SRV & Hendrix - if they were still around (Page 1 of 2)

Hey Nic, I seen SRV 4 times and though he was known, he really didnt get huge recognition until after his death. Same thing with Randy Rhodes. It was his death that made his name launch much much higher but Eddie was the king then. Of course SRV is a legend now but From what I remember he was beginning to fizzle out somewhat. I seen him last with Jeff Beck and my main reason for going was to see Jeff Beck. I still enjoy watching the dvds of SRV. Takes me back and when I start to forget how good he was, the dvds instantly revive my memory.
Jimi I was too young to remember. I was about 6 or 7 but I was not into that stuff  at that age LOL!

Stevie's career was picking up when he died. He'd gotten clean and sober, In Step had been quite successful, and he had his first number one hit (Crossfire). He was starting to pick up steam. That's why it was so tragic. He was on the upslope.

If I had to predict, I would say that Stevie would be the more relevant artist today. Part of my reason for saying this is their age difference. Hendrix would be in his mid-60's while Stevie would be 53. The other thing is, like Deezer said, Stevie had gotten sober, and I think he would still be going strong - probably as big as anybody in the blues. While Hendrix, who knows what toll the drugs may have taken on him had he survived to this day. Jimi is also so hard to predict because his career was magnificent, but relatively short. I really think Hendrix would have been more likely to pursue other styles of music or something else altogether.

I don't think Jimi Henrix would've changed one bit regardless of public opinion or "box office appeal".  I don't think jazz was truly in Stevie Vaughn... Those "flops" of Neil Young's are record company stockholder assessments, I happen to think they were great and to hell with making a living out of attempts at forcefully "controlling" an artist...

NPB:

This post was interesting and it does get you thinking where these guys would have gone had they lived.

I saw Jimi Hendrix play in the 60's when I was about 14 or 15 and living in Los Angeles. Believe it or not, he was the opening act for the Monkees - and I think myself and about 3 other people were there to actually see him - the rest of the audience (which seemed like 15 and 16 year old girls only), of course, had no idea who he was and hated him and his music. Needless to say, the audience didn't get Jimi at all. A slighly different syle of audience than the one at Monterey who say him at his triumphant return to the USA after winning over the UK and Europe.

(They say it was the second worst pairing of opening act / headliner in history. The worst apparently was an unknown named Bruce Springsteen opening for a Canadian singer named Anne Murray. After hearing Bruce, the audience didn't want him to leave the stage...lol).

I really think that Jimi would have reverted back to his first love - blues  - and become as  important an icon as BB King or Buddy Guy. Jimi was defined by the 60's - but I believe he would have moved beyond the "psychedelia" of the time. In fact, his Band of Gypsys album at Filmore (I'm going by memory here) gives you a pretty good insight where he was going musically at the time of his death.

Stevie Ray Vaughan- when asked what he wanted to be remembered for said that he wanted to be "known as the guy that took the color out of the blues".

I think Stevie would have evolved exactly like Clapton -  a "cradle to the grave" disciple and "caretaker" of the blues.  But I think you also might have seen alittle more jazz-oriented styles creeping into his music as well.

And I think he learned an incredibly important lesson with Crossfire - his final studio album. This was the first album he had recorded complely sober / clean and he realized that you didn't need the crutch of drugs and booze to make great music.

Clapton learned the same lesson after kicking heroin years earlier.

I think both of these guys would still be incredibly important musical figures today - but maybe not to the same people who get off on Britney Spears music, for example...lol

I saw Jimi once in the spring of '70, just about the most amazing guitar work I've ever seen. A few of my friends saw the Hendrix/Monkees show I think in '66 at the Cow Palace in SF and they didn't know what to make of Jimi at the time either. I saw Stevie a number of times before and after his drug days. I remember one in particular when he opened for Bonnie Raitt and he looked like death warmed over, thank God he found sobriety. I heard of Stevie's passing the morning after on the radio and the first report only mentioned a helicopter going down and they weren't sure if Clapton, Robert Cray, or Stevie was on board or all of them. About an hour later it was determined who was on board. Apparently the confusion occurred because they were all trying to get to Chicago to jam at a blues club and everybodies whereabouts couldn't be confirmed that night. A very sad day indeed. I feel they would both be more blues oriented if they were with us today.

                                                                                                             RIP Jimi & SRV,

                                                                                                             J Dawg

   Band of Gypsy's Live New Years Eve 69-70 @ The Fillmore East NYC.

I was just thinking not in terms of what they would be doing if they were still alive more in terms of what the music scene would be like with those 2 still here. Maybe blues would be more popular in contemporary culture if they were around.

Many years ago, after Stevie's first visit to Toronto at the El Mocombo club, he came back about a year or so later and played this great venue called Massey Hall, a turn-of-the-century building with the best acoustics.

It was a Sunday night and he put on this great show and it finished up about 10:30. I lived in this downtown condominium / building at the time - I think I was separated. But my home was a 15 minute walk from Massey Hall.

I was so pumped from the show that I went home and immediately plugged in my Strat and started to play Texas Flood and Pride and Joy and Cold Shot and a dozen other songs- just completely energized byy the show. By about 1:00, I was out of cigarettes (I was a smoker then) so I went out to pick up some at this 7-11-style store that was open 24 hours a day.

I took a brief walk up Yonge Street (Yonge was Toronto's main street back then where alot of the best stores / restaurants were located. But being so late and being a Sunday nite / early Monday morning, everything was closed up and in fact, there was nobody on the streets. And the only traffic was the occasional taxi cab. But as I was walking north on Yonge Street, I could see these 3 guys coming towards me just checking out the windows of the closed shops. And one of the guys had on a cowboy hat. When I got about 15 yards from them - I finally made the connection - it was Stevie, Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton just out for a walk and trying to wind down I guess. As I got even with them, I made eye contact with Stevie and nodded my head as if to say "I know who you are and hello". And he nodded back and smiled.

To this day, I regret not taking the  moment to tell him how much his music meant to me and how influential he was in kickstarting my playing. But I just didn't make the connection at the time and then when I did, I didn't take advantage of the moment.I just didn't want to fawn all over the guy and bother him.

If I ever hook up with a scientist like Dr. Brown from Back to The Future who has a DeLoren capable of time travel, I know one of the  moments I'm going to go back to.