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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re:  Prince != Jimi Hendrix
Message-ID: <252@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 08:48:19 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.252
Posted: Mon Feb 18 08:48:19 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Feb-85 08:25:00 EST
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> > But Hendrix' importance lies with his music  rather than with image and/or
> > social "message".
> 
> A question I must ask here:  Huh?  If Jimi Hendrix's image wasn't of at least
> equal importance to his music, then I'm the late Paul McCartney. His clothing,
> his swagger, his stunts (playing a guitar with one's teeth just for the sake
> of playing a guitar with one's teeth and setting fire to one's guitar for
> the sake of setting fire to one's guitar do NOT, at least to me, qualify as
> importance stemming from the music), all were at least as important to the
> phenomenon that was Jimi Hendrix as the guitar sound innovations that the man
> produced.
> 

Just who, outside of sixties heads approaching senility (like me?), remembers
or even cares about that stuff? Setting fire to one's guitar kinda pales
next to Sid Vicious stubbing out cigarettes on his arm, or next to Ozzy
Osbourne biting the head off live birds, does it not? Does that make Vicious
or Osbourne the equal or superior to Hendrix?

Go to a local library. Look up Life, Time and Look magazines
for the years 1945-1950. Check out all articles on BeBop. I will bet you
anything you want that 90% of the copy in these articles is devoted to
Gillespie's horn rimmed glasses, Monk's hats and general weirdness, the
superhuman speed the early bop tunes were played at, etc. Very little will
be said about the harmonic and rhythmic changes the beboppers made to
the music, which is all that we consider now. Why? Because that is what
mattered!!!!! The rest is just sociological diversion. Miles Davis
is flamboyant; Bill Evans was not. They are, however, equally important.
Jimi Hendrix was flamboyant; Eric Clapton less so. They are both important,
Clapton for his contribution to the blues (a significant one, that dates
from his post Cream, post Layla period), Hendrix for his vivid demonstration
of the uncharted possibilities in the domain of the electric guitar.
I don't give a rat's ass about his playing with his teeth or balling
X women. In fact, I think it is a detriment BECAUSE that is all people tend
to see. If I had a guitar playing child, I would want him to emulate
Hendrix the guitarist, certainly not Hendrix the man. I certainly would
not want that child dead at 27.

What's this about "the late Paul McCartney"? Did he die and no one told me?

Marcel Simon