September 18, 1970: The music world lost James Marshall Hendrix aka Jimi Hendrix at the age of 27; his stardom lasted only about three years, but his influence on music in general and guitarists in particular has lasted over the intervening 50 years and continues still; no matter what genre, period, style, or performers age, guitarists still hold Hendrix as the benchmark by which to measure their own abilities; I wanted to play guitar at a young age, got an acoustic, and, like a lot of other kids, worked out the four or so basic chords that allowed a person to play virtually every song popular in the 50s and 60s; then I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and realized, if I had an electric guitar, I, too, could have scads of girls screaming out my name and chasing me; it wasn't until I heard the single Hey Joe followed by the album Are You Experienced that I decided I not only wanted to really learn to play guitar, I wanted to learn to play guitar any where near as good as Hendrix; I may or may not have gotten to my exact goals, but I did learn an awful lot from Jimi's playing and, over the last half-century, so have an awful lot of other guitarists all around the world, not to mention his influences on composers, songwriters, recording producers/technicians/sound artists; not bad for a shy kid from Seattle, Washington who got fired from nearly every band he toiled in...
Gone. but not forgotten, thank you, Jimi, for making the music so many have tried to assimilate and for opening our ears to sounds we didn't know were there in ways we couldn't have dreamt of...
... a tribute from a fan who, like a lot of us, heard Jimi as a kid and just had to learn how he did what he did...
... and, finally, a reworking of Jimi's first single song by another fan...
“The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye,
the story of love is hello and goodbye...
until we meet again”
― Jimi Hendrix
(From the final song lyric he wrote earlier on the day of his death)...
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