Saturday, May 26, 2018

For the Record Top 10: #4

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold As Love (1967)


I was born on the day Jimi Hendrix died: September 18, 1970. Perhaps this explains my deep connection to Hendrix’s music. (Too bad I couldn’t have gleaned more guitar skills as our life forces slipped past other that day.) He was an odd interjection in my musical world. My older brother wasn’t into Jimi, nor, in fact, any of the other bands I would eventually embrace as my own. My dad is a bluegrass nut, and Mom loved Barry Manilow, mostly while she ironed.  Certainly the posters, T-shirts and other paraphernalia I ogled at Trucker’s Union on Water Street in Eau Claire (a nearby college town) were an influence. Axis’s cover was intriguing when I pulled it from the shelf at Tu Trax (also on Water Street), but what really tripped me out was the music: swirling, screeching wah guitars, irresistible grooves, and Jimi’s laissez faire vocals. Hendrix became the soundtrack for summer; in fact, anytime I play Jimi, especially Axis: Bold As Love, I am zapped back to the municipal tennis courts playing against my buddy Andy with “Spanish Castle Magic” blaring from the speakers of my car.

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