JIMI HENDRIX : FINAL INTERVIEW .

The other day when Amy Winehouse died she joined the “27 Club” which includes other famous rockers who died at age 27. Most of them died because of drugs. Unfortunately Jimi Hendrix joined the club for the same reason.

Something special for all music and Beat Club-Lovers on YouTube: The 2nd take of the “Purple Haze” Performance by The Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Marquee Club in London on the 11th of March 1967! Never broadcasted in the regular episodes of the Beat Club! Enjoy it!

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2. Jimi Hendrix

although jimi did not make my top 10 guitar players (as scandalous as that sounds) he had to be added to this list as he was without a doubt one of the most flamboyant, cool, badass dudes in the history of our planet, let alone rock n’ roll. jimi was immensely talented, blending his virtuosic guitar playing with great melodic sensibilities and serious songwriting chops. it was a coin toss for first and second on this list as hendrix could have easily topped it.

a rockstar archetype who clearly defined the role of a new breed of star, hendrix brought a sexy swagger to rock n’ roll that didn’t really exist before he showed up. the fact that he really stands alone as a black artist in the rock genre is a bit odd i find. although black artists have dominated in many other genres such as soul, r&b, rap, hip hop, and blues and contributed to many of the jazz greats, there is a strange lack of black artists in rock. some will say what about bad brains, living colour…am i missing anybody? (also an insane stretch to compare those bands with hendrix).

not only was jimi a black artist, he was also apparently a man of legendary sexual prowess (not to mention phallus size), and it was the sixties. although it was a time of certain …liberties, let’s say, civil rights was still a new idea. it takes a pretty cool individual to negotiate those waters and i’m sure jimi had to endure the standard racism of the day, death threats, etc.

there is a great story of jimi when he first arrived in london. he was doing a house gig at a club downtown and word started to spread about this guitar demon that no one had heard the likes of before. one night the club was full of all the local luminaries that had come to pay homage or just check out what all the fuss was about. jimmy page, jeff beck, brian jones, keith richards, eric clapton, pete townshend — all were all there to check out jimi and his crack band the experience. i think it was jones who opined “the front of the stage was wet with the tears of all the other guitar players in the room”. it was a collective “what do we do now” from the awestruck crowd that jimi had just blown away.

he was also a fashionista of the highest order. as spencer said in a previous post (and i’m paraphrasing here), “he had the ability to make a hawaiian print blazer look cool”. big hair, big floppy hats, etc. jimi and his wild looks and incredible talent cut an indelible mark in rock history.

essential listening: are you experienced, electric ladyland (the jimi hendrix experience)

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Long hair, pop music and rebellion

I grew up in the sixties, a period of guys with long hair, the Beatles, rebellion, so-called “free love,” hippies and drug experimentation. “Do your own thing” or “if it feels good, do it” were the catch cries of my generation. I had long hair, wore satin shirts and beads and loved “pop” music. Jesus was just a swear word and a fairy tale to me. In my view, anyone who believed in God was weak and unscientific.
Unwanted suicidal thoughts

However, I began to have destructive thoughts. Out of the blue, the thought of “Cut your wrists!” would be planted in my mind. I was amazed and scared by these thoughts because I was satisfied and content with life. In fact, I thought I had everything I needed to be happy.
My friend had gone crazy!

I visited my friend Dave. In the past, he had mocked the Bible as unscientific and argued strongly for the truth of evolution. Now he told me that he trusted in this person called Jesus and also that the scientific evidence didn’t back up the theory of evolution! “Right,” I thought, “Give me a Bible; I’ll prove him wrong!”
The stumbling block of evolution and the miracle of life

I had come close to having a very bad motorcycle accident and this started me thinking about God. But the theory of evolution was a stumbling block for me in believing the Bible because the Bible says that God (not time, chance, mutation and natural selection) is responsible for the universe and for life. I witnessed the miracle of the birth of both of my children. I was stunned by the complexity of the human body and I was starting to see that the theory of evolution was the fairy tale! I began to search for the one who was the Creator of life.

My son’s life story
Music—my true addiction

I was invited to view a video on the effect of music and I was stunned as it laid out the nature of my beloved music . . . promotion of rebellion, drugs, depravity, violence, the occult, witchcraft, the devil, sexual perversion, suicide and mockery of Jesus. I wondered why musicians were spending so much time mocking this Jesus character if he was just a fairy tale as I once thought.

I wondered why so many rock musicians died young from suicide and drug overdose, etc. The Who, in their song “My Generation,” sing, “Hope I die before I get old.” But when faced with his friends dying before they got old, Pete Townsend, the guitarist of The Who lamented, “Look at my life. Look at my generation. How did that work? Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon . . . the list is . . . endless. They’re dead people. My life is full of dead people. My friends are dead.”

How had my music affected me? One thing I knew, I would be a brave person to say that music had not affected me at all!
Unexplainable blasphemy

Jesus said that I should pray so I thought Well, let’s pray! As I said the Lord’s Prayer, the words in the second line (Let your Holy Name be honoured) were replaced by foul and blasphemous words. This occurred on two successive nights and I wasn’t too keen on this evil articulate force that was controlling my thought patterns with suicide and blasphemy!
Placing a challenge before God

One dark night, I was lying in bed thinking. “God, if you are so powerful that you made the universe by speaking, then show me evidence you exist.” I didn’t expect anything to happen because there was no way (or so I thought) that God could show me anything as I lay in bed.
A visitor in the night—God is supernatural!

Suddenly, a man in white clothes appeared in the doorway of the room with his right hand outstretched like a policeman. Out of his hand came a beam of light that moved halfway across the room. I cried out in my mind, “Stop, stop, I believe . . . I believe . . . I’ve seen enough!” This did not stop what I was seeing as the beam of light continued across the room and through the glass into the black of the night where the light destroyed what I conceived as the evil in the world. God had shown me that His light could overcome the darkness.
The grace of God

I surrendered my will to Jesus and trusting in Him has had a powerful effect on my life, totally setting me free from the power behind the thoughts of self-destruction. Immediately (without being conscious of it) I stopped swearing, making comments with sexual connotations and letting my mind wander as I looked at bikini-clad girls.
Things I did not realize as an skeptic

These include: Jesus was a real person, the Bible is the world’s bestselling book, many of the early great scientists and composers had a Christian world view, humans are spiritual beings, many of the great modern scientists believe (as Einstein puts it) that science points us to a “spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble,” the scientific evidence against evolution and the Bible is very reliable when judged against the standard historical tests.
God is not far from any of us My wife lost her engagement ring and we looked in three different places—searching the ground with no success. Lastly we went to the squash court car park. I thought, Now I’m a Christian, I suppose I should pray! I started to pray. “Lord help us find . . . ” In mid-sentence my wife interrupted me saying, “Here’s the ring!”

Jesus is the only way to God. He is the key for you and me. Give Jesus the control of your life. After 20 years as a Christian, I still marvel at the blessings and grace that Jesus continues to shower into my life. Now I wonder why I took so long to come to know Him!

Greg

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Not much remains to be said about the primal genius of Jimi Hendrix. He could play any style. He reinvented the electric guitar as an instrument of musical expression. He wrote several of the most enduring and important songs of the rock ‘n’ roll era — including “Purple Haze,” “Foxey Lady,” “Are You Experienced?” and “Crosstown Traffic” (and so many others) — helping to define several generations of music and popular culture. He was impossibly cool. He was impossibly great. And he died a most gruesome death, choking on his own vomit after taking too many prescription sleeping pills and drinking too much wine on September 18, 1970.