JIMI HENDRIX
But Are You Really Experienced?
Brought up in an age of war and racial divide, Jimi Hendrix was able to withstand tension and define an era that baby boomers still look upon fondly.
A legend who, for a time, made fans from all walks of life suspend their hate and enjoy the electric and acoustic sounds that stemmed from the stages, including Woodstock, he graced.
With The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live in Maui making headlines lately, there’s no better time to re-examine his impact.
The Seattle native released a handful of albums during his mostly four-year career. And despite his untimely death at age 27 and before his musical prime, the left-handed legend released classic rock still popular today.
All Along The Watchtower continues to echo throughout commercials, movie trailers, and video games. 2k Games’ 2016 hit Mafia 3, a game set in 1968 New Orleans, used the song as the main melody. Despite the game’s polarizing reviews, the piece added context to an otherwise complex plot.
For a time, Voodoo Child had an even bigger cult following.
With the epic sound of the guitar rift matching the chorus, you begin to feel electricity that few solo rock stars have been able to replicate since.
Sports teams blasted Hendrix throughout arenas. Even Hulk Hogan would use it as his entrance music when he returned to the WWE in early 2002.
Still, no song was as iconic as his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. It’s a rhythm and blues/ rock sound that is remembered as one of the coolest, most vibrant forms of patriotism one could hear during the nation’s chaotic unrest of the late 60s-early 70s. Just think: between civil rights and the Vietnam War, artists like James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Hendrix, and athletes like Wilt Chamberlain and Muhammad Ali spoke up about their ideas to unite or rebel against the system.
Like all the rest, Hendrix has had his fair share of gems, such as Catfish Blues, Scorpio Woman, and many more, noted in a 2016 article on The Vinyl Factory. And even still, to avid listeners, those songs hold up to even his more popular works.
The impact of Hendrix from life to death foretold the fate of other rock & roll greats. Artists including Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison died after Hendrix, then Kurt Cobain two decades later.
Perhaps a spotlight on Hendrix’s music could spark another foretelling, one that revisits the sounds of the past. And along the way? A Hendrix resurgence could inspire a new generation of artists in an era that is similar to yesteryear.
