Jimi Hendrix

Is in your opinion Jimi Hendrix worthy/not worthy of the title "prog"

I must say he has some atributes that put him in the catagory, probably because of the directions his music often can take you and after all he wrote "1983 a merman i shall turn to be" which is somewhat progish in it's own way

would you like me to explain every one of his songs why i think there prog. no, you don't want that. i was just giving an example of some song you might consider prog. i mean alot of guys consider Pink Floyd to be prog for a certain reason or another but it is totally insane to consider them prog for technical reasons and there my favorite band. i mean come on

This is like sooooooo weird.

You two girls should try Oil Of Primrose.

Take a read of (one of the best rock writers), Charles Shaar Murray's Crosstown Traffic (Faber & Faber pub 1989). This is well written book, which is a  brief biography and more importantly, a fascinating study and hypothesis of where Hendrix might be musically if he stayed alive. It is clearly written with a great love and thorough knowledge of Hendrix's music. Little if anything is said about the prog aspect of Hendrix music - strictly the tunes you cite are psychedelia (Hendrix liked his chemicals), and I increasingly think it is wrong to place 2004 values on music created in the late 60's- why not give it the name it was known by  originally?

Shaar Murray argues (and I admit further his extrapolations go, then more debatable the ideas become - but shouldn't a book make you think), that because Hendrix was steeped in the blues, and developed this fluid free playing, his music was very attractive to jazz players. Coryell, Mclaughlin attempted their variants of it  and jammed with Hendrix. In comparison, rock guitarists copied it but took a long time to evolve it into something other than a copy, e.g. Robin Trower, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Walter Trout. Shaar Murray suggests that by 1989 Hendrix might have sounded like the (former Miles Davis) guitarist Sonny Sharrock and more recently  people are drawing certain parallels with Jean Paul Bourelly.

I think it's perfectly valid to discuss Hendrix - his music was rock and it was progressive.

The progression through his 3 albums is quite extraordinary (I'm deliberately discounting "Cry of Love" and "War Heroes" even though the material on both was originally slated for the follow-up to "Electric Ladyland") - but Hendrix really concentrated on songs with conventional structures and a solid blues/psychedelia base.

Who knows where his music might have gone - I'm tempted to imagine him going down a kind of Miles Davis jazz-fusion path (given his liking for chemicals ), and producing concept albums with each track consuming an entire album side. I don't think he would have gone into prog territory, however; it's difficult to imagine Hendrix sitting back and letting the Hammond get a work out...

Edited by Certif1ed

Certif1ed wrote:  I don't think he would have gone into prog territory, however; it's difficult to imagine Hendrix sitting back and letting the Hammond get a work out...

 

Is that true - Voodoo Chile has an extended Hammond work out by Steve Winwood - there are several Hendrix bootlegs with Traffic (and so Winwood), where they were working on project that was not to materialise. And there are those outings with Larry Young, perhaps the most innovative and psychedelic influenced jazz Hammond organist (listen to his work with Tony illiams Lifetime).

 

Your'e right to call Hendrix progressive - indeed one of the most progressive musicians of the 20th Century, but with hindsight label him and his work progressive rock by hindsight is wrong. On similar grounds, Bix Beiderbeck was progessive too with his innovative cornet and paino playing of jazz and blues, and he died at the height the Prohibition period in the USA.

No he is not Prog, I know that for certain.  Prog Man thinks Jimi is Prog but he conciders anything weird sounding Prog, so no I don't.  Psychedelic and Prog are like sisters in my view not the same thing.

Prog to me is music that goes places (hence "progressive").  Music can goe somewhere in less than second. "Prog" doesn't mean takeing up the side of a lp or busting out the hammoned or moog or what not. its about making musical experiences and i think Hendrix clearly fits in that catagory. as for what i said about Floyd, i do think they're prog really, but for what most of you guys on the forums (not all of you guys)  consider to be prog for those reasons i don't beleive they are prog.

On another note i also think i might enjoy some of that "Oil Of Primrose"

Psychedelic and Prog shouldn't, but often are confused with one another. I think it depends on the song you are talking about, instead of 'Hendrix in general. To me, prog is taking you somewhere every few minutes, a new beat, etc. Psychedelic tends to stay on the same "subject". So yes, in general, I think Jimi Hendrix isn't mainly prog.

Hendrix was a fab rock guitarist. He may have been progressive, but his music was not Progressive Rock.

The Wikipedia entry says it all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix