I gained a deeper appreciation of Hendrix from a song on Dee Carstensen's "Regarding the Soul" album on which she records a version of his song "Angel" ...I never would have guessed it was written by Hendrix, and at 73, I was a contemporary....never ceased to be amazed at how insightful Will Roger's was when he said, "we're all ignorant, just about different things.,"
Thanks for bringing these sacred ideas back into the light. I hope you’re right. It seems that loving and understanding one another are now racist and evil ideals. I don’t know when reason will overtake hysteria again.
The great tragedy of Hendrix is, as his friend and former bandmate Bill Magee told me for an upcoming profile in Living Blues, that he was betrayed by those who used him for their own profit, plying the formerly sober Hendrix with booze and pills he wasn't prepared to deal with. Hendrix was, I think, too trusting for his own good, and like many trusting souls was abandoned by those who did not have his best interests at heart. His artistic vision was as immense as his heart - of his contemporaries on guitar, really only Jeff Beck and Peter Greene were his artistic equals, and Green was another visionary who was led astray by selfish users of his talent.
Very fine article Joe; Jimi grew up in Seattle where he was loved by many people, his classmates and neighborhood families, black and white. While Seattle is not a racial paradise, it did miss out on much of the racial violence of the 20th century. Some of Jimi's wide perspective on race must have some roots in his Seattle upbringing. Feel free to check out my story of meeting Jimi in San Francisco in 1967 just days before his historic show at the Monterey Pop Festival; cheers! Dex
" I'm not sure I will live to be 28 years old, " Hendrix quoted in the Guardian article. The diary entires quotes here must have been written 1969-1970.
Those times will not replicated. For me it seemed Jimi Hendrix was clearly mentioning urban warfare or militant resistance with the introduction of the 1970 live performance of "Machine Gun". Before starting he dedicates the song to "all the soldiers fighting in Chicago, Milwaukee, New York..oh yes all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam."
We do not know if Hendrix felt he had to show solidarity by changing his white band mates for black band mates or if it was a direction he was going to with his music.
The top rock bands of the era were making 'statements' of support for the anti-war/peace movements in their music.
The Rolling Stones in 1968 released "Street Fighting Man" calling for a "palace revolution".
The Beatles in 1968 released two versions of "Revolution" the fast version with the verse "count me out" and the slow version had "count me out...in" , as Lennon changed his mind in the song.
Jim Morrison of the Doors wrote in the 1967 song "Five to One" that "they got the guns, but we got the numbers gonna win we're takin over".
An obscure 1968 movie by Jean Lucky Godard "1+1 or Sympathy for the Devil" was released starring the Rolling Stones as they recorded that song in the studio with scenes of Black Panthers in a junk yard reading from revolutionary texts by Baraka and Cleaver.
Including the protest songs with clear intent it was a vastly different time than today. Police usually won every battle with "street fighters", so much so that the Chicago chapter of the Panthers claimed the Weatherman actions as "Custeristic".
So it became maybe for Hendrix to clarify his stance, but he never left the Black Community in his heart anyhow. Imo
I entertained the thought that Hendrix had to be silenced along with Morrison before they stirred up additional conscience. Tin foil hat stuff though.
This is cookie-cutter blathering: you take some semi-obscure excerpts from a diary and construct them around one's biased premise. Just what is this supposed to prove? That Jimi Hendrix is beyond "race"? I mean, this is really very cynical. I'm not saying that they are taken out context but the money shot is "Race isn't a problem in my world," which is typical of blacks who have "made it." And then it is juxapositioned with BLM. So on one extreme race is everything; on the other, it doesn't exist.
So when a non-Black person airquoted oppression, & told Black people the oppression faced today isn’t legitimate, I finally came to accept that this “journal” is about keeping Black people in subjugation to the tyranny of Western thought.
From the overwhelming number of non-Black writers with the unmitigated gall to “shape” Black thought, to the articles compelling Black people to be allied w/ those who are not allied with Black people...to now see Joe make such a statement demonstrates that he feels no qualms (i.e. some qualifying character that makes his opinion on Black suffering an authoritative one) telling Black people their suffering is illegitimate.
Sort of like when my white neighbor met me for the first time & reminded me how lucky I was to be jogging in our neighborhood in 2015 because “years ago (they) would have shot me for something like that.” https://jahbread.com/white-privilege-fear-black-man/
I gained a deeper appreciation of Hendrix from a song on Dee Carstensen's "Regarding the Soul" album on which she records a version of his song "Angel" ...I never would have guessed it was written by Hendrix, and at 73, I was a contemporary....never ceased to be amazed at how insightful Will Roger's was when he said, "we're all ignorant, just about different things.,"
Thanks for bringing these sacred ideas back into the light. I hope you’re right. It seems that loving and understanding one another are now racist and evil ideals. I don’t know when reason will overtake hysteria again.
Very insightful Joe!
The great tragedy of Hendrix is, as his friend and former bandmate Bill Magee told me for an upcoming profile in Living Blues, that he was betrayed by those who used him for their own profit, plying the formerly sober Hendrix with booze and pills he wasn't prepared to deal with. Hendrix was, I think, too trusting for his own good, and like many trusting souls was abandoned by those who did not have his best interests at heart. His artistic vision was as immense as his heart - of his contemporaries on guitar, really only Jeff Beck and Peter Greene were his artistic equals, and Green was another visionary who was led astray by selfish users of his talent.
Very fine article Joe; Jimi grew up in Seattle where he was loved by many people, his classmates and neighborhood families, black and white. While Seattle is not a racial paradise, it did miss out on much of the racial violence of the 20th century. Some of Jimi's wide perspective on race must have some roots in his Seattle upbringing. Feel free to check out my story of meeting Jimi in San Francisco in 1967 just days before his historic show at the Monterey Pop Festival; cheers! Dex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnKnwP6qZBY
Too bad we lost Jimi so soon. Thanks for sharing this perspective.
" I'm not sure I will live to be 28 years old, " Hendrix quoted in the Guardian article. The diary entires quotes here must have been written 1969-1970.
Those times will not replicated. For me it seemed Jimi Hendrix was clearly mentioning urban warfare or militant resistance with the introduction of the 1970 live performance of "Machine Gun". Before starting he dedicates the song to "all the soldiers fighting in Chicago, Milwaukee, New York..oh yes all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam."
We do not know if Hendrix felt he had to show solidarity by changing his white band mates for black band mates or if it was a direction he was going to with his music.
The top rock bands of the era were making 'statements' of support for the anti-war/peace movements in their music.
The Rolling Stones in 1968 released "Street Fighting Man" calling for a "palace revolution".
The Beatles in 1968 released two versions of "Revolution" the fast version with the verse "count me out" and the slow version had "count me out...in" , as Lennon changed his mind in the song.
Jim Morrison of the Doors wrote in the 1967 song "Five to One" that "they got the guns, but we got the numbers gonna win we're takin over".
An obscure 1968 movie by Jean Lucky Godard "1+1 or Sympathy for the Devil" was released starring the Rolling Stones as they recorded that song in the studio with scenes of Black Panthers in a junk yard reading from revolutionary texts by Baraka and Cleaver.
Including the protest songs with clear intent it was a vastly different time than today. Police usually won every battle with "street fighters", so much so that the Chicago chapter of the Panthers claimed the Weatherman actions as "Custeristic".
So it became maybe for Hendrix to clarify his stance, but he never left the Black Community in his heart anyhow. Imo
I entertained the thought that Hendrix had to be silenced along with Morrison before they stirred up additional conscience. Tin foil hat stuff though.
Perfectly said!
Amen https://open.substack.com/pub/sinatana/p/dear-crt?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
This is cookie-cutter blathering: you take some semi-obscure excerpts from a diary and construct them around one's biased premise. Just what is this supposed to prove? That Jimi Hendrix is beyond "race"? I mean, this is really very cynical. I'm not saying that they are taken out context but the money shot is "Race isn't a problem in my world," which is typical of blacks who have "made it." And then it is juxapositioned with BLM. So on one extreme race is everything; on the other, it doesn't exist.
So when a non-Black person airquoted oppression, & told Black people the oppression faced today isn’t legitimate, I finally came to accept that this “journal” is about keeping Black people in subjugation to the tyranny of Western thought.
From the overwhelming number of non-Black writers with the unmitigated gall to “shape” Black thought, to the articles compelling Black people to be allied w/ those who are not allied with Black people...to now see Joe make such a statement demonstrates that he feels no qualms (i.e. some qualifying character that makes his opinion on Black suffering an authoritative one) telling Black people their suffering is illegitimate.
Sort of like when my white neighbor met me for the first time & reminded me how lucky I was to be jogging in our neighborhood in 2015 because “years ago (they) would have shot me for something like that.” https://jahbread.com/white-privilege-fear-black-man/