I've bought this CD twice. The first time it was a stocking-stuffer/sub-gift for my brother. He listened to it once or twice and then gave it back to me. I sold it to Record and Tape Traders with a pile of other stuff I didn't listen to, and bought something hipper instead. Because, Hendrix was such a cliche, man! The inevitable #1 on lists of rock guitarists made by people who can't think for themselves! The Sheeple!
The second time it was homework for the first and only gig I've ever played, an event sponsored by the College of Southern Maryland Guitar Club at a coffee shop. I never went to CSM; I ran into the director at a production of Beauty and the Beast that wifey was involved in. He saw me in my Miles Davis T-shirt and chatted me up, found out I played bass, and asked me to come jam. So for an evening I was Noel Redding to a trio of honkeys who all wanted to be Hendrix and were way better musicians than I've ever been (the only black member of our impromptu group was the drummer, in a neat inversion of the racial makeup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience).
Actually learning to play someone's songs affords you a chance to respect the labor of creating them, so I hung on to the disc this time, if only as a memento of a moment when I was cool. But greatest-hits records by definition stay on the popular berm of an artists work, rather than giving you something you didn't know. So it sat in the purgatory of kept-but-rarely-played CD's.
I don't really play the bass anymore. I mean, I've still got my old Squier P-Bass decorated with Black Flag and Happy Bunny stickers, and I've still got a rather pricey 50-watt Crate amp for it. But the passion for playing bass has more or less left me. Once you've figured out how to hit the root note of the chord and throw in some fourths and fiftsh for flourish, you've basically mastered the art of rock bass, and I don't have the patience to learn jazz bass. Jaco Pastorius I'm not.
Plus, you can't create on just a bass. I've got two songs to my name, written around 2003-4, when I was at the peak of my bass seriousness. To get them recorded, I went to a friend's house with a bass line, some lyrics, and an idea, and he had to fill in the rest: drums, guitar, effects, you name it. A bassist exists for a band.
So I've switched to guitar, as I feel I was meant to. And switching to guitar brings you back into the orbit of the greats. Hendrix, the universally recognized, is so for a reason. Unlike Clapton or Beck or the other Top Ten on everyone's lists, Hendrix died at his creative peak, and so never subjected us to the inevitable decline. Not for Jimi the weak side projects, questionable 70's forays into jazz or gospel, 80's synth-laden bastardizations, 90's retreads that just didn't measure up to Axis, etc. His glory is preserved, and un-tainted, in the wax.
So the only thing stopping you from digging the 60's hell out of them is your own worries that everyone else in the English-speaking world is already there with you. But that's just the argumentum ad novellum applied to your listening preferences, and you should never argue with yourself about music. So when the mood strikes to groove along to "The Wind Cried Mary", go with it. Life's too short to pretend that Hendrix isn't good.
Grade: L
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