h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm a Jimi Hendrix fan, don't get me wrong, but on the front page they list him as "the most influential guitarist of all time" (or words to that effect). I'd have to argue with that. How about the artist who influenced Hendrix, AND Clapton, AND Richards, AND just about every other major blues guitarist to hit the (inter)national scene? I'm talking about Robert Johnson. Not a plethora of hits there, too be sure, and the recording quality on his output is awful, but this man was -- and I'm sure Jimi would back me up -- THE most influential guitarist of all time. He influenced the people that influenced all the sixties Guitar Heros, AND he influenced the same Guitar Heros directly. . . top that!

~Irving

Oooh goody: an argument about influential guitarists. The point is, there's no answer, but I totally believe what I wrote.

I've got everything Robert Johnson recorded too - fantastic stuff - but if you're going to get into fantastic acoustic guitarists that people listen to and can't work out the technique, how about Nick Drake? For every Robert Johnson or Blind Lemon Jefferson I can find someone who, to me, is just as influential in the kinds of music I like apart from blues derivatives, and just as talented. That's the beauty of music - there's no right answer.

Gawd, feels good to be talking like this. That's what h2g2's all about.

The gauntlet is down!

Jimi Hendrix was very influential to the public. Robert Johnson may have been influential to people who were in the music scene, but who's heard of him? Therefore Jimi ends up getting the credit for being 'most influential'. Personally I think Dick Dale was one of the most influential guitarists. He kicked off the whole heavy metal scene by popularizing double-picking.
Fuel on the fire?

Here's another view on the great man

The first black man in outer space: blaming Jimi Hendrix for the depraved, ridiculous guitar excesses of heavy metal is akin to blaming Christ for the Mormons, but a trail leads straight from Hendrix to Eddle Van Halen and Joe Satriani and back again, from Hendrix to every showboating spectacle of orgasmic-solo face-pulling, million-miles-a-minute fretboard contortions and onanistic whammy-bar-and-effects-pedal madness. He changed how the guitar was played, he changed what playing the guitar meant - he initiated a guitar-solo arms race that filled stadiums, turned bedrooms into shrines and gave teenagers repetitive strain injury trying to follow him. He changed the world. He invented the rock virtuoso.

As rock critic Chuck Eddy (a Hendrix naysayer) wrote, he knew a million chords and insisted on displaying every last one of them. He wore a halo of backcombed black hair, he played his guitar behind his back, he set his guitar on fire, crouching over it, urging the flames on. He used his mouth. His guitar could scream and moan - he lip-synched its noises - it could sound like smoke and lightning, like heavy metal thunder, like Vietnam attack helicopters, like napalm, like Armageddon. His records were patchy - half-baked psychedelia, funk sludge, souped-up blues - but he left a handful of classics behind: "All Along the Watchtower", "Voodoo Chile", "Foxy Lady", "Crosstown Traffic", "Purple Haze"...

Hendrix came out of nowhere, but his appearances were perfectly planned. He arrived in England from the US in September 1966. He was 23. He had played behind Little Richard, BB King, Wilson Pickett, the Isley Brothers. But no one in England knew who this cat was. In those days, Erie Clapton was the pale god of the electric guitar. Hendrix approached Clapton's band Cream and asked if he could sit in with them. Clapton took the bait and Hendrix took the stage - London Polytechnic, October 1, 1966 - and it was cruel and fierce and unfair.

It was curtains for Clapton. Recounting the story in the millennial issue of Mojo, Clapton says, "He did 'Killing Floor', a Howlin' Wolf number I've always wanted to play, but which I've never really had the complete technique to do ... He just stole the show ... He did win. Hands down. It was phenomenal."

He also had excellent management. Hendrix had been brought to England by Chas Chandler, who found him in Greenwich Village's Cafe Wha. He proposed the heavyweight bout with Clapton, knowing that Hendrix could never lose.

He found him a competent band, the Experience - Noel Redding on bass, Mitch Mitchell on drums. They played their first gig in Paris. They played their first single, "Hey Joe", on the TV rock show Ready Steady Go. In the summer of 1967, he took back the US. playing the Monterey Festival, where flames destroyed his guitar.

That year, he was the hottest thing in the world. He was thrown off a tour opening for the Monkees because his gig was too outrageous. In 1968, he was hotter still. He put a harem of naked women on the cover of Electric Ladyland. A rock encyclopaedia cited his "indefatigable use of the wah-wah pedal". He was dead two years later.

It was about sex and it was about transcendence. Noise and electricity, sudden moments of ecstasy, stoned and immaculate - no matter that you had to wade through acres of garbage to get there. Hendrix was plugged into the socket, he blew fuses, he blew chunks, he blew rock writer Ian Penman's tiny teenage mind. Penman is still grappling with it. How many other musicians provoke responses like this: "Is there any more voluptuous, terrible, jouissant moment in rock guitar than that staggering lacuna just after the initial wah-wah greeting and just before the electrical storm of noise being the song proper of 'Voodoo Chile'? Like a transcription of electricity itself, that wah-wah intro sounds like a bouncing ball leading us into some spectral hieroglyphic beyond ... like a long ceremony has reached its peak and the Other - in the feral shape of phantom ancestors, star visitors - will finally deign to speak in this other tongue ... Sound of technology stretched beyond mere function into the hot immanence of a new plan of space-time. Sound of something wrenched out of one state into another: pulled over to a dangerous, doomed, diabolic other side ... "

Looney, I think that what you just wrote is longer than the article! If you want to get into the line from Hendrix to Van Halen et al. that's exactly what I mean. The line starts with Johnson. As for "who's heard of him" the more important question is "who's heard his stuff." The Stones covered Robert Johnson. Cream covered Johnson. Ever hear "Crossroads"?

I'm not denying Hendrix's influence. I've got all the respect in the world for the man. I'm not saying I even enjoy listening to Robert Johnson casually. My room mate asked me once what my favorite rock band of all time was. I couldn't answer my favorite. I *could* name the band I concidered the best rock band of all time. In terms of consistent quality output and sphere of influence: The Beatles. So I'm not saying Robert Johnson's my favorite. But I'd say he's had the wider influence...

~Irving

Irving, my version may be longer than the original article but would it have been accepted as a guide entry? If Mark reads this perhaps some bits of mine could be incorporated into the guide entry.

I'm with you on the Beatles, an honourable mention must go to the Stones though.

Hendrix, The Beatles and the Stones were all influenced by the first rock and roll martyr, Sam Cooke.

Loony

Hmmmm... I'm getting in over my head, here. Can't find Sam Cooke in my trusty Rough Guide to Rock and Roll. Don't know him of my own experience... I'm feeling very sheepish right now...

~Irving

Born Jan 22, 1935 Chicago, Illinois
Died Dec 11, 1964

One of 8 sons of a Baptist minister, Sam began his singing career as a gospel singer in his father's church as a youngster. While attending Wendell Phillips High in Chicago, he began to sing with his brother in a gospel group called The Highway QCs. In the 50's he joined the gospel group The Soul Stirrers. He became the lead vocalist of the group, with whom he toured and recorded for nearly 6 years. Sam became interested in pop music and hoping not to offend his gospel fans, he released his pop debut, 'Lovable' in 1956, as Dale Cooke. He recorded more pop material including "I'll Come Running Back to You". He wanted to record more but the label didn't go along with his thinking. Sam left & signed with the newly formed Keen records in 1957.

His 1st hit for the label was a song that Sam's brother had written called "You Send Me". It became a number 1 and was the 1st of many hits. "Only Sixteen" was another hit in 1959 and "Chain Gang" was a top 10 hit in 1960.

Cooke's life was not untouched by tragedy. In 1958, he & Lou Rawls were injured in an car accident, that left Rawls in a critical condition. A year later, Cooke's 1st wife was was killed in a car accident. In the summer of 1963, his youngest child, Vincent, drowned in the family swimming pool.

On the evening of Dec 10, 1964, Sam met a woman called Elisa Boyer at a Hollywood restaraunt. He took her to the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles. When she fled his room with his clothes, Cooke chased after her and thinking that she had sought refuge in the office of the manager, Mrs Bertha Franklin, he knocked forcefully on her door. A fight followed and Mrs. Franklin shot Cooke 3 times a close range. He died on her office floor.

Funeral services were held in LA & Chicago with almost 200,000 fans paying their last respect.

Some of Cookes catalogue that have been covered:-
Little Red Rooster - Rolling Stones
Bring it on Home to Me - Animals
Wonderful World - Herman's Hermits, Bryan Ferry
Shake - Otis Redding
Twistin' the Night Away - Rod Stewart


BTW Irving - you forgot Johnsons Love in Vain covered by the Stones
& Looney - according to a interview with Mickey Dolenz I saw recently Hendrix left the Monkees tour of his own accord because he couldn't stand the squeaky clean approach to teen adulation that went with touring with the Monkees (perhaps a look but don't touch deal ).


;^)#

How can anyone talk about "fantastic acoustic guitarists" without mentioning the 1920's king of 12 string bottleneck (slide) guitar - Barbeque Bob


;^)#

I'll have to look into this guy. "Little Red Rooster" is one of my favorites.

~Irving

Hey Bruce.

If you haven't already, that post would make a great Guide Entry. Stick it in the queue if you have the time.

Thanks.

Bruce, you'd better do that! When the Editor asks you to submit something, that has got to be an almost garunteed acceptance!

~Irving

Just to prove "it's a small world afterall" & the interconnectedness of all things Jimi Hendrix played in Sam Cooke's backing band for a short time (though I don't think flammable guitars featured).

I'll see what I can do to turn that post into a Guide entry

;^)#

Bruce, as I mentioned, Hendrix came under Cooke's influence at an early age.

The whole British-led pop revolution of the 60s had its roots in black gospel music.

How about a bit more on "Barbeque Bob". Sounds interesting. Was he an Aussie?

Not quite an Aussie

Barbeque Bob (Robert Hicks) was born in 1902 in Newton County, Georgia. He learned guitar from his brother (who recorded as Charlie Lincoln). Bob moved to Atlanta sometime round 1920. He worked as a carhop in a BBQ restaraunt, which was where he picked up his nickname. Between 1927 & 1930 he recorded 55 (or 57 - sources differ) sides - all were on 12 string guitar. He's generally described as one of the more popular country blues recording artists of the 20's.
He had a very percussive bottleneck style & he often featured very heavy thumb work & bass slides.

Like Robert Johnson he favoured 'Spanish' tuning (open G or A chord in concert pitch) capoed to the absolute key of B) - for those of you that want to play along to your Robert Johnson Complete Recordings CDs

In 1928 Bob recorded a song called "Goin' Up the Country" which is quite different to the Canned Heat song of the same name - though it shares a number of musical & lyrical similarites - but hey it's the blues - how many ways can people describe being brought low by a woman & it's probably just a coincidence, not like "You ain't nothin but a Bear Cat" recorded by Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas which later turned up as "You ain't nothin but a Hound Dog" when sung by Elvis - funny how they both recorded for Sun Records.

Barbeque Bob died in 1930 of pneumonia.

;^)#

"Barbeque Bob died in 1930 of pneumonia." In 1930 pneumonia covered a lot of ground including overdosing on bacterial substances

Bruce, you've got quite the mind for music history, don't you?

~Irving

More of an eclectic music collection

;^)#

Didn't the incredible Mr. Hendrix also back up Little Richard?

According to the bio on the original issue Are you Experienced? the Isley Brothers offered Jimi a spot in their band after hearing him play. After a while he headed back to Nashville where he joined a tour headed by BB King, Sam Coooke, Solomon Burke, Chuck Jackson & Jackie Wilson.
At some stage he missed the tour bus in Kansas city & made his way to Atlanta, Georgia & joined the Little Richard tour. During this tour he also played with Ike & Tina Turners band. After that tour he joined Joey Dee's Starlighters.
Jimi went solo, with his own backing band, in August 1966 playing for $15 night in Greenwich Village.

;^)#