Greatest Band Round #2 Top Twenty

[eaglesvet]

I agree, it would be nice to get some more opinions. I just PM'd
Stars, now that she's back from Scotland. Maybe she'll chime in tonight. Anyone else we can bug to join us?

[MikeA]

I don't even know where to start in talking about Jimi Hendrix.

He completely "rediscovered" the guitar. Before him, the guitar was like a human utilizing only 1% of their brain! Instead of fighting unwanted feedback between the guitar and amplifier, Jimi incorporated it into his music. In fact, there wasn't a square inch of the guitar that Jimi didn't incorporate. He plucked the strings between the nut and the tuning posts...and the strings behind the bridge! He even took the cover off the back the guitar that hid the tremlo tension springs and struck them for specific audio effects he wanted.

As for the guitar...his weapon of choice was a Fender Strat. Jimi was left handed and played left handed, but used right handed guitars because left handed ones were so rarely made by Fender at the time. That contributed to the tone of Hendrix. By flipping the right handed git over and stringing it backwards, a couple of things happened that affected the sound. First, the nut had to be removed and turned around to accommodate the large "E" string in the position that the small "e" string normally nestled. Repositioning also caused too much of a bend in the bass string between the nut and the tuning post and it would pop out of the nut. Jimi solved that by winding the string backwards on the tunning post which moved it's point of origin more toward the "bottom" of the guitar.

Backwards stringing also caused a different angle between the bass strings and the pickups producing a more treble sound than a Strat strung correctly. Jimi incorporated this into his "sound" to advantage.

By flipping the right handed guitar, it put the tuning knobs on then high side of the guitar as he was playing it making them more accessible for him to adjust during a song. It also caused the whammy bar to be on the high side of the bridge instead of down below the strings. Many think this a much more logical arrangement and some tremlos were even redesigned to offer the top side as an option!

And, flipping the guitar over restricted access to the upper frets with his right hand (his fretting hand). But this didn't impact Jimi at all. If he needed to fret the upper frets beyond where the horn restricted access, he would come in from the other side with his fingers, or fret with his thumb, or hell even flip it over and play behind his back or head which in some cases gave him a different angle to reach those strings and frets!

Jimi was one of the first if not THE FIRST to incorporate a Wah-Wah pedal into his stage gear.

To Hendrix, more so than any other guitarist, his guitar literally was an extension of his own self....the inner part of him...the creative part! He wasn't bound by scales and accepted chord progressions. Nor was he bound by any genre of music. His roots were Blues and he could turn them into his own and his own was totally and unmistakably Jimi Hendrix. He went "somewhere else" during performances and didn't fight the tug of established sequence but rather, improvised whenever the urge struck him.

I think that most of the guitarists of the late Sixties and the first couple of years before his death in '72, were intimidated by what Jimi had become. John Mayer may had said it best when (and I quote from memory) "Every guitar player can Identify themselves by where they STOPPED in their quest to master the guitar like Jimi." Personally, I agree. There never has been ANYONE able to take the guitar to the heights Jimi achieved. I don't think anyone ever will. Certainly not with just the technology Jimi had to work with!

Stevie Ray Vaughan said that he thought there was a spirit of Jimi Hendrix incarnated within him. He made no bones about getting most if not all of his inspiration from the Electric Gypsy.

Vocally, Jimi wasn't the greatest. He didn't even want to take the microphone during performances but his record producers KNEW that he was something special and didn't want to chance any frontman taking credit away from Jimi.

Jimi's art didn't end on-stage though. He would spend hours and hours producing his own works, never satisfied with either the studios or the results on the master tapes. He was one of the innovators of multi track recording and stereo recording. Eventually, he constructed his own recording studio and then began exploring avenues other than rock. There was just so much inside him and it was like he knew that he didn't have long to get it all out.

If ever you want to read the story of a Genius, read the encyclopedic documentary "Electric Gypsy" by Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek. It is almost 800 pages of small print documenting his life, his career and some of his philosophies. It is an amazing read.

I never did care a lot for the tonal quality of Jimi's voice, but ignoring that, the lyrics and the way he presented them, you could tell was straight from somewhere deep inside himself and it always seemed that he was singing directly to whomever it was listening! Sort of like the Mona Lisa looking at you no matter where you are looking at the painting from!

Drugs? Yeah, he was wired most all the time. But a lot of his appearance in public was part of promoting his image. He wasn't as "spacey" as his promoters wanted the public to think he was! But there was NOTHING plastic or imagined about his virtuoso musical talent manifest primarily with a guitar!

[scottishlass]

David Bowie
Bruce Springsteen
Aretha Franklin
Bee Gees
Elton John
Fleetwood Mac
Heart
Queen
supremes

[MikeA]

Thank you Scottishlass

Even though it is less than twenty, it will definitely help identify who we Borderers think are the top groups.

Voting will close at 7am Thursday, July 16 for the Top-Twenty Honors.

Even if you cannot pick 20 entries from the 40 available, please jump in and add what you can to the process. All serious votes count and help portray the tastes and knowledge of those of us posting on The Border.

[Fan_For_Life]

Great list going. 13 artists on the majority list are on my personal top 20 list. Which 3 to eliminate is going to be tough.

[eaglesvet]

As you all know, I've been struggling with this game since the beginning. Most of the artists on the list are not my choice of "listening music". I keep thinking about Mike's challenge to vote for "who brought the most to the table". This morning as I was waking up a thought came to me, and I'm paraphrasing:"If a tree falls in the woods and I'm not there to hear it, does it make a sound?" I understand the rules, but I'm probably going to vote for who had the most effect on me.

I like your way of thinking....it makes sense!

[luvthelighthouse]

To make up for almost leaving him off my list, here's to you Buddy Holly!

Buddy was one of the first pioneers of Rock'n'Roll. One of the first inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. He's guitar of choice was the Fender Stratocaster and many aspiring musicians wanted that as their guitar of choice. Could it be that Buddy made the Strat popular?

Both the Rolling Stones and the Beatles did renditions of Buddy's work. The Greatful Dead even performed Not Fade Away in concert.

Buddy heavily utilized the rhythym guitar along side the lead guitar to create a fuller and harder sound. Also, he was amongst the first to actually write and sing his own songs. Back in the day, there were songwriters and there were preformers. He did both! It's been said that Lennon and McCartney looked to Holly for inspiration.

It's is only right to credit Bruce Eder with the above info. I've always loved Buddy Holly, but I've learned more about him because of this little exercise. Kind of makes me appreciate him a little bit more than I did before. It's hard to believe he left us with such classic in the 18 months of performing. Peggy Sue, Oh Boy, Rave On, Not Fade Away... The ill fated day in Feb. really was the day the music died for many...

Oh, Buddy was amongst the first white people to ever play the Apollo Theater and actually won over the black audience. As for Buddy still being relavent today, even Weezer paid him tribute w/their song, Buddy Holly.

[MikeA]

There was a SIFI/Fantasy series on TV a decade or two ago about a man who had to travel in time (usually backwards to earlier years) and assume the BODY of someone long enough to set something right that person did or that someone that person knew did wrong.

In one installment, he found himself in Texas and encountered a young teenager. I recall when I watched it for the first time, the kid was sitting on the wooden porch of a Texas farm house, livestock wandering around doing whatever it is livestock does, and he was strumming a 6-string acoustic badly, trying to learn chords. Horn rimed glasses with lenses that looked thick enough to have been coke bottle bottoms. Later in the show, he was still struggling with the chords and really concentrating on the while singing: "Piggy Seueeeee, Piggy Seueeee" and other lyrics. He wasn't the target of our Hero in the show but at the very end of the show, the main character as he's leaving the scene turns around and suggests to him, "Try using Peggy Sue" in the song. Might work better." The show ended with Buddy Holly's version.

That "installment" has always stuck in my memory. It was NOT obvious this minor character in the show was the young Buddy Holly until that last scene.

[Fan_For_Life]

Mike are you referring to Quantam Leap?

[MikeA]

Mike are you referring to Quantam Leap?

YES! That's the show. Couldn't remember the name.