I know there are a lot of Jimi Hendrix fans out there, so today’s song is for you! When Hendrix arrived in London to launch a solo career under the management of The Animals’ Chas Chandler, he was already fully formed as a blues rock guitarist. He had cut his teeth backing Little Richard, played a part in the Isley Brothers band, was a key member of Curtis Knight & The Squires, and was ready (shy as he was) to turn the English rock scene on its head.
The stories have been told and can be read anywhere, but the essence of it was that across a number of clubs in London, the “A-listers” – Lennon, McCartney, Beck, Clapton, Jagger, Jones and Townshend among them – filed in, listened to Hendrix and felt that rock ’n’ roll was slipping out of their grasp and into Jimi’s. He got onstage with Cream and played a tornado version of Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor, and Clapton realised that his life and the blues had changed forever.
Was Hendrix the most influential blues and rock guitarist in history? I believe so. Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Vai, Robin Trower, Eddie Van Halen and Prince. Hendrix is in all of them. A left-hander, he invented rhythmic figures and ideas that had never been played or heard before, as his massive right hand flew along, over and across the fretboard.
His personal style combined with studio engineering effects and sounds, like a false flanger, playing in all sorts of novel ways and defiant showmanship on stage, made Hendrix the electric-guitar player of everyone’s aspirations. In his hands, the instrument was completely transformed, as was blues and rock music in general. Primarily he played a Fender Strat, restrung for him as a “lefty”, changing the string tension and the angle of the bridge pick up to the strings, which gave his guitar a unique sound.
Festivals like Woodstock, Monterey and Isle of Wight gave Hendrix a chance to tease and showcase his unique wah wah, overdrive and distortion sounds and technique on well-known blues standards and rock hits such as All Along The Watchtower, Wild Thing and Johnny B. Goode.
The recording studio gave him a chance to show a fresh, wild, but also scenic sonic palette on tracks like Hey Joe, Foxy Lady, Bold As Love and Little Wing. Together, his live gigs, three albums with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the one live album with The Band of Gypsys, turned Hendrix into a legend who burned out in just four years, becoming the second member of the 27 Club, as they later became known.
Jimi Hendrix’s Red House rules
For today’s song, I flipped between choosing the experimental showcase Voodoo Child (Slight Return), for its overdrive, the musicality of Little Wing, or the slow blues of Red House, and settled on the latter. Hendrix composed Red House, seemingly inspired by Curtis Knight’s Travelin’ To California, and possibly took a line from Elmore James’ The Sky is Crying. The resultant track is a straight, 12-bar, slow blues song about the loss of a lover. More a deep cut than a hit, it became a live staple of his set, enabling Hendrix to stretch out, exploring his blues chops over anything from eight to 15 minutes.
This Friday’s song is the concise studio version from Are You Experienced. If you ever want to hear a supportive rhythm section, listen to Noel Redding drive his bass out of the blocks, with a restrained Mitch Mitchell keeping time, allowing himself a flourish only at the beginning and the end. Hendrix’s guitar lines, at the start and between the vocals, crunch with texture and breathe with feel, while his realisation that his baby “don’t live here no more” is given the blues man’s “comfort” of “that’s alright, I still got my guitar, look out…”, before he blazes through his solo, having a heap of fun throughout. Jimi lives and so do we!
Listen to Red House on Spotify here and on Apple Music here.
I started a music WhatsApp group in 2023. I send one song a week on a Friday, with links to both Apple and Spotify, and an accompanying narrative/capsule piece. If you want to engage about a song, get a playlist or just get in touch, email me on markgrosin@gmail.com.
For more of Mark’s memorable track selections, go here.
Top image collage: Rawpixel; Currency.
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