboard listed it as 'Electric Landlady'.
  

    
:=) I laughed outloud at that, too.  


Let me try this question again:

Steve, do you see Jimi's uniqueness musically, as stemming foremost
from these early experiments with amplification and the way he later
merged those sound effects with his blues and R&B guitar playing?
  

    
Steve, is the still the first issue of your book.  I read it when the book
originally came out.

I'm with you on your interest of all the unreleased studio stuff and I
actually have a copy of the LA Forum bootleg I bought on vinyl back in '72,
I think.

I find the amount of unreleased stuff and/or concert material just
fascinating for many, many artists.
  

    
Hendrix' next project at the time of his death was to have been to
record with Gil Evans, with Evans arranging and conducting Hendrix'
music to accompany the guitarist's playing, rather in the spirit of
Evans' collaborations with Miles (Sketches of Spain, Porgy and Bess).
(A recording was released later, with John Abercrombie taking the lead
guitar chair.)

I'd be interested to hear what you could tell us about that project,
Steven. I've heard stories of Hendrix jamming with John McLaughlin and
Stanley Clarke towards the end of his like, and I've often thought that
he'd just about exhausted the possibilities of blues and rock and, had
he lived, would have developed in a more jazz, jazz/fusion direction.
  

    
Scott, "Managing to transcend racial barriers to become successful in
a largely white...music market" was more about how artists were
marketed by their managers and record companies. These 3 happened to
make it-- we don't know about all the others who tried and where their
roots were. LA isn't San Francisco (or Oakland where Sly was from), or
Seattle. The West Coast isn't so homogenous a place. You want to see
Seattle as a key player, have at it.

>> do you see Jimi's uniqueness musically, as stemming foremost
from these early experiments with amplification and the way he later
merged those sound effects with his blues and R&B guitar playing?

Sure, that's part of it.

>>Jimi favors imagery with strong colors and vivid sensory detail.
This psychedelic flavor certainly seems as though it would have been
influenced by the tripping Jimi experienced.

Not much has shown up (lyric wise) prior to 1966. Jimi was encouraged
by Chas Chandler to write his own songs, but prior to that he's
credited more with instrumentals. 

Part LSD influence, part listening to other composers like Dylan, part
science fiction buff--maybe he had synesthesia (see Oliver Saks'
"Musicophilia" book).
  

    
>>I'd be interested to hear what you could tell us about that (Gil
Evans) project

Tim, there was to be a project Miles Davis and another with Gil Evans.
Alan Douglas, with  his background in jazz, was organizing these
session. I discuss them in detail in "Black Gold." I get the feeling
the Miles Davis session would have taken place in 1971 since Jimi had
to finish "First Rays," work out legal matters, and decide whether to
reform a rock trio. There were so many new avenues for Jimi to explore.
I would have like to have seen him take some time out, raise his kids,
and be a guest artist/producer now and then.

>>I've heard stories of Hendrix jamming with John McLaughlin and
Stanley Clarke towards the end of his life, and I've often thought that
he'd just about exhausted the possibilities of blues and rock and, had
he lived, would have developed in a more jazz, jazz/fusion direction.

In my head, when I listen to Miles Davis recordings from the late
sixties to early seventies, I replace the guitarist with Jimi, and
imagine what he would have filled in -- it's always better. The only
problem with Jimi lasting with jazz fusion, is that he loved to sing
and compose. I feel Jimi may have stepped aside in the early '70s, and
let some of the young guitar studs do their thing. 
  

    
Steven, thanks for that.

I've your book on order, so pardon me if I'm asking things that you've
addressed within.

It would have been splendid to hear Hendrix work with Miles, but
McLaughlin's collaboration was pretty wonderful and I don't think that
Jimi would have been better, just different.
  

    
Another question.

Was Hendrix' inability to read/write music inhibiting his ability to
develop and communicate with the kind of musicians he was coming into
contact with towards the end of his life.

I'm reminded of Django Reinhardt who towards the end of his life
realized his dream of touring with Duke Ellington. He couldn't read
Duke's charts, so Duke would feature him with just a rhythm section
(there's only one recording that I'm aware of, a live concert in
Chicago in 1946). How lovely it would have been if Ellington had been
able to really write for the man.
  

    
<< The West Coast isn't so homogenous a place. You want to see
Seattle as a key player, have at it.>>

My point is not about a provincial homogeneity, but to better
understand a time when greater cultural diversity was being embraced
out of the social tumult erupting in America and the Western "advanced"
democracies.  Psychedelia erupted in New York, Amsterdam, London,
etc., but nowhere as strongly as on the West Coast of North
America––most significantly in SF, but also in LA, Portland, Seattle,
Vancouver.  

If we take the longer historical view, I think a strong argument can
be made that this wild exploration in the frontier of consciousness
(and notably with music) is not unrelated to the reverberations of a
manifest destiny contained. [Kesey and the Pranksters were West Coast
"intrepid travelers" in the early '60s exploring a wild, new frontier
lifestyle as artistic expression.  As we see in Kesey's Cuckoo's Nest
and Great Notion, the very idea of wilderness was shifting from the
external West to be conquered, into an internal wilderness of the
mind.] 

The way specific artists were marketed is part of the equation when
understanding their Rock stardom, but the individual artist––and I
think that Sly, Lee and Jimi were all exceptionally gifted and sincere
artists––also had to be able to successfully assume their role as
artists in this cutting edge world. I'm confident that the fact that
they grew up on the West Coast abetted this sensitivity/adaptability.
"The Psychedelic Rock Star" was a frontier phenomenon because such a
role had never existed before. ["Are You Experienced?", was a whole new
experience].  

Sly, Jimi and Arthur Lee (and Shuggie Otis, another West Coast black
kid) succeeded impressively for fairly short psychedelic rock careers,
which wasn't uncommon for any musical entity during this time.  Also,
the interracial tensions they faced became an additional layer of
pressure that plagued them, and likely contributed to the undoing of
their bands and, with Jimi, perhaps his life.  Being pushed by his
managers  to perform beyond reasonable limits, also contributed to
Jimi's overloaded, wearying state.

I do think that Jimi would have experimented more heavily with Jazz
(Miles Davis attended Jimi's funeral service in Seattle in Oct 1970),
but like Jeff Beck's work with rock/jazz fusion, I'm not so sure, had
he lived to do this, that Jimi wouldn't have always been most closely
associated with the significant innovations he made in the realm of
hard, psychedelic rock, a frontier world where he reigned supreme.

The thing I most liked about "Black Gold" was the way in which this
archival information allows us to trace, both musically and culturally,
the "scenes" or "veins" in Jimi's life which coalesced for him in
London.  Yes, Jimi was a West Coast black kid, then an American Army
private with no war to be sent to.  His drive to make it as a guitarist
took him through an apprenticeship that gained him impressive skills
in plying the Blues, R&B/Soul, and RockNRoll. He added his own
distinctive touches with distortion and backfeeding, that also helped
him create a unique sound.  This was a skill set gained as a dedicated
starving artist. It preceeded any marketing of him and set the stage. 
Simultaneously, the rockers in England were borrowing heavily from this
same skill set and those same musical traditions.  

As you rightly suggest, the business managers of the "British
Invasion" groups packaged their music to a "white" audience of American
youth.  Of course there was luck involved for Jimi to be in the right
place at the right time and to find backers willing to heavily promote
him, but, as "Black Gold" shows, Jimi's skillset and unique innovations
also gained him immediate respect from the finest rock guitar players
in London. Jimi, unwittingly, had followed a developmental path to be
appreciated there musically; he had the right kind of bearing and
transcendent stage presence (helped by his interracial West coast
upbringing).  Jimi tapped into several "ripe" musical and cultural
veins.  All these factors propelled him to his mercurial success in
1966 and 1967.

"Black Gold" can be useful, I think, both to future musicologists, but
also to cultural historians.  There is a growing body of Grateful Dead
scholars well represented in The Well who talk of setting the record
straight for the future.  

Steve, when you set out to write this book were you mostly thinking of
future guitar players, musical historians, Hendrix afficionados or a
wider reading audience?
  

    
>>Was Hendrix' inability to read/write music inhibiting his ability to
develop and communicate with the kind of musicians he was coming into
contact with towards the end of his life.

Yes and no. Miles said in his biography that he laid out some charts
for Jimi at an informal meeting. Jimi gave him a blank look, but
according to Miles he caught on fast.

I asked Quincy Jones about a session he lined up for Jimi, but he said
he never showed up. Maybe he was intimidated. The song was called
"Humin'" a Nate Adderly song.

According to Alan Douglas, they were going to send Jimi to the
Julliard School of Music, so he could learn some of the basics. Imagine
where that would have taken him.
  

    
>>Steve, when you set out to write this book were you mostly thinking
of future guitar players, musical historians, Hendrix afficionados or a
wider reading audience?

Scott, a bit of each. Originally, the book was meant to be an oral
history, a collection of all the interviews I conducted, but then I
thought it should include all the archival information I discovered
over the years. It grew from there, and is constantly being updated on
my webiste. At present I'm contemplating two other books on Hendrix.

As an archivist I never thought I'd be an author. As an author I never
thought I'd be a teacher. I am branching out, and will be teaching a
course on the history of rock 'n' television next year along with the
course on Hendrix.
  

    
I suspect that your courses on Hendrix are popular. Do they fill up?
How do you address the element of Jimi's and the era's drug use when
teaching college kids?
  

    

>Let's think of it as a West Coast adaptation....


I don't buy the West Coast thing on this so much. Arthur Lee was born in
Memphis, and seems more product of the gun-toting- virtual-L.A.-south than
otherwise, in a way it is also significant that he died in Memphis. Hendrix
may of been from Seattle, but I think he despised the place and bloomed
elsewhere. Big dose of black virtual south no doubt in the Seattle meme, but
Seattle back then was a fairly racist place, having spent time in both L.A.
and Seattle during that time (BTW, I was born in Seattle) can say Seattle
was far more racist than L.A. or Alaska from what I saw of it. Hendrix
settled his soul on the chitlin circuit and didn't he find more of a
spiritual home in places like London, NYC and Woodstock?

As per the psychedelic thread the injection for Hendrix seemed to be by way
of London, rubbing elbows with the Psychedelicised Animals and not to
mention early Soft Machine, Pink Floyd and the scenes evolving around places
like the UFO club.

Sly I don't know much about, but from my POV, Hendrix and Arthur Lee were
products of an eclectic Afro-American tradition linked more to sophisticated
oral and musical culture of their mixed distinct heritage, and sharp
intellects more than anything that had to do with the West Coast. England
seemed to be a better support base for both of them in someways than
California.


Correct me if I'm wrong, I doubt if I'm 100% correct, my mytho-poetic
reality though where Hendrix and Arthur Lee were coming from has little to
do with West Coast beatniks or hippies.

Also as a die-hard Yarbirds fan, I see the sort of guitar psychedelia
Hendrix expanded on as being more a product of Jeff Beck's explorations than
that of Garcia or Cippolina, and certainly the poetics of Hendrix and Lee
seemed to becoming from some other place.
  

    <scribbled by jonsson Sat 17 Nov 07 04:54>
  

    
That last paragraph nails it for me.  Hendrix's overmarshalled high-gain
sound was far more British than West Coast.   I was living in Topanga in
67-68, and got to hear Stills and Young talking about him.  Stills was
talking about learning fluidity from Clapton and riding overdrive from
Hendrix.  Musically, a case can be made that Jimi became Jimi in England.
  

    
In fact even the amp choices were telling.    The English guys got an
entirely different sound out of their Marshalls, while the American guys
played Fenders, or Fender style amps.    It was only after Hendrix that
Marshalls began to catch on over here.   Garcia and Cipollina sounded
nothing like that.
  

    
Maybe what we're looking at here is an early case of true
globalization and cultural fusion.  I still suggest that the West Coast
sense of openess to the new (the frontier) played into the mix.  These
English rockers at the demise of the British Empire were drawing
especially hard from American music, ranging from the Beatles listening
to the Beach Boys (especially "Pet Sounds") or covering Chuck Berry,
to the Stones "borrowing" all those blues riffs from Muddy Waters. Jimi
hit town already highly accomplished at playing the sound that most
grabbed these Brits at the heart of the London music scene.  

As for multiculturalism in Rock, Jimi was at the vanguard and was
fairly well developed musically before he went to London in mid-1966. 
He was a bonafide product of those African-American musical stylings of
Blues and R&B/Soul combined with his own experimentations. The
influence of London on him was more of a fine tuning and a last
layering of his personal sound.

Jimi, after the Army, was drawn to the strongest musical veins he
could find, and, yes, that wasn't Seattle. (However, Steve has some
great anecdotes about Jimi hooking up for some gigs/jams in Vancouver,
BC at a club owned by Tommy Chong, later of Cheech and Chong fame).  It
would have been interesting if Jimi had cycled through the Detroit
Motown scene, but he never made it there.  The "Chitlin Circuit" was a
great learning ground for him, however, and was far more influential on
his development than London.

As for multiculturalism, more than the Motown sound, or the Southern
R&B sound, I think the West Coast fusion angle is not to be ignored. 
Carlos Santana, from the Bay Area, amplified his Latin sound to great
cross-over appeal.  Also, Eric Burden, tiring of the Animal's hard
driving blues/rock, went to LA and had great success combining his
talents with War's funky mix.  Sly Stone was irrefutably a product of
the Bay Area's psychedelia.  Shuggie Otis, at 14, and from LA, had an
amazing first album that was very psychedelic and derivative of the
Hendrix sound.  In the early '70s, Tower of Power embraced a cross-over
multicultural sound that has been called California funk.  

Those guys still plugging away on the "Chitlin' Circuit" never
expanded their sound into such cross-over appeal, although Chuck Berry
and Little Richard had some come-back success as "nostalgia" acts. 
They were hugely influential because of their Rock N Roll successes in
the 50s, but, unlike those groups just mentioned, weren't at the
cutting edge of the explosion of Rock from 1966 to 1972.  

Hendrix and the Experience, Love, Sly & the Family Stone, War, Tower
of Power were not seen as "black" groups in the same way as the Motown
musicians, and were all more culturally transcendent. A West Coast
cross-cultural sensibility did play a role.

Steve, did you ever count how many times Jimi got kicked out of R&B
bands when he was touring the South?  I think that his own yearning to
be his own man and showcase his own unique sound was certainly a
product of his own bright intellect and talent, but, whether he loathed
the small-city limits of a rainy, sleepy, pre-Microsoft,
pre-Starbucks, pre-hip, mostly white [extractive (logging/fishing),
engineering (Boeing), shipping (for the Pacific Rim)] Seattle, I still
see that a West Coast spirit of individuality was a major influence on
Jimi's development and ability to adapt to this psychedelic rock scene.

Cultural influences in an increasingly intercultural world are
difficult to track and pinpoint, but this is an interesting discussion.
The importance of Seattle can be overblown out of provincial pride,
but it should not be discounted either.  For two/thirds of Jimi's life
(from birth until he was almost 18) he never went anywhere else (except
for short stints in Vancouver, BC.). Of course he would have never
become a global success had he not followed the heart of the action. 
Clearly, we are all strongly influenced by where we grow up.  Defining
which of those influences shape who we become, is the tough part.