https://youtu.be/woRhyl4k6sc" rel="nofollow - Robert Fripp On Meeting Jimi Hendrix

I thought this was an interesting story. Robert Fripp was talking to an audience about the time he met Jimi Hendrix. King Crimson were playing at the Revolution club in Mayfair in 1969. In the you tube video, Robert Fripp starts talking about how he had to sit down when playing guitar instead of standing up. During the intermission of the show, Jimi Hendrix walks out on stage and asks if Robert Fripp could shake his hand. Twelve years later he bumps into Michael Giles sister-in law, loretta Lang in a book store, who asks Robert Fripp if he remembers meeting Jimi Hendrix in 1969. Robert Fripp responds " Of Course I do, that's my Jimi Hendrix story. Loretta Lang says" Well, did you know I was sitting at Jimi Hendrix's table, and he was jumping up and down saying this is the best band in the world"

Feel free to watch the you tube video.

And he was right.

There are approximately 1000 stories about Jimi Hendrix saying this band was great or this guitarist was the greatest (Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchanan, etc.). I think Hendrix was just genuinely a nice guy who said good things about everyone.

What can't be denied is that Hendrix overwhelmed nearly everyone he played with, to the point where Eric Clapton nearly lost his mind when Hendrix walked up on stage to play with Cream. An embarrassed Clapton said later to Chas Chandler,‘You never told me he was that f*cking good.’ Two weeks later, “when Cream appeared at The Marquee Club, Clapton was sporting a frizzy perm and he left his guitar feeding back against the amp, just as he’d seen Jimi do.”

^ Maybe, but at that time, I believe it is more than probable Jimi would've meant every word.   Sure his opinion might've changed from time to time, but knowing Hendix's admiration of well-organized bands doing intricate music, his propensity for intonation, etc., this story sounds accurate.

Imagine if Hendrix and Miles Davis got together (I think it was loosely planned via management)?

I did a brief search and nothing showed up on Amazon ,etc.

Also Pete Townsend wrote a very favorable piece (an awestruck attitude) about them for The Melody Maker I believe after he first saw them live. 

Crimsonsnowdog wrote: Hendrix was also very fond of progressive rock, as he was seriously considering joining Emerson, lake and Palmer before he died. They were scheduled to have a rehearsal ,and were going to call the band Hendrix, Emerson, Lake and Palmer or HELP. That would've made for some pretty cool jam sessions.

 

initially Emerson and Lake wanted Hendrix and Mitchell but then came Carl Palmer and it all changed.

Emerson dedicated The Barbarian to Hendrix. He ( Emerson) likened Purple Haze to a Bela Bartok piece.

If true, that would have been perfect.

Despite being routinely and regularly debunked over the years by those directly involved, this fictitious story just never seems to go away. Emerson and Lake did want to audition Mitch Mitchell as their drummer but he turned up with two (heavily armed) heavies as bodyguards so Keith and Greg decided Mitch maybe wasn't the sort of chap they had in mind. Mitch advised that Hendrix would love to jam with Emerson and Lake as he was a big fan of Keith's playing. This never transpired. It seems it's not only the press that couldn't resist the HELP acronym?

Not to take anything away from Jimi, who is without a doubt one of the greatest ever at his electric guitar ... if I may ask one dumb question ... why is it that YOU need someone else's opinion before you YOURSELF realize ... this guy is good ... when compared to others?

When you have heard 100 guitarists play different things, if you can not make a distinction as to what is good, great and better, you are not listening ... you are stuck on a favorite song instead. PLAIN AND SIMPLE!

(Try this ... write the names of 100 guitarists and go listen to at least 15 of their pieces ... now sit down and evaluate what you heard ... Jimi is great, but to say that others are not, is impossibly wrong and out of touch with the quality of the work on an electric guitar for 65 years!)

Jimi opened the doors to a lot of new "music", although some of it was already there, but not quite to the extend of Michael J. Fox ... which would have really burned down the house in those days ... and helped further the guitar sooner than Jimi more than likely. 

While I would probably accept Robert's comments, within the context of music theory and its design, I would think that Robert does not need to mention anyone ... Jimi, was "wild" compared to more refined guitarists out there ... he had a touch for the unusual that no one worked on at the time that we were aware of ... but that's like saying that others did not do similar/different things that would also qualify, if we had heard it ... !!!!!

indeed although because of that it more likely have been ELP&H a la CSN&Y

apparently Pete Townsend considered a young Leslie West (Mountain) to be better than Hendrix. 

Yep there were so many great guitarists to come along in that era (67-73) that getting stuck on Hendrix was a bit silly. Perhaps it's the 'Freddie Mercury syndrome'. He's a star so just accept it

^ Funny thing is, Clapton, Page, Beck and Santana would probably all choose Hendrix.   it's something you realize when you've either reached a certain point or heard enough guitar playing.

That's highly dubious.   Pete is on record as saying he thought Hendrix was the best.   He might've also liked West, but if cornered I'd bet a lot of money Townshend would say Hendrix.   That's what an impact Jimi had on the guitar players of his time.

*Points to own avatar*  

Jaco Pastorius would probably take that "Hendrix of Bass" spot pretty fairly, I'd assert.

Or Stanley Clarke.

I think the comment was done under the influence of too much sex, or booze! 

Clarke is top 5 for sure!

So many solid bass players. Still the most underrated and most overlooked instrument in rock/western music in general IMHO.

I don't think it was Townshend who made that claim (at least, not just him), I think it was Hendrix himself. 

There was a story (in the April 1 2010 issue of Rolling Stone) that Tommy Ramone recounted where he was an assistant engineer at the Record Plant where Hendrix was putting the final touches on the Band Of Gypsies' live album. Down the hall, Mountain was recording Climbing! and Hendrix asked Tommy "Do you think Leslie West is a better guitarist than me?" I'm guessing Hendrix was looking at the competition and felt that guitarists like West, Fripp and, possibly, Terry Kath of Chicago were leaving him in the dust.

^ Now that sounds much more likely.

I think Entwistle would be the bass player that would stand out at the front runner there. Probably the most influential rock bass player. (Jazz guys like Jaco & Stanley Clark aside) 

True. Beck spoke highly of Jimi.

but he later said more favorable things like "they're the mad scientists of our age"

Squire will always be the best on bass for me, but I'd easily agree that Entwistle is the "most known" awesome classic rock bass player of all time. Easily.

I think that the main problem is that "rock music" is not considered important or as valuable in the history of music. The story also suggests that most "pop music" for hundreds of years (bards, minstrels gypsies ... whoever!), were not interested in anything except getting a giggle and some coins throw at them ... however, this also suggests that whoever wrote that, obviously thought that all these players were idiots and didn't know music from the _______________ they were playing and singing to, and doing funky/funny rhymes so that folks would laugh and leave more coins on the ground for them!

I guess nothing has changed, then, and even one of my colleagues here kept telling me that my wanting to raise its stature was stupid since most music is just "pop music" and history has not been kind to it whatsoever in terms of history and abilities.

Now comes the hard part ... seeing some of these jazz folks, a Squire, a Fripp, an Emerson, and so many others ... it's hard to not appreciate their work ... and then one day, a blind girl stands up and plays Keith Emerson on a solo piano (or organ), and if you don't see what a grand composition that is, and what a magnificent work for piano that is, you are not listening, and you will find a player that rivals anyone in the 20th Century all the way back to Chopin, and many others.

But, too many rock folks have never heard that, or Satie, or Rachmaninoff, to have any idea ... and this is what hurts ... it will continue to be a "pop music" until the day ... well ... that Keith and his mates are all dead, and gone, and we have shed our tears ... down the rains of life ... for nothing.

I was born in a house of 40K+ books of literature ... you can see two thirds of it in Lisbon if you are so inclined ... mostly Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian Literature, and when you see that covering over 500 years, you learn VERY QUICKLY ... that there was always one or two out there ... but the problem is that the media/medias that we read are not that well read, or aware of the history, to realize ... that the art form never died ... it kept on going with someone else ... the 80's didn't have a death ... you did ... got a wife, a kid, and had to cut down on some expenses here and there, and going to a concert that was expensive, like Pink Floyd, was not easy! And then in the 90's you found a new band, and all of a sudden "progressive" was alive again ... wouldn't it be more honest to say that ... you woke up?

In the 80's I kept up with so much European stuff that NEVER DIED, and specially Peter Hammill and VdGG, not to mention that in America, fusion really took off big time, with the success that RETURN TO FOREVER, CHICK COREA and so many others ... which also fits in the total history of this stuff ... but no ... the top ten fanatic has not heard Stanley Clarke 454 times, or Pastorius 150 like he/she has Chris Squire a thousand times ... so how can you "measure" greatness, when the scale is tilted so far out of balance? And how the heck can you "define" music, when you are ignoring a huge segment of it?

My only hope and work, is elevating what we consider "pop music", because the time that it was just a bar room, for booze and dating and laughing has changed ... a lot of the music, these days, is not about that and hardly fits in those places, and considering it a part of that mentality ... is like admitting that you have had a drink or two too many, and you just want to take this girl home, and the music ... so what? It's not as important as getting laid!

The music has grown, and things like the Internet, are showing us ... that the model that we thought existed in 1929 (the proverbial model T of music), is long gone, and only worth of it standing on a museum these days. And it is high time, that we stop thinking of a lot of this music as a top ten song ... because we know they aren't and never will be!

Frenetic Zetetic wrote: Jaco Pastorius would probably take that "Hendrix of Bass" spot pretty fairly, I'd assert.

well I knew I had read something to this affect but admittedly my memory had twisted the facts a bit.

It was the notes to a double CD compilation 'Mountain - Over The Top'.

The manager of Leslie West (Bud Proger) was talking to Townsend after a Who show and was blowing smoke up his ass so to speak calling him the best guitarist in the world. Townsend was in a grumpy mood and said 'Well you are a stupid ******* .You manage the greatest guitarist in the world. He can play anything I can play but I can't even begin to play what he can do'. Then he stalked off apparently. There is no timeline for this though and was probably after Hendrix had passed. 

^ Yeah that seems more real ~

And the first thing I would say is that ... particular person obviously has not been listening to a lot of different things ... comparing a Gismonti to Clapton or Page ... is like ... a simple guitar player versus a master.

And the main issue is that the person that posts such stuff, is not willing to go listen to anything else ... it takes away his/her voice and opinion and ...