Hendrix blues

I resonate with the title of your thread, in the figurative sense. I was too young to be aware of him yet when he died, but hearing all his stuff on the radio during the day due to the 60th anniversary of his birth has me missing him as if I knew the guy. You just cannot hear Hendrix's degree of intrinsic, naked artistry, creativity, and expression in any rock (or even blues) made today. A once-in-the-history-of-a-music-genre phenomenon.

When I was learning to play the guitar at 11 years old, 'Purple Haze' was one of the very first rock tunes involving single-note picked lines that I made a dedicated effort to be able to play, as much as I could. My best friend and I got my little portable cassette recorder and did a cute little version of it: He wanted to be a drummer but had no drums, only sticks, and I just had a nylon-string acoustic guitar, but we got piles of magazines for him to beat on, and I shoved the side of the guitar up against the condenser mic and turned up the gain all the way, yielding my first 'fuzz-box' distortion sound. It actually came out amazingly well for what it was - I wish I still had that tape.

Oddly enough, speaking of anniversaries, when I was out searching for records in the hinterlands last week, a Hendrix single in a pile of records in a country antique store caught my eye. "Hey Joe" I thought, no big deal, but why couldn't I remember hearing the flip, "51st Anniversary"? Curious, and the record being very clean and very cheap, I bought it along with the other stuff I was getting, even though I was sure I had this song on 45. Turns out that the common single issue of "Hey Joe" is on the flip of "The Wind Cries Mary". The earlier A-side version was his first single release (and possibly his first release under his own name on record?), and books for up to $100 - obviously somewhat rare now, as is its obscure flip-side tune. Too bad the pic sleeve wasn't there; it goes for five times that much!

But this brings me to a question: I have always just stuck with owning Hendrix's studio and live releases originally issued on Reprise during his lifetime and shortly after his death, including the Alan Douglas-'finished' material. I have shied away from trying to wade into all the posthumous issues of 'jams', outtakes, radio sessions, more live recordings, etc. etc., with the exceptions of the "Winterland" disk and "Nine to the Universe". Any connoisseurs out there have some good suggestions about the real winners in the currently available plethora of further isssues, especially since his surviving family started directing things? Thanks in advance, and 'fly on', everybody.

I've never heard that one before, Cpdunn99, can you give details? Any recordings together? (I should say that I'm actually not a Buddy Guy fan myself, and much prefer the way Jimi plays the blues.)

Error correction: Sorry, I screwed up in my post above - the common 45 of "Hey Joe" is on the flip of "Foxey Lady" (there is no 45 of this tune shared with "TWCM"). My apologies if I confused anyone.

That version of "Red House" is amazing, and the LP was also released domestically under the same title. Don't know about on CD, though.

Do you know of any source for info on Jimi's stint with Guy's band? As for the Guy record, I know many folks like his work, but I've heard him lots of times (and also seen him in performance on the tube) and doubt he could show me anything to change my mind about his style. That 'cat-strangling' (apt description in my view) aspect the reviewer refers to about Guy's guitar work is a large part of the reason why, but you should also probably know that I am not really a fan of any contemporary blues, stopping pretty much with electric blues recordings made by the late 60's/early 70's (although there were certainly some older-school performers I enjoyed seeing live into the 90's, but sadly most of the best ones are inevitably dead by now).

As for Jimi, I consider him to be far and away the best blues player to have worked mainly in the rock idiom, and one of the amazing things about him is that, had he never had his uniquely ground-breaking, paradigm-shifting, and meteoric rock career, he still would be qualified as one the greatest and most important second-generation post-war, urban-electric black American straight blues artists even without it.

But as far as the Guy comparsion, other than the fact that he routinely strays into rock mode with his blues, I don't think there really is any comparision IMO concerning their respective levels of touch, soul, meaning, sound, skill, or invention, although I'm sure Guy at the beginning of his career would be much more interesting and tolerable for me to look into further (and I have to admit that his subsequent work has caused me to pass on really checking out his roots), and of course more relevant to any Hendrixian influence-spotting. And I will add that other of Jimi's blues-guitar heros and influences are also easily recognized, like T-Bone Walker, Otis Rush, Guitar Slim and Lightnin' Hopkins, to Chess label rockers Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, and beyond.

As I said above Rockvirgo, if Jimi did play with Buddy Guy, that would be news to me. I will wait and see what Cpdunn99 comes up with - you never know, anything might be possible - but your citation would certainly seem to put a bit of a damper on the idea.

I'm a fan of both Mance and Wells, but hadn't known of this collaboration, which sounds very exciting - is Guy's work on that album acoustic? I tend to agree with you in a sense, that BG may be at his best as a sideman.

Do you have any recommendations for electric BG stuff of that era to check out?