10. The Jimi Hendrix ExperienceAre You Experienced
Jimi… He played with all of the people of the late 50s and early 60s. And he had that folk thing too. But when he came over here, I guess it was like us going to Boston. I don’t know what he dropped, but when I saw him again, it was like he’d stuck his finger in a socket. Because he was electrified for real! Jimi had no idea that it was gonna go like that. He was a mild-mannered person!
I don’t know shit about what I do and talk about but I hear it coming out sometimes and I think, "Damn, that sounds pretty good". Jimi though – he had no idea that it was gonna go like that. It was all accidental. That first record to me was their best. After that every record they made became a little more accessible, so by the time they got to Band Of Gypsys they were basically Sly Stone or Funkadelic. But their first record… if you weren’t experienced, you were experienced when you heard that record! ‘Cause that’s the exact same thing that you saw when you was tripping. It took you to that place where you didn’t have to drop nothing. You just smoke a joint and be tripping your ass up, because the way they describe tripping in the music was exactly what it was about. There’s enough blues in there to get you right away cause it’s Muddy Waters and all those things that you know instinctively are in your DNA, but the way he played them on the Marshall amps and wah wahs was trippy and jazzy to the level of Weather Report.
