Jimi Hendrix Experience (Official Thread)

Re: How did you discover Hendrix?

it was the mid 80's and my uncle and father were "discussing" who was better between eddie van halen and jimi hendrix and that was the first time i heard his name...

i became aware and interested in his music not long after that,while watching "Purple Rain" Prince(who i was a huge fan of) went off on a guitar solo with theatrics included and my dad said something to the effect of Prince copying jimi hendrix...i remember specifically he said "that mutha****a even stole the way hendrix use to dress"...

so as a young boy who looked up to his father and took his word as the gospel i had to look into this jimi hendrix...

my pop didnt have any hendrix albums so i went to the library and found a book about "rock legends" and there was a chapter about jimi and a story of him ramming his guitar through the ceiling at a concert venue...

that story seemed wild to me at the time and that coupled with the pic in the story of jimi hendrix dressed just like "Prince" in the "purple rain" days complete with an afro hairstyle like my father was still wearing in the 1980's and stories of how he played guitar with his teeth,behind his head,through his legs and would even burn it just intrigued my curiosity of this guy who seemed more like a mythical figure than a real person...

anyway,i just held onto the story for awhile as i was only about 9 or 10 and wasnt really into buying albums or cassettes just yet...at that time breakdancing and hip-hop was really exploding onto the scene so when my birthday or christmas rolled around i usually requested whatever was the hottest rap tape of the moment...

we had a classic rock radio station called KRQR "the rocker" here in the bay area so i did eventually get to hear jimi's music...i was riding out to go fishing with my uncle and i hear a song begin with what sounds very similiar to the scratching they used to do on early hip-hop records and than what sounds like bells and guitars with this guy singing lazily over the music...the guitar solo comes on next and it reminded me of those indian snake charmers and the strange sounds they made with their instruments while hypnotizing the snake...i was a kid and completely blown away by this...

so when the song is over the radio DJ said that was "are you experienced" by the jimi hendrix experience and in my head i was like "no ****ing shit!!! thats hendrix huh??"so i asked my uncle what he thought of jimi and he said "he was cool but he got all messed up on drugs and died."

so anyway,in the coming years i would occasionally hear songs like "hey joe" or "purple haze" maybe "foxy lady" or "fire" and listen with mad intent but because the music was "so old" and hendrix was dead i never really thought about asking for a hendrix tape when all this new music from the current time period was being released all the time...

a couple of years later it was the summer as i was just entering junior highschool and MTV had a program they would play around 10 or 11 pm called "closet classics" and that was the first time a saw hendrix perform...i believe it was the march/67 marquee club show as the clip was in black/white and hendrix did "hey joe" complete with the teeth solo and immediately after they followed that up with the music video to "are you experienced"...

i dont know how many of you have seen the video but basically its a collage of(at the time) rare live hendrix performances and pictures backed by the song "AYE"...

and again that combo of the strange music mixed in with the visuals simply left me stunned as even up to than (summer 88) i had never saw such a mesmerizing performer like that in my entire life...

the same summer "a film about jimi hendrix" is shown on TV and it was over for me after that...i was completely hooked...it wasnt a holiday or my birthday so badgering my parents for a tape wasnt going to work in my favor but lucky for me my uncle had a friend who dubbed a copy of the english version of "smash hits" for me and that was the first hendrix release of my very own...

not long after that i started doing odd jobs here and there to make money so i could hang at the arcade with friends or buy the latest jacket but i also immediately ran out and bought "AYE?" and "live at winterland" and i have been a hendrix fanatic and collecting his music ever since.

sorry for the rambling...i thought this was a great topic and it brought back alot of fond childhood memories...

Click to expand...

Phil B. said:

If you look close at the product info, you will see the cheaper one has only one CD and one DVD, whereas the more expensive set has the full 4 CD's and the DVD.

Click to expand...

cyggy said:

Thanks a lot Phil , I missed it , you saved me a lot of aggro

Click to expand...