What kind of music would Jimi Hendrix make if he were still alive today? Of course, we'll never know the definitive answer to one of rock's great what-if questions, although tantalizing clues might be found on the upcoming Valleys of Neptune (due next month), a collection of previously unreleased recordings whose mere existence (and recent rediscovery) is somewhat astonishing, given how many times Hendrix's musical tomb has been ransacked over the past 40 years. Near the end of his short life, the prolific Seattle guitarist was exploding in seemingly a hundred different directions at once, jamming with Miles Davis and inventing his own fusion of fluidly grooving space funk and otherworldly world music. One thing's certain, however: Hendrix — who was increasingly frustrated that his teenybop fans only wanted to hear the early hits — probably wouldn't still be trotting out his oldies with the kind of deferentially unimaginative note-for-note treatment that often occurs at tribute concerts like this.
That said, this edition of the annual Experience Hendrix tour does feature some interesting guests (along with a more predictable assortment of the usual flashy suspects, like Joe Satriani, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang). Jimi's old Army buddy and post-Experience bassist Billy Cox will be on hand to lend some much-needed authenticity and warmly rounded bottom end, along with Isley Brothers guitarist Ernie Isley, the terminally underrated Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford, Los Lobos' Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo, and Living Colour (buried puzzlingly at the bottom of the bill). Still, one wishes that the booking of this all-male, mostly retro lineup showed the same freewheeling creativity and genre-crossing bravery that Jimi once embraced. Just imagine how fiery it might have been if the promoters had invited such disparate freak-flag wavers as, say, Marnie Stern, P-Funk's Blackbyrd McKnight, Love's Johnny Echols, Meshell Ndegeocello, the Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood, Mission of Burma's Roger Miller, Backbiter's Jonathan Hall, Kaki King or Tinariwen's Ibrahim Ag Alhabib. Oh well. Guess we're "still raining, still dreaming …"
WHEN: Friday, March 5th, 8:15 pm
WHERE: Gibson Amphitheater
100 Universal City Plaza Universal City, CA 91608 | (818) 622-4440
I was going to write my own blog post today, but while I was searching for events I found this one was just so excellently worded and had such a wealth of information that I wanted to keep it intact rather than paraphrase my own, less interesting version. It's from an LA Weekly Calendar event by Falling James, and you should check it out!
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