| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/12/2006 2:59:08 PM | Has anyone heard the Band of Gypsys feat. jimi hendrix, buddy miles, and billy cox? What an amazing album. Every time I hear it, it seems to sound better. Im also refering to the 2 disc release with trying to be and earth blues on it. As you listen to the guitar parts and get to know them, you become amazed at what Hendrix does especially with his ghost notes.
Does anyone else feel the same as I do about this new years eve concert of 69?
Too bad jimi had to go so soon, truly one of a kind.
oh yeah, there is also a DVD documentary about the band of gypsys, a must watch for all jimi fans! | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/12/2006 4:51:27 PM | | that was the first Hendrix record I ever heard and its awesome. I used to have that DVD on VHS but sadly lost it. I so need a new copy. The Band of Gypsys did some studio stuff too. THey do this one tune called "Stepping Stone" which rocks. Not sure if thats availible anywhere though | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/12/2006 5:06:38 PM | F*ckin' fantastic album...
....Machine Gun is crazy...Jimi was a true visionary...and Miles had some great vocals too...I should get a live performance with Redding and Mitchell....compare the two on stage... | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/12/2006 6:07:50 PM | | If one compares the vinyl (or cd) single release compared to the double cd, there are differences. The double cd does not simply include the original band of gypsies album plus extras. There are even songs on the original that do not appear on the double! And, there are two versions of the anthem , Machine Gun: each performed on each different night of the concert. The one version is way more intense then the other; generally the version most have heard. (It is found on the original release) . I think my point of all this is to pick up BOTH versions of the concert cause they have enough differences to make it worthwhile. i think these two shows were Hendrix at his best : later material done with Band Of Gypsies pales in comparison, yet the best stuff done by the Experience is very close, but with a different 'feel' , than the New Years Concerts. Some of my favorite music ever! | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/13/2006 4:05:25 AM | I still have to say I prefer
the experience stuff-most of his classic hits come from that period | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/13/2006 4:52:45 AM | Oh this album is truly my most favourite of all time, bar none.
And Guitarman, I'd have to say Ladyland is second, so I half agree with you, lol.
"Stepping Stone" can be heard in all its screaming and wailing glory on "War Heroes", also another album right up there. A track called "Midnight" is on the same album, just fantastic.
Jimi is the man. Cheers | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/14/2006 12:46:17 AM | Thanks for your thoughts and it's nice to see I'm not the only one aware of the gypsys. I also love Jimi with the experience but the funk driven sound of the gypsys takes me to another place. Stepping stone is a beauty, and machine gun, who knows, them changes, and burning desire are crazy. My favourite all-time has to be power of soul off of south saturn blues. Can anyone tell me who's drumming? I think it's Buddy but I'm not sure. Is South Saturn Blues a studio album from the Gypsys? | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/14/2006 12:53:38 AM | ^^^^^
South Saturn Delta is a compilation of random stuff...if you read through the booklet for live at the fillmore...I'm pretty sure it mentions that one of the members of the experience left sometime after Electric Ladyland....so Buddy just might be on the skins for power of soul... | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 7/15/2006 3:49:27 PM | | I have a copy of it on cassette. I haven't played it in a while. Great music! | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 11/9/2006 8:46:17 PM | | man that album is so good, now that is for mw what jaming is all about, i love all of em, message to love, changes, machine gun everything.....jimi comes as my top artist full stop, we will never have someone like him again, one rainy wish | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 11/9/2006 8:57:13 PM | | I am a classic rock guy, and being a guitar player, I like a lot of guitarists. Hendrix was good and has some great tunes, Spanish Castle Magic, Red House and Little Wing being my favourites, however overall I just cant get into his music like some people can. | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 11/10/2006 8:37:13 PM |
I am a classic rock guy, and being a guitar player, I like a lot of guitarists. Hendrix was good and has some great tunes, Spanish Castle Magic, Red House and Little Wing being my favourites, however overall I just cant get into his music like some people can.
so I guess u're not experienced then ;) | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 11/11/2006 11:35:03 AM | Ha ha Marcus...
Newer Gypsys DVD
Really, I know about the recent Band of Gypsy's DVD that was released and the guy playing guitar on it is Andy Aledort. I happened to pick up his instructional DVD for my son. He's okay, but I tend to think that newer DVD is kind of a blatant exploitation of Hendrix by the Estate. His adoppted sister inherited it and while the Hendrix family has graveplots surrounding his - it's just a sad thing the way it's all being managed. His gravesite memorial is still unfinished in mid construction after years. I know they discovered his mother's grave covered over in a cemetary by dirt - marked only by a brick marker buried in mud and I think they gave her a better grave marker or moved her. It's a sad family story - she died in an alley behind a bar and there was some sign of foul play, but she had other kids placed in institutions for ill health and birth defects. Hendrix came from an exceedingly difficult family life...and I think that affected his soul and his playing.
Hendrix's Background and Poverty
One of the things I admire about Hendrix, whose girlfriend became the late girlfrioend of Uli John Roth - the first Scorpions guitarist (who also owns the Axis Bold As Love Console he has installed in this gaudy home studio and who seems to identify with Jim in an out there way) is that Jim came from a poor background. There is something about musicians coming from impoverished backgrounds or very difficult situations, not unlike myself (I had a severely handicapped child I nursed until his death at age 14) ...so that struggle causes you to pour yourself into guitarplaying the way other people would not. I have practiced as much as 14 hours straight on guitar until I was falling asleep over it (changing baby diapers in between and nursing my sick child) and meanwhile, my male counterparts were hanging out in bars and partying....and I had the guts get Jimmy Page's drummer (the drummer from the Firm, Ac/Dc, and Gilmour) to agree to play on my material...the first woman following the top three commerical guitarists in the world to seek him. tHIS IS THE GUY WHO Page even waited for for a year to start the Firm after Bonham, and he... Chris the drummer...compared my work ...to Hendrix.
People who try to "copy" Hendrix and the white man with no soul...
When people try to directly copy him they always seem to miss that he came from the Pacific Northwest and he was black -- his background was in soul...backing the Isleys, James Brown briefly, and others. They miss that soul -- and play Hendrix like he's white. But Hendrix had a deep soul and funk in his playing that actually pre-dated early 70's funk in the middle of the Philadelphia sound...(as the OJays were taking off as well) and I can't think of any other guitarist who can do this the way I can, as a white woman who grew up in the Pacific Northwest south of San Francisco, except for Prince and to some degree..John Frusciante.
Why Doesn't Anyone have any Black Soul in thier Playing today as a Guitarist....
Prince has that deep soul funk going on. It's a stepping kind of funk - similar to a walking bassline, and you never hear it...but a little in BB King, you never hear it in white blues players. Prince's current bassist is in fact Larry Graham of the Family Stone ! Someone started a Stevie Ray Vaughn Thread earlier here and I saw him from the 4th row and was very unimpressed with his plasticky over-compressed strat tone, incessant Hendrix covers all night, but he was basically a Texas strat 12 bar blues player and he really didn't have the soul at all. There are blues players who play pentatonic scales the same way over and over with that overcompressed sound who just have NO SENSE OF ORIGIONALITY AND INVENTIVENESS, and then there was Hendrix who was not a purist in that sense. There is something about soul rock that guys who try to imitate Hendrix who are white just don't pick up on. Gilmour's got a better handle on this with Another Brick in the Wall and some of the other blues players because he has the well timed vibrato and crying bend they don't have...and he's an Englishman. In fact, he's the number one selling guitarist of all time ahead of Hendrix due to Floyd's almost 800 week Billboard Chart domination with Dark Side of the Moon that outsold every other album in history - over the longest period (the Eagles had the greatest selling album - Hell Freezes Over, but it didn't stay on Billboard for years and years like Dark Side has). Gilmour has soul with blues and was around during Hendrix's era.
Turn off excess Digital Effects - How to get a vintage tone and playing style....
But today, the only person really selling commercially who plays with a clean tone that way is John Frusciante - who sells a lot of records commerically. I think the TONE of the electric guitar "setup" has changed due to the introduction of Gain circuits in amps reproducing the VAn HAlen Variac sound, and OVERUSE OF DIGITAL EFFECTS. People are playing with too much distortion so there are so many errant subharmonics -- that you are forced to play in Van Halen mode if you are really good, or the Metallica 16th note rhythm....and I think this has produced a generation of guitarists who just automatically do this because of thier effects....
I noticed when I turned off that excess distortion and compression - etc, the tone that emerges is vintage Page and Hendrix (with my playing - but the tone seems to encourage that older style and sound), and I got comparrisons to both and to BB. Try it --- just turning your distortion down and (even though you can get a lot of easy faux fast playing out of the compresser - and it's fun,..... turn it off). You will find that as you return to that tone -- tone effects playing style and you will hear a more vintage Page/Hendrix tone.
What Technology Changes .....Did to the Current status of "Tone", Style and Phrasing...
Changes in effects are what changed that tone and style of playing -- the guitar itself didn't change much. You don't need a tube amp to get that sound...its the natural sound of the guitar. use a little overdrive --- you have to bend a lot and keep a good vibrato going...really play that is, but you don't hear these young guys bending well anymore because they sound like a swarm of disorted bees playing Metallica-like 1/4. 1/8, and especially 16th notes. The obsession with speed arpeggiation and styles of playing that emerged with high gain and the variac led to a lot of lifeless cold guitar playing -- and really poor phrasing, and far less melody. It wasn't digital recording that killed rock and roll -- it was the overuse of gain and compression - that cheap plasticky compressed sound of Clapton and Vaughn in the 80's....that came out coincident to Phil Collin's use of the "gated" electronic drum of the mid-80's. The old Zeppelin sound is as close as turning down your gain and turning of your effects. Go for volume, but turn the gain down. Try it.
The Guitarist...as Composer...
My first guitar teacher told me...maybe one of every 25 guitarists can write decently, Kim, writing and phrasing are the things to go for. I don't care much for talking about guitarists the way guitarists do at Guitar Center and just shooting the crap. It's so often a conversation "riddled" with group thoughtlessness and the tendency to drop names and agree.........here's a name for you guys....Warren Cucurrullo...(Zappa), and often those names are the most common and overcited names - but many of these guys can't write GUITAR BASED MUSIC that is origional and interesting for thier life !!!!!!! One of those is Eric Clapton. Clapton was great in Cream -- and something happened to him that happened to the Rolling Stones....he stopped expressing an origional state of mind. The money gets to these guys, but often...the true writers like Page (get the Zep DVD) who albeit are a little sloppy are so...because what they are playing is far more intricate and far more inventive in style and compositionally. Just hearing speed arpeggiating is totally boring to me. Gilmour says he can't stand to hear a lot of players today because thier vibrato is ill timed. It's amazing the way you don't hear good playing anymore on middle of the road commerical rock albums !!!!!! This is because these guys barely have thoughful vibrato - like a violinist does...or unique bednding pitch or left hand technique. So, I could care less for an average group huddle citing names, as much as I care about WHY it is you aren't hearing good guitar playing that is a natural part of good songwriting today. I could care less for wanking off on the guitar...if you can't write a phrase that moves my soul, well. The "guitar shredding" of today has become the equivalent of guitar MUZAK...that garbage they used to play in elevators.
How come we haven't heard another Led Zeppelin or Hendrix though the technology increased ? Pehaps, the same reason why the sound of Metallica is the very sound that takes place when you use all of those effects - the DiMarzio grind. It's the same reason why you have millions of people composing with loops and metronomes...a mechanical form of "video game music" as one of the moderators called it. These guys can't play that well folks - and we aren't hearing great writing because so few people actually can write that well. I don't think they have the fire that a poor young black kid has, or a white woman like Loretta Lynn...it takes fire in the belly to want to be a great writer..and people are unwilling to do that painstaking work because guitarists are too busy drinking and picking up chicks...and they don't have what Page had....or BB, or Hendrix, or Bach and Beethoven, for that matter. They don't care about being GREAT GUITAR COMPOSERS....it's just a backdrop for thier desire to be rock stars. Hopefully some kid will read this and think about what I've written - turn down his effects, start listening to the melodic aspect of Led Zeppelin or the Moody Blues....and become the next great guitar composer. I guarantee you, if you are willing to set aside partying and "hanging out" for the dedication it takes to develop the skill of a great melody line... it is well worth it...
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 11/11/2006 12:37:57 PM | PEOPLE WHO TRY TO COPY HENDRIX AND THE WHITE MAN WITH NO SOUL
Two words: Eric Clapton | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 11/14/2006 3:33:27 PM | Mike Bloomfield 'talked' the same way Hendrix could...but didn't construct as long of 'sentences'... | |
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| Band of Gypsys...fascinating....
Posted: 11/14/2006 7:48:16 PM | | Got any opinons or analysis of bassists. I think really fabulous bass guitarists are the most overlooked and under appreciated musicians out there. | |
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| Band of Gypsys...fascinating....
Posted: 11/16/2006 5:13:57 AM |
Got any opinons or analysis of bassists. I think really fabulous bass guitarists are the most overlooked and under appreciated musicians out there.
Larry Graham
Bootsy
Chris Squire
Louis Johnson
John Entwistle
Another interesting fact for Hendrix fans he also played for Little Richard. | |
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| Band of Gypsys...fascinating....
Posted: 11/16/2006 7:49:15 PM | jimi and little richard made some great songs...........
and with lonnie youngblood....i think band of gypsies really shows him going back to a more funky feel like in the ones he payed with them!!
and anyone who wants a different take and homage to jimi should listen to 'the gil evans orchestra plays....jimi' great album!! | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 11/17/2006 7:21:28 PM | | no i have not but i know id sure like to ....... that sounds sweet | |
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| Band of Gypsys...fascinating....
Posted: 11/18/2006 8:22:54 AM |
Got any opinons or analysis of bassists. I think really fabulous bass guitarists are the most overlooked and under appreciated musicians out there.
I SO strongly agree with this. In my opinion, the bassists were far more responsible for revolutionizing rock music in the 60s than guitar players were.
Whether you know it or not, the music of the Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones, Sly, James Brown, Jefferson Airplane, were all dominated by great bass playing; things which had never been played before....
Band of Gypsies were great. They were more along the lines of traditional styled stuff, through which Hendrix could see his reflection in other musicians. The Experience were in another world. They didn't understand him. But then, who WAS in his world?
I think he was searching for that and the Band of Gypsies was another attempt to connect with the world of soul music, after the Isleys, King Curtis, etc...
Hendrix was a very troubled soul. He was a manic depressive (what we now call "bipolar") and he was either way up or down....could go way off the end of the scale in either case. THAT may be one of the reasons he was so great.
He had a couple of themes going in his life. One was that his great guitar ability made him like "Narcissus"... awed by his own incredible reflection on the world of music. He was very alone. If you have ability that's so far ahead of everyone else, it would be a betrayal of yourself to act as if others are "equals"...
Ironically, that's what happens with most musicians. The first few years they'll bring something new to the music world, but after awhile, they seek to be part of that world and their compositions lose the unique quality that got them there. One might surmise that it's because of human needs to connect with others.
Hendrix never lived long enough to get that far, like other sixties rockers we still listen to now.
His great ability also made him kind of an "Icarus" type, for whom drugs were the wings connected to his body with wax. He flew high above all of us, but too close to the sun.
This "Narcissus/Icarus" hybrid thing was SO sixties... Many of us lived through it only by virtue of not having lived it as intensely as Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, etc... | |
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| Band of Gypsys...fascinating....
Posted: 11/18/2006 1:09:09 PM | There is talk of bass players and no one mentioned Duck Dunn from Booker T & The MG's for shame!!!!!
Also dont forget James Jamerson the great bass player on all those Motown records and he did it with one finger. | |
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| Band of Gypsys...fascinating....
Posted: 11/18/2006 3:22:27 PM | reading a book right now with alot of input from Dunn: "Sweet Soul Music" by Peter Guralnick; which tells about the "other" (nonMotown) artists, pretty much starting off with Jerry Wexler, Ahmet Ertegun and the Atlantic/Stax crew. This is about James Brown, Otis, Sam'n Dave, Joe Tex, Solomon Burke and many artists who toured and recorded together during those days.
It's really a great book.
Jamerson was indeed a great one. | |
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 2/24/2009 4:21:31 AM | I have a copy of their live album of the same name but just like a previous poster, I'm more partial to Hendrix's time with the Experience. Though, I wouldn't mind checking out that DVD.
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| Band of Gypsys
Posted: 2/24/2009 5:30:16 AM | I'm a Hendrix freak and The Band of Gypsys live album is awesome.
The musicians are better than The Experiance or relate better with Jimmy.
It was a soul infusion into hendrix' sound,thats sounds natural. | |
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