Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hendrix chose the military instead of prison: multiple stolen car convictions in Seattle. He was released from military duty claiming to be homosexual. After playing back up guitar for well know American singer, he migrated to England where he was looked up to by such greats as Clapton,Page and Beck. Got to watch him burn a Strat at Monterey in 67 before the Who tore everything up...He was a short fellow with long fingers and a lot of talent and imagination.

So this is what you guys got, huh? Stellar...well, I axed, and ya'll delivered...of all the things I could claim to be, 'disappointed' isn't one.

(I understand and acknowledge the distinction, John...I was making a judgement of your observation.)

In memory of Jimi's passing I raised my glass to him, played the album "First Rays of The New Rising Sun" during our family dinner, then made both of my kids watch "Wild Thing" on YouTube from Monterrey Pop.

Right on, Darren...that's more like it.

Don't think that for one moment that I didn't like Hendrix..Even though in the late 60's at Anaheim Convention Center after a few songs he threw his Strat down and told the audience to F-off because he was having technical problems (maybe to much acid)I don't know. Eric Burdon, who opened for him had to come out and calm the crowd who were getting very upset. Jimi redefined the Blues on electric guitar. An innovator of harmonic distortion,feedback and whammy bar. A black artist playing in a white mans world. Too much "drugs,sex,rock&roll" The path he and others chose to become legends/rock stars, is a rough road, not one many of us would take and survive.

Well put, Dale...I sort of suspected you were a fan. "Just enough acid" is a tricky technical 'setting' to achieve...I played one of the best sets of my career on half a tab, but like they say, "Nine out of ten doctors agree: what's 'normal' is what's 'normal' for you"...

One of my best friends 'chose the military instead of prison', the 82nd Airborne in fact...for his trouble, he got an undiagnosed broken back and a bronze star he refused to wear in formations because of the circumstances culminating in the 'awarding' of it. They leaned on him so hard about it he quit the army. I have other friends who beat the draft by claiming to be gay...seems that they'll believe that unquestioningly; it's much harder to prove that you just don't want to kill anyone...

Count me in as one of the fortunate souls who did get to see Jimi play up close and personal. In fact my wife and I were seated right next to his family. I have great memories of Jimi coaxing unbelievable sounds out of a Strat and a wall of Marshall amps. Musically speaking, he was a genius, an innovator and a great performer.

"(I understand and acknowledge the distinction, John... I was making a judgement of your observation.)"

Again I thank you for your (mis)defining my reality.

When "Are You Experienced" was released, it was like music from another planet..there had never been anything like it. Considering that Jimi's roots were in the blues and he paid his dues on the chitlin' circuit with Curtis Knight and Little Richard, it was remarkable how he fused the blues, Dylan, R&B..taking the idea of feedback pioneered by The Who and The Yardbirds into totally uncharted realms. First time I heard that record it was "where did this come from!" Axis and Electric Lady Land were monuments to his talent as well. In regards to the drug side of this thread...having lived "very well" through the 60's/70's, in retrospect it is my feeling that drugs (take your pick) ALWAYS take away more than they give. Fly on Jimi...

James Marshall Hendrix died from his own vomit from a mixture of alcohol and sleeping pills, while he was being held down with straps in an ambulance by EMT's that didn't care for for him. Eric Burdon refused to play in his home country of England for years because of this controversy. They were very close friends and this loss of such a talented mans life was such a shame.

I don’t really want to get into the metaphysics of all this but oh, what the heck, it’s Friday afternoon and almost lunch time.

I have never subscribed to the notion that it was someone’s “time” to die. Or that an artist gave us all they had. Rubbish. Dieing young is dieing young. I’ll never believe that Buddy Holly or Otis Redding or Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin or Mozart or Chopin, for that matter, had nothing more to say with their art when they died.

Since I am most familiar with those topics surrounding the Airplane, I’ll give one example. Jorma Kaukonen has made no secret that he experienced in his life a very long “dark” period. At any point during that period Jorma could have very easily died from a direct heroin overdose or from some indirect drug cause. And we all would have mourned and reflected on it being just another casualty of the rock n’ roll “lifestyle.” But Jorma, luckily, made it through that period. And, in the last few years, has produced some of the most beautiful music of his career. And he has devoted and dedicated his life to his family and to teaching others, passing on the music and its heritage.

I also have very little (well none actually) empathy for those who live and decry the “very hard life” of being talented, rich and famous. The last time I checked, no one has ever put a gun to someone’s head and ordered them to become a rich and famous entertainer. (Stage mothers notwithstanding.)

Being a rock and roll star is not a hard life. Working in the service industry on one’s feet ten hours a day, six days a week, for forty years (much of it during the Depression) which is what my grandfather did, is a hard life.

And blaming ambulance workers for Jimi’s death is sort of like blaming the Coast Guard for a missing adventurer sailor. The sailor should not have put himself (and others) at such risk in the first place. Same with Hendrix. He never should have needed to go into an ambulance in the first place.

The microwave beeped a long time ago and my lunch is getting cold.

PS: I was also lucky enough to see Hendrix live - Madison Square Garden in May 1969.

"Working in the service industry on one�s feet ten hours a day, six days a week..."

Damn!

-Mark "Lyle" Kaufman, Restaurant Lifer

Mark H., you may not have wanted to 'get into the metaphysics', but you did, sooo...

You've never subscribed to the notion that it was someone's time to die, but you do believe that a given moment may not be someone's time to die, which is every bit as much a 'notion'. How can you assign yourself the ability to sort these things out? Dieing young is a relative concept...living thirty years or so and cranking out amazing work can be favorably contrasted with living ninety years and doing damn near nothing. Are there artists who 'gave us all they had'? I maintain the answer is frequently yes...some 'give us all they have' early in their career and then proceed to produce **** until they reach, say, 64.

Very few service workers got into the field with a 'gun to their head', unless one means a 'metaphysical' gun...and once one is famous, there are potentially all kinds of 'guns' pointed at them. My dad had a job for 24 years which involved real guns being pointed at his head, yet he had room in his heart to feel empathy for his musical hero, Charlie Parker. Then again, my dad was a somewhat exceptional person...

Now let's say the Coast Guard picks up an 'adventurer' sailor who's unconscious and vomiting sea water...if they throw him in the back of their boat without administering any aid and he dies on the way to shore, that's some sh*tty coastguardin'. If they are white and he's black, that's something even worse. If he also happens to be a talented gift to the rest of us...you get the idea. Mark, my brother, I sincerely hope you never find yourself in an ambulance you 'never should have needed to go into in the first place'...but if you do, I hope the attendants care about doing their job.

You say Hendrix died 'before his time', yet you find him at fault for his own death and, by inference, deserving to die at that point. Better put your pretzel back in the microwave, I think it's only half-baked.

For my part, I've never been able to sort out what might pass for justice in this world...someone who has 'very little empathy (well none actually)' for Hendrix got to see him live and I didn't...

I would have to agree that Jimi Hendrix was responsible for ingesting what he ingested. Should have gone into the ambulance workers' bodies instead.

On the brighter side, we were spared Jimi's Disco Period.

Okay, 'Lyle', that does it! If I believed in blasphemy, I'd accuse you of some...

Jimi didn't even like 'surf' music...what in the world makes you think he would have embraced disco?

(Paul W., please don't think I'm equating 'surf' with 'disco'...that would be equally blasphemous...)