Would Jimi Hendrix be so popular if he hadn't had such a good band?

When I listen to Hendrix I notice the other musicians just as much as him. The drums and the bass seem integral to the songs.

 

You nice the other musicians? That's nice.
Seriously though I think the musicians in his bands had obvious influence on his music, but that he would have "made it" with any decent backing musicians because he was so good and had a complete concept about how his music should sound like in his head.

 

i think yes, he would have. as a matter of fact, he was often the only thing keeping the performance together (when the others were too stoned to play competently).

don't get me wrong, Mitch was definitely great when he was ON and not too stoned. A really jazzy foil to Jimi's bluesy flow.

 

The question doesn't really fly because I don't think Jimi would have put up with ****ty accompaniment.

 

No, I don't think so. Without it, I believe he would've been seen as a gimmick and Terry Kath would've eaten his lunch.

 

Let's see Jimis two most famous moments to the average person that helped make him so well known are clearly lighting his guitar on fire at Monterey and playing the US anthem at Woodstock.

Well everyone knows it was Noel who bought that premium lighter fluid without which Jimis guitar simply would not have burned so majestically. And during The Star Spangled Banner everyone was really shouting for more conga from Jerry Velez. So yes I have to agree without his bands he would not have been so popular.

 

Although he was forced to tour incessantly by Mike Jeffrey, Jimi's focus was always the studio. Hendrix was adept at bass, and could even play drums, and did so on Electric Ladyland. The truth is, Redding did not even know how to play bass. Hendrix hired him because he liked Noel's hairstyle, and then taught him bass. As for Mitchell's jazzy drumming, I never cared for it personally. I can tell you, having seen the Experience perform, no one was even paying attention to the two other guys on stage.

 

I'm lining up three of your sentences here, because they are 3 lies.
One - Jimi could play drums but did not play drums on Electric Ladyland.

Two - Noel Redding learned and then knew how to play bass and did it very well. He was primarily interested in playing guitar, but it's an outright lie to say he didn't "know how to play bass". Can you provide evidence to your claim?

Three - Jimi did not teach Noel how to play bass. Chas Chandler showed him some tips in the beginning.

 

Oh but he did - at Woodstock. Only Mitch and Billy performed with a level of professionalism at that gig.

 

It's a good band. Things happen. Jimi had to move to London to get noticed. But he got noticed. He got noticed by a lot of people. And they were some of the biggest artists in Rock. It would have happened without the experience. It would have been different, but he had enough credibility to put together his own band without Chas Chandler's help. Without Chandler, I'm not sure Hendrix would have gotten the credibility. Chandler had all the contact having been in the Animals.

I will state the question in the thread title is loaded. People weren't going to listen to him without a great band. With a different great band, he would have prospered. Without a great band, he's just a guy holding a guitar.

 

Yes

 

I wonder if he'd be popular if he hadn't checked out so early.

Imagine the dreck he would have released during the disco era and the 1980s.

 

Mitch Mitchell was a fine drummer, but Noel Redding was a mediocre bass player whose main instrument was the guitar. By the time they recorded Electric Ladyland, Hendrix was so fed up he played many of the bass tracks himself. Billy Cox was a huge improvement on bass, but then Hendrix died, and that was that.

 

Let’s get something perfectly straight, Noel and Mitch were adequate musicians, but Hendrix was (still is) one of rock’s best guitarist of all time. Possibly even the best rock guitarist of all time. Can similar comments describe Noel and Mitch? No.

 

It helped. Chandler was a minor visionary in putting together the Experience. Noel and Mitch were damn good musicians. And with their unified look, they could almost have been triplets.

 

Yep, you could hardly tell them apart.

 

Definitely.

 

Didn’t Noel leave because Hendrix took so long recording electric ladyland that he didn’t want to hang around any more.

 

I don't know, but I believe Redding read the writing on the wall.

 

Yes.

 

I'm no Hendrix expert, but I think he had the musicians he wanted and needed backing him. Like someone else mentioned, Hendrix molded Noel Redding into the bass player he needed. If he had an "accomplished" bassist, he may have struggled.

 

Of course not - neither played guitar, so we wouldn't call them the best rock guitarists. DUH!!!

 

LOL! Please note my use of "almost." They all had that unified luck of frizzed up fros and psychedelic clothes.

 

When Clapton, Townsend and other peers were stunned after seeing Jimi play early in his career in England they weren't talking about how amazing his band was afterwards.

And considering Jimi wrote all that amazing music he could have played with anyone and been just as popular IMHO.

 

Ya think?