Jimi Hendrix’s music is the inspiration for a brand-new tribute concert DVD that arrives almost exactly 38 years after his death on Sept. 18, 1970.
The enduring interest in Hendrix is understandable, because his recordings still offer surprises. Hendrix songs are packed with sonic fireworks, stunning theatrics and sweeping orchestral arrangements. And Jimi blew into the youth culture of the ’60s like a tornado before tragically blowing out just as quickly, embodying the live-fast-die-young ethos that guarantees a star immortality.
No wonder there are so many celebrations of his legacy: tribute albums, films, books, poetry, and even the museum, educational foundation and stewardship called Experience Hendrix.
Experience Hendrix exists to elevate Jimi’s already Zeus-like status. The organization has sent trailer-based exhibits on Jimi’s life and work to festivals around the U.S., and issued a slow but steady output of unearthed recordings from live concerts to bootleg quality gems like The Baggy’s Rehearsal Session, which captures the Band of Gypsys preparing for their historic Fillmore East concerts.
Their latest offering is a DVD drawn from two concerts on last fall’s “Experience Hendrix” tour, in Jimi’s hometown of Seattle and down the West Coast in San Diego. This year Gibson will sponsor a reprise of the tour beginning October 15 at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. Details are at http://www.experiencehendrixtour.com.
Meanwhile, Jimi’s legion of fans can get a flavor for the 2007 shows and a preview of the 2008 run from the DVD, which features guitarists Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Mato Nanji (Indigenous), Vernon Reid (Living Colour), Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones, Bluesbreakers), Robert Randolph, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Eric Gales, Jimmy D. Lane, Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Andy Aledort, and Kenny Olson (Kid Rock), vocalist Paul Rodgers, and Hendrix bandmates bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell as well as Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble rhythm section.
Although much of the first-rate six-slinging is by the book, there are surprises in these concert reincarnations of Jimi’s music, too.
The DVD’s musical star is Indigenous’ Nanji, who brings an incendiary level of energy and invention to his performances. Ripping through “Hear My Train a Comin’” with his band, he hits the touchstones of Hendrix’s sweet and dirty bleeding midrange tone and the song’s crescendos while adding his own gnarled chromaticism to the stone blues work-out. And backing Taylor, whose slide lends “Red House” new colors, his own solo turn is a growling highlight.
Guy gets a blue ribbon for tone ― and his face waggling, finger-shaking impersonations of Muddy Waters ― on “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Five Long Years.” Whenever the Chicago legend touches his guitar it moans with full-bellied saturation.
What’s coolest about Guy’s appearance is that he is part of the concert’s effort to display Hendrix’s roots. Guy is paired with former Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Both men influenced Jimi’s flamboyant style. Sumlin shines best, though, when he’s matched with Jimmy D. Lane, the son of Waters’ original electric band leader Jimmy Rogers, for the Wolf/Hendrix classic “Killing Floor,” playing riffs he invented.
Reid and Living Colour provide the DVD’s most elastic and inventive arrangements, but the further they stretch “Power of Soul” and “Crosstown Traffic,” the more the songs lose contact with the beat of their funky heart.
Randolph, arguably the most inventive mainstream pedal steel player in history, plays a screaming, squawking instrumental take on “Purple Haze” that pulls the psychedelic joy of the original further into space.
Guy, Sumlin, Shepherd, Cox, Mitchell, Double Trouble, Gales and new additions Eric Johnson, Jonny Lang, Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford and Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo and Cesar Rojas have signed on for this year’s tour, which will cross the country before ending in Seattle on Nov. 6.