Album: Are You Experienced?
Year: 1967
How do I even deal with Jimi Hendrix?
I mean, he was a complete game-changer, an absolutely incandescent comet who redefined heavy rock ‘n’ roll guitar and then up and died before he could get old and boring. And so many words have been spilled about him that I’m sure I don’t have a whole lot new to add.
Except this confession: I’ve always felt that I never quite got Jimi Hendrix the way that everybody else did, and while I appreciate his guitar wizardry, it never spoke to me the way that some of his less-skilled contemporaries — like Pete Townshend and Jimmy Page — did.
Which isn’t of course to say that I think Are You Experienced? is overrated. As a matter of fact, it’s crystal-clear that it’s one of the greatest debuts in musical history. What a statement of purpose! I’m reading a book right now about Jimmy Page, and I just happen to be at the section where Jimi Hendrix comes onto the scene, and the tales of other guitarists’ dismay — Jeff Beck supposedly said “guess I’m going to become a postman” — goes to just how revolutionary Jimi was.
So, of course, I can hear the power of “Purple Haze” — which I sang poorly in my very first band back in 1980 — and only wonder what kind of mind-fuck it must have been even in the year of Sgt. Pepper’s, “Cold Sweat” and The Velvet Underground & Nico.
It’s still amazing how the lumbering, staccato opening explodes into the very essence of 60’s groovy, with Mitch Mitchell practically floating around his drum kit as Jimi launches into the iconic opening verse:
Purple haze, all in my brain
Lately things they don’t seem the same
Actin’ funny, but I don’t know why
Excuse me while I kiss the sky
Also genius: how the last line of that opening verse is a stop-time with just an echoed Jimi and not other instrumentation, and people still managed to hear it as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.”
Later on, there’s a protean guitar solo with multi-tracked Jimis muttering in each speaker, and another guitar solo at the end where it sounds like one of his strings explodes into a zillion pieces as the song fades out.
(Note: The Hendrix estate is one of those that think it’s important to have full control over his music online, so getting proper links to his songs was difficult. Though I’m sure you’ve all heard them.)
“Purple Haze” performed live in Atlanta
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