Yes, I was floored by Prince shredding While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the George Harrison tribute. He was a bit after my time, so it was admittedly catch up. Both Mozart and Beethoven emulated Hayden before becoming more individuated.
Helps to be first/best in two ways. Where did THAT come from (talent+timing+soul)?, followed by imitators. But sometimes the routine gets disrupted down the line. Bob Dylan became an icon but there were people following in his footsteps who made their own mark, like John Prine, et al.
Yes. Prine's a total original. Dylan might have opened a wide swath, where you could write more realistically and sing in an ordinary voice, but it's not the same as copying if Prine works in that same area. I mention Stevie Ray Vaughn as an imitator when he does Hendrix, because he's a weak copy. When he plays other blues stuff he's fine, but if you're going to do Hendrix, you need to approach it from some original angle, not just be a lesser approximator of something better. That makes no sense. Why do it?
Tribute, which is ok. And I don’t think SRV was inauthentic. But Hendrix had the chitlin’ circuit background and the late 60s timing to go with his own elevated chops. Everybody doesn’t get all that at once, right?
Well, there's feel and then there's Feel. Hendrix may have had a lot of live playing time, but SRV must have played a lot of clubs too. Psychedelics certainly influenced Hendrix's cosmic view, but what you're talking about with him is a genuine mystical person, he was able to see things beyond normal cognition. That's the root of the feel. His extended live solos, especially, listen to some of the recordings of the complete shows that are out there, and you hear him play orchestral parts, entire symphonic sections, combined with feedback and sounds that rarely come out of a guitar. And then on top of that, his astounding virtuosity and technique, and on top of that, the whole solo is framed in a cosmic exploratory aspect, where he's traveling into and revealing other dimensional places. You can't copy that. You can't. I know people like SRV, I don't like to knock him, but he put himself in that position of comparison. There is no comparison. A better tribute from SRV would have been not to play Hendrix.
Yes, I was floored by Prince shredding While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the George Harrison tribute. He was a bit after my time, so it was admittedly catch up. Both Mozart and Beethoven emulated Hayden before becoming more individuated.
Helps to be first/best in two ways. Where did THAT come from (talent+timing+soul)?, followed by imitators. But sometimes the routine gets disrupted down the line. Bob Dylan became an icon but there were people following in his footsteps who made their own mark, like John Prine, et al.
Yes. Prine's a total original. Dylan might have opened a wide swath, where you could write more realistically and sing in an ordinary voice, but it's not the same as copying if Prine works in that same area. I mention Stevie Ray Vaughn as an imitator when he does Hendrix, because he's a weak copy. When he plays other blues stuff he's fine, but if you're going to do Hendrix, you need to approach it from some original angle, not just be a lesser approximator of something better. That makes no sense. Why do it?
Tribute, which is ok. And I don’t think SRV was inauthentic. But Hendrix had the chitlin’ circuit background and the late 60s timing to go with his own elevated chops. Everybody doesn’t get all that at once, right?
Well, there's feel and then there's Feel. Hendrix may have had a lot of live playing time, but SRV must have played a lot of clubs too. Psychedelics certainly influenced Hendrix's cosmic view, but what you're talking about with him is a genuine mystical person, he was able to see things beyond normal cognition. That's the root of the feel. His extended live solos, especially, listen to some of the recordings of the complete shows that are out there, and you hear him play orchestral parts, entire symphonic sections, combined with feedback and sounds that rarely come out of a guitar. And then on top of that, his astounding virtuosity and technique, and on top of that, the whole solo is framed in a cosmic exploratory aspect, where he's traveling into and revealing other dimensional places. You can't copy that. You can't. I know people like SRV, I don't like to knock him, but he put himself in that position of comparison. There is no comparison. A better tribute from SRV would have been not to play Hendrix.