Jimi Henderson Analysis

692 Words2 Pages

David Henderson, an African American poet, wrote the article “Jimi Hendrix Deep Within the Blues and Alive Onstage at Woodstock – 25 Years After Death” to show how Jimi Hendrix has continued to influence many people even after his death because “his shit is the real deal.” Additionally, Henderson claims that with his “precise and rapid picking” and “his recognizance of sound and noise” Hendrix created his own unique sound that no other musician has been able to replicate. Henderson personally knew Hendrix as he previously wrote his book “Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky” to express his opinion on “popular black music at the time” and as a promise he “made to Hendrix at a nightclub in Manhattan in 1969.” I agree with Henderson’s statement that even 25 years after his passing, Jimi …show more content…

He claims, “while nearly all guitarists today have gone through his licks, they cannot get near to what he was unless they actually play his composition, and there you see how impossible it is for one guitarist to get the sound he got.” Many people try to replicate Hendrix’s way of the playing guitar but to no avail. To clarify, Henderson is not claiming that it is impossible to play any of Hendrix’s songs. Any guitarist can play any song with enough practice, but they will not sound like the original. Like many other guitarists, I have tried to play some of Hendrix’s songs such as “All Along the Watchtower”, “Purple Haze”, and “Voodoo Child” and I am sure that many of them can probably come close to sounding like the original but again it is not the same. Henderson also claims he “spent a few hours going through all of the Who’s shit without hearing anything that approached Hendrix’s control or melodic use of feedback within a song.” Here he claims that “The Who”, a popular rock band during the same time as Hendrix, has nothing, music wise, that comes close to Hendrix’s

Open Document