“I start­ed play­ing the gui­tar about 6 or 7, maybe 7 or 8 years ago. I was influ­enced by every­thing at the same time, that’s why I can’t get it togeth­er now.”

When you lis­ten to Jimi Hen­drix, one of the last things you’re ever like­ly to think is that he couldn’t “get it togeth­er” as a gui­tarist. Hen­drix made the char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly mod­est state­ment in 1968, in a free form dis­cus­sion about his influ­ences with Rolling Stone’s Jann Wen­ner and Baron Wol­man. “I used to like Bud­dy Hol­ly,” he said, “and Eddie Cochran and Mud­dy Waters and Elvin James… B.B. King and so forth.” But his great love was Albert King, who “plays com­plete­ly and strict­ly in one way, just straight funk blues.”

Since Hendrix’s death and sub­se­quent enshrine­ment in pop cul­ture as the undis­put­ed mas­ter of psy­che­del­ic rock gui­tar, a num­ber of posthu­mous releas­es have per­formed a kind of revi­sion­ism that sit­u­ates him not strict­ly in the con­text of the hip­pie scene but rather in the blues tra­di­tion he so admired and that, in a sense, he came of age with­in as a ses­sion and back­ing gui­tarist for dozens of blues and R&B artists in the ear­ly 60s.

In 1994 came the straight­for­ward­ly-titled com­pi­la­tion album Blues, which cel­e­brat­ed the fact that “more than a third of [Hendrix’s] record­ings were blues-ori­ent­ed,” writes All­mu­sic’s Richie Unter­berg­er, whether orig­i­nals like “Red House” and “Hear My Train a Comin’” or cov­ers of his heroes Mud­dy Waters and Albert King. Mar­tin Scors­ese devot­ed a seg­ment of his doc­u­men­tary series The Blues to Hen­drix, and an ensu­ing 2003 album release fea­tured even more Hen­drix blues orig­i­nals (with “pret­ty cool” lin­er notes about his blues record col­lect­ing habits). Pro­lif­ic direc­tor Alex Gib­ney has a doc­u­men­tary forth­com­ing on Hen­drix on the Blues.

It’s safe to say that Hendrix’s blues lega­cy is in safe hands, and it may be safe to say he would approve, or at least that he would have pre­ferred to be linked to the blues, or clas­si­cal music, than to what he called “freak-out psy­che­del­ic” music, as a Guardian review of Hen­drix auto­bi­og­ra­phy Start­ing at Zero quotes; “I don’t want any­body to stick a psy­che­del­ic label around my neck. Soon­er Bach and Beethoven.” Or soon­er, I’d imag­ine, blues leg­ends like Albert King, Bud­dy Guy, and B.B. King, of whom Hen­drix sat in awe. At the top of the post, you can see Hen­drix flex his Delta blues mus­cles on a 12-string acoustic gui­tar. Then in the video below it from 1968, Hen­drix gets the chance to jam with Bud­dy Guy, after watch­ing Guy work his mag­ic from the audi­ence. (Hen­drix joins Guy onstage to jam at 6:24.) Beneath, see Guy and King rem­i­nisc­ing a few years ago about those days of meet­ing and play­ing with Hen­drix.

Dur­ing their con­ver­sa­tion, you’ll learn where Hen­drix picked up one of his stage tricks, play­ing the gui­tar behind his head—and learn how lit­tle Guy knew about Hen­drix the rock star, com­ing to know him instead as a great blues gui­tarist.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jimi Hen­drix Unplugged: Two Great Record­ings of Hen­drix Play­ing Acoustic Gui­tar

The Jimi Hen­drix Expe­ri­ence Plays “Hey Joe” & “Wild Thing” on The Band’s Very First Tour: Paris, 1966

Jimi Hendrix’s Final Inter­view on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1970: Lis­ten to the Com­plete Audio

B.B. King Changes Bro­ken Gui­tar String Mid-Song at Farm Aid, 1985 and Doesn’t Miss a Beat

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

I’ve had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet many incred­i­ble musi­cians in per­son, and I’ve always enjoyed watch­ing them do some­thing bet­ter than I ever could, whether it’s wail­ing away on the drums, gui­tar, key­boards, bass… what­ev­er the instru­ment, it’s great fun to see a mas­ter in action. And I’ve met a few mul­ti­tal­ent­ed indi­vid­u­als who could do a lit­tle, or a lot, of every­thing. But I’ve nev­er met any­one as tal­ent­ed as Jim, the musi­cian in these videos, who goes by the name of Fri­day Night Lul­la­by, and who recre­ates near­ly every note and nuance in clas­sic rock songs from Yes, Led Zep­pelin, Jethro Tull, the Who, CSNY, and more.

His one-man-band mot­to is “we are one per­son,” and you can see why. With the ben­e­fit of record­ing tech­nol­o­gy, he can turn him­self into an orches­tra. At the top of the post, see a teas­er video in which Jim gives us snip­pets of the 60 songs he’s remade. And above, see his ver­sion of Yes’s “Round­about.”

Now you can argue that no mat­ter how good he is, he could nev­er repro­duce the musi­cal per­son­al­i­ties of, say, Steve Howe or Jon Ander­son, and that’s fair enough, but beside the point, real­ly. The guy is good beyond belief, and I’m cer­tain­ly in awe watch­ing these videos of him at work in his home stu­dio, play­ing all 43 tracks of “Round­about.” Or, if Yes isn’t your bag, let him wow you below with the vocal har­monies in CSNY’s “Car­ry On.”

Still not impressed? Check his ver­sion of Stair­way to Heav­en here, or alter­na­tive­ly A‑Ha’s “Take On Me,” below. It’s a depar­ture from the clas­sic rock mate­r­i­al he’s clear­ly more com­fort­able with, and he han­dles it with the same deft­ness and skill, includ­ing that mid-song high note, show­ing off some pret­ty keen video edit­ing skills to boot. For even more mind blow­ing cov­ers, check out the Fri­day Night Lul­la­by Youtube chan­nel.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Four­teen-Year-Old Girl’s Blis­ter­ing Heavy Met­al Per­for­mance of Vival­di

Dutch­man Mas­ters the Art of Singing Led Zeppelin’s “Stair­way to Heav­en” Back­wards

The 15 Worst Cov­ers of Bea­t­les Songs: William Shat­ner, Bill Cos­by, Tiny Tim, Sean Con­nery & Your Excel­lent Picks

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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A good part of my youth was spent in front of my old fam­i­ly hi-fi sys­tem, lis­ten­ing to Bea­t­les records. This was music I knew no longer exist­ed in the mod­ern world—not on con­tem­po­rary pop radio, and not on MTV… nowhere but on what seemed to me those ancient plas­tic disks. To my untrained ears, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s, Mag­i­cal Mys­tery Tour, and espe­cial­ly Abbey Road sound­ed like they had come down from an advanced alien civ­i­liza­tion.

What I was hear­ing in part—especially on Abbey Road—was the per­fec­tion of the stu­dio as an instru­ment, and the major influ­ence of the last, best fifth Bea­t­le, George Mar­tin. Not to dimin­ish the incred­i­ble musi­cian­ship and song­writ­ing abil­i­ties of the Bea­t­les them­selves, but with­out their engi­neers, with­out Mar­tin at the con­trols, and with­out the state-of-the-art studios—EMI, then, of course, Abbey Road—those albums would have sound­ed much more down to earth: still great, no doubt, but not the sym­phon­ic mas­ter­pieces they are, especially—in my opin­ion—Abbey Road, the last album the Bea­t­les record­ed togeth­er (though not their final release).

So how did such a bril­liant record­ing come to being? You can piece its con­struc­tion togeth­er your­self by sort­ing through all of the stuff that didn’t make it on the record—outtakes, alter­nate album cov­er pho­tos—as well as through inter­views with Mar­tin and the band. At the top of the post, see one of the cov­er pho­tos that didn’t make the cut. A self-effac­ing­ly-named blog called Stuff Nobody Cares About has sev­er­al more alter­nate pho­tos from that ses­sion on August 8, 1969 (which McCart­ney con­cep­tu­al­ized before­hand in a series of sketch­es). Before the album got its icon­ic look, it came together—pun intended—as icon­ic sound. Just above, you can hear George Mar­tin describe the process of pro­duc­ing the band’s last record­ing, a “very hap­py record,” he says, com­pared to the tense, unhap­py Let it Be. After­ward, hear George, Paul, and Ringo rec­ol­lect their bit­ter­sweet mem­o­ries of the ses­sions.

Near the end of the doc­u­men­tary clip, Paul McCart­ney says, “I’m real­ly glad that most of the songs dealt with love, peace, under­stand­ing….” If that’s what “Mean Mr. Mus­tard” or “Maxwell’s Sil­ver Ham­mer” are about, col­or me sur­prised, but I’ve nev­er been one to get too hung up on the mean­ings of the Bea­t­les songs—it’s the menagerie of sounds I love, the unusu­al chord changes, and the wit­ty lit­tle nar­ra­tives, touch­ing vignettes, and almost shock­ing­ly apt lyri­cal images (“Hold you in his arm­chair / You can feel his dis­ease”).

But like the band them­selves com­ing back togeth­er, the songs on Abbey Road—includ­ing that mas­ter­ful clos­ing med­ley—didn’t imme­di­ate­ly fall into place; they were the prod­uct of much stu­dio noodling and idio­syn­crat­ic Bea­t­les brainstorming—an activ­i­ty one part music hall com­e­dy improv, one part genius hap­py acci­dent, and one part good-natured fam­i­ly squab­ble. In the three clips above and below, hear the pow­er­ful Abbey Road med­ley come togeth­er, in fits and starts, with plen­ty of play­ful ban­ter and off-the-cuff inspi­ra­tion.

Hear­ing the mak­ing of Abbey Road doesn’t take away from the oth­er­world­ly final prod­uct, but it does bring the exalt­ed per­son­al­i­ties of the band back down to earth, show­ing them as hard­work­ing musi­cians and nat­ur­al writ­ers and come­di­ans who just hap­pened to have made—with no short­age of help—some of the most mind-blow­ing music of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Short Film on the Famous Cross­walk From the Bea­t­les’ Abbey Road Album Cov­er

Hear the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks for The Bea­t­les’ Cli­mac­tic 16-Minute Med­ley on Abbey Road

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig Filmed in Jan­u­ary 1969

The Bea­t­les’ Final, “Painful” Pho­to Shoot: A Gallery of Bit­ter­sweet Images

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

After every ter­ri­ble tragedy in the West, we expect celebri­ties to weigh in. And they do, with com­ments insight­ful and heart­felt, appalling and boor­ish, per­func­to­ry and banal. Often, the larg­er the pub­lic pro­file, the more self-serv­ing the sound­bite. One take in par­tic­u­lar has pro­voked sneers and ridicule: Bono—who paid respects with his band at music venue Le Bat­a­clan—told an inter­view­er, “this is the first direct hit on music we’ve had in this so-called War on Ter­ror.” Twit­terati, the Com­men­tari­at, and, well, folks, did not take kind­ly to the state­ment, with many point­ing out an ear­li­er “hit on music” in Feb­ru­ary and accus­ing U2’s front­man of mak­ing the mon­strous attacks on the Paris music venue about him­self.

One can under­stand the sen­ti­ment, with­out excus­ing the ver­biage. Le Bataclan—scene of what has right­ly been called a “blood­bath”—has occu­pied a sig­nif­i­cant place in pop music his­to­ry since it start­ed book­ing rock bands in the 1970s; and it has host­ed famous musi­cians and singers—like Edith Piaf—since its open­ing in 1864. It does not min­i­mize the tremen­dous pain of the hor­rif­ic mur­der of 89 Eagles of Death Met­al fans this past Fri­day to say that the assault has also deeply dis­turbed musi­cians and music fans world­wide.

Grief leads us to remem­brance, and we can memo­ri­al­ize le Bat­a­clan (named after the French operetta Ba-ta-clan) for its long his­to­ry before last Fri­day’s hor­ror. One of the most his­toric con­certs there occurred in 1972, when John Cale reunit­ed with his for­mer Vel­vet Under­ground band­mates Lou Reed and Nico for acoustic ren­di­tions of “Hero­in,” “The Black Angel’s Death Song,” and “Femme Fatale.” We cov­ered that con­cert in a pre­vi­ous post. See it again at the top of this one. The fol­low­ing year, a band at the height of its career—or the first phase of it anyway—graced le Bataclan’s stage before going on to blow minds at London’s Shep­per­ton Stu­dios. Just above, see the Peter Gabriel-front­ed Gen­e­sis play “The Musi­cal Box,” “Supper’s Ready,” “Return of the Giant Hog­weed,” and “The Knife.”

Too many oth­ers to name have played le Bat­a­clan through the years—from Prince (who jammed out Zeppelin’s “Whole Lot­ta Love”) to Oasis. Per­haps one of the most mov­ing per­for­mances the venue host­ed came from Jeff Buck­ley in 1995, whose con­cert there was released as a live album the fol­low­ing year. Buck­ley sang his med­ley of Edith Piaf’s “Je N’en Con­nais Pas La Fin/Hymne A L’Amour” (above)—in hind­sight an espe­cial­ly poignant ren­di­tion two years before his untime­ly death. “By the time Buck­ley switch­es over to French,” writes All­mu­sic, “the crowd erupts at the end of every phrase, catch­ing him off guard with their enthu­si­asm.” He end­ed the show with the near­ly 10-minute ver­sion of Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah” below, a song he became known for and that serves as well as any oth­er as a trib­ute to le Bat­a­clan in these dark days of mourn­ing, war, and ret­ri­bu­tion. “Love is not a vic­to­ry march,” sings Buck­ley, his voice crack­ing, “It’s a cold and it’s a bro­ken Hal­lelu­jah.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Gen­e­sis (from the Peter Gabriel Era) Per­form in a Glo­ri­ous, 1973 Restored Con­cert Film

Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico Reunite, Play Acoustic Vel­vet Under­ground Songs on French TV, 1972

Édith Piaf’s Mov­ing Per­for­mance of ‘La Vie en Rose’ on French TV, 1954

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness