Jimi the Bluesman

Jimi is probably the most influential musician in rock music. He changed the way rock guitar was played and gave the genre its fiery spirit. Hendrix’s use of the wah-wah pedal and distortion paved the way for the modern rock guitar techniques, developed further by subsequent guitarists. But in essence, like everybody else around that time, Jimi played the Blues. Blues is the root of almost every popular music of the 20th century, most prominently rock and jazz music, and in the sixties, the genre got its revival in the new electric period of blues music. Nevertheless, Jimi Hendrix wanted to play his own music, his new psychedelic rock, but he recorded some blues songs on his three official albums. But after his death, a vast number of compilation albums, unreleased records, and bootleg releases saw the light of day. Among them - a beautiful and soulful collection of eleven blues songs recorded by Hendrix between 1966 and 1970. Most of them were not released before and probably were left over by Hendrix with no intention to do so. He was known to record everywhere he went, with his portable four-channel tape recorder. He is also known for his enormous quantity of recording material he left behind in the studios. Some of those materials were compiled and released by MCA in 1994 under the name “Blues.” The album was met with favorable criticism and multiple chart success, selling over 500,000 copies in its first two years of release. On February 6, 2001, Blues was certified platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The record opens with a Hendrix original, an acoustic version of the famous “Hear My Train A Comin’,” a song that he often played live between 1969 and 1970. The song was from a long lost master tape of Hendrix alone playing a 12-string acoustic right-hand guitar, strung for the left hand and singing in a delta blues manner. The album also closes with an electric version of the same song, recorded on May 30, 1970, at the Berkeley Community Theatre, a track that had previously been released on the posthumous Rainbow Bridge album in 1971. Other Hendrix originals on “Blues” are: “Red House,” “Voodoo Chile Blues,” “Once I Had a Woman,"Jelly 292,” and "Electric Church Red House." The rest of the songs are blues standards, played in Hendrix’s distinct electric style: "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Catfish Blues," “Mannish Boy,” and “Bleeding Heart.”

I’m not sure what impressed and inspired me more in my youth when I adored Jimi Hendrix - his unique guitar sound and expression or his insane ability to compose new blues standards as if he had lived in the Delta, much more before his time. His spirit talked to me through the music, and still, does whenever I hear his voice and guitar licks. Of all the Hendrix records that got released posthumously, “Blues” might be the best and the most authentic one.