NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS - “’Has JIMI HENDRIX joined the liberal party? Or has Liberal leader JEREMY THORPE joined The Jimi Hendrix Experience?’
"The two leaders – one musical, the other political – got together back stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Monday night [24 September], after Hendrix had starred in a big guitar festival at the venue. (N.B. There is no truth in the rumour that Jimi Hendrix has been booked for a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Liberal Party!)
MELODY MAKER
“The guitar has often been misused and abused hut on Monday night five guitarists showed four proper uses of the instrument at a Guitar-In at the Royal Albert Hall. [...] Then an eruption took place on stage in the form of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix is an amazing guitarist who does everything with the instrument hut make it walk off the stage by itself I can honestly say I have never seen anyone do so much on a guitar without using his hands. In the final number, Purple Haze, after using his famous teeth to extract hysteria-tinged sounds from his instrument, Hendrix finished up kneeling on his guitar, belting it with a drumstick.”
FINANCIAL TIMES (26 September): ‘The Jimi Hendrix Experience’ by Antony Thorncroft:
“When the first entertainer to receive a knighthood for his services to modern pop music comes to choose his crest, he will surely incorporate a couple of guitars rampant. Since Elvis Presley discovered how to pick out chords twelve years ago the guitar has been essential equipment for contemporary musicians. In the process it has suffered much, but last night at a Guitar-ln —surely the limit for this most over-worked of phrases—it came into its own again through the efforts of some skilled musicians. The most obvious quality was the versatility of the instrument, ranging from the flamenco guitar of Paco Pena, through the classical repertoire of Sebastian Jorgensen and Tim Walker, to the folk blues of Ben Jansch, and the frenzy of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. These four very different acts vividly illustrated what has happened to the guitar in the past decade. The first two belong to the pre-pop era, and as such the music was more important than their performance. Jorgensen and Walker, in particular, played delicately, and with a sympathetic technique, ranging from Elizabethan airs to a modern staccata. All they lacked was style. Bert Jansch, perhaps the leading folk blues artist in the country, has plenty of style. He belongs squarely to the "me and my guitar school,' and, as a loner, pays scant attention to the audience. Even at the Festival Hall he seemed more concerned with amusing himself, and testing his technique, than performing. The results were invariably mixed, but the quality of his playing in such instrumental melodies as "The First Time Ever' overwhelmed the occasional muffed passage elsewhere. Jansch can afford not to care. His introspective wanderings were an excellent preparation for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix, a 21-year-old American Negro, has now been in this country for a year, long enough to electrify the Scene. Electrify is the only word, for the Experience is supported on stage by eight amplifiers, and produces the most electronically refined sound in modern pop. In a turquoise velvet suit, Hendrix poured sound into the Hall in one of the loudest and most sensuous performances ever seen there. With his guitar flicking out from every side of his body, he roared out ten songs, culminating in a frenzied performance of his latest hit, "Purple Haze." By this time he was playing the strings with his teeth, and at the end had to get the instrument down on the ground and roll on it. The showmanship is tremendous, but so is the noise, for Hendrix is a brilliant guitar player. For Mr Jeremy Thorpe, who was attending this concert arranged in aid of International Liberal Year, it must have been a very liberalising experience.”
DISC & MUSIC ECHO
“Jimi Hendrix dug Zappa’ s guitar-playing at London’s Albert Hall [23 September].”
[When Zappa noticed Jimi entering the venue, he went into a parody of ‘Hey Joe’ (‘Flower Punk’?)].
Sujet: Londres (Guitar-In Royal Festival Hall) : 25 septembre 1967 
Jeu 8 Juil 2010 - 22:35
