"A wildly flamboyant funk diva with few equals even three decades after her debut, Betty Davis combined the gritty emotional realism of Tina Turner, the futurist fashion sense of David Bowie, and the trendsetting flair of Miles Davis, her husband for a year. ... she turned Miles on to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone (providing the spark that led to his musical reinvention on In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew), then proved her own talents with a trio of sizzling mid-'70s solo LPs." - All Music Guide (many links nsfw-ish)
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 17, 2009 - 22 comments

Written in 1967 by Bob Dylan, it was originally quiet, lowkey... and vaguely menacing. But when Jimi Hendrix redefined it the following year, even Dylan knew that the song had changed forever.

Since then, it's been covered (over and over again), praised almost as often, analyzed, referenced, and, of course, found to be encoded in the minds of Cylons.

Originally released 40 years ago, erm, yesterday: All Along the Watchtower.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher on Dec 28, 2007 - 41 comments

Who wrote the song Hey Joe? Jimi Hendrix recorded the most famous version, but Hey Joe has been recorded by a bunch of artists including Love, The Leaves, The Byrds, The Music Machine, and Eddie Murphy(??!). The author of the song themed with infidelity, murder, and ultimately running from the law, is under dispute, which is well documented on Wikipedia. An mp3 blog called Used Bin Forever features a post about this subject including a mp3 of a mindblowing version by the 60's Japanese band, The Golden Cups.
posted by byronimation on Apr 13, 2007 - 27 comments

Let me stand next to your fire. Forty years ago today, Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar live on stage for the first time when he was appearing at The Astoria London. It was the first night of a 24-date tour with The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck.
posted by psmealey on Mar 31, 2007 - 33 comments

"Window in the Sky" is a YouTube style video synch mash-up done on a professional budget with the magic of copyright clearances. "It's a triumph of postmodern reconstruction" says the Washington Post.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 29, 2007 - 160 comments

A week before Jimi Hendrix died in London he (probably) recorded the Welsh anthem "Land of our Fathers" (embedded audio). The eight-track recording languished in a corner of a recording studio until recently.
posted by Rumple on Dec 31, 2006 - 30 comments

Hey Joe! Jimi Hendrix, right? Unless it's one of the 599 others. Do we have any idea of what the real standards are; i.e., the truly most-covered and most-coveted songs? [Via LinkFilter.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Mar 2, 2004 - 25 comments

Hendrix Experience bassist passes on...
I don't know what to say really, except I'm pretty saddened this morning.
posted by tomcosgrave on May 13, 2003 - 13 comments

Sen. Paula Hawkins was at one time curious about what kind of toys Frank Zappa's children played with. Now we know: Among Dweezil's collection was a 1963 Fender Stratocaster owned, played, and burnt to a crisp by one Jimi Hendrix. Now, Dweezil is selling the thing, but not to buy a new car or house or something. He's trying to raise funds to refurbish his old man's studio. Zappa once wrote an essay about how to raise fantastic children. It seems from this story that he did exactly that.
posted by NedKoppel on Sep 17, 2002 - 12 comments