“Degrading”: The shows that Jimi Hendrix was humilated playing
At the end of the 1960s, it felt like rock and roll could change the world. There were still politicians who claimed to have everyone’s best interests at heart while leading everyone into the Vietnam War, but there was a voice equally as strong calling for everyone to stop the fighting and give peace a chance for once. And while Jimi Hendrix may have been the poster child for that Flower Generation in many respects, that didn’t mean that he had to enjoy every moment he had onstage.
Then again, anyone who didn’t get a load of what Hendrix could do live was sorely missing out on his true potential. Electric Ladyland was the closest that he came to capturing the essence of what he could do with a guitar in his hands, but the live albums that he put out like Band of Gypsys show a completely side of him that was usually kept under wraps. The album was a document, but the live show was where his music became a living entity.
But the true musicians in the audience were more concerned with the music than the spectacle whenever he played. Despite being decked out in some of the greatest threads of the time or wearing a military jacket onstage, every British guitarist had their eyes glued to Hendrix’s fingers once he hit the London club scene. He already had chops, but the real shocker was what he did to his guitar onstage.
There had been guitar heroes well before Hendrix came along, but no one made their connection with their instrument seem so primal. Throughout every single live shot, Hendrix seemed to cradle his guitar like it was a long-lost lover, trying his best to get the most passion he could out of every note he played. When someone is that explicit onstage, though, there comes a point where fans expect that every single time they buy a ticket.
Although the Monterey Pop Festival will forever be remembered in rock history for Hendrix performing an instrumental sacrifice live onstage, the idea of him playing with his teeth and behind his head wasn’t meant to last. He wanted to be treated as a real artist, and no amount of sideshow antics onstage would ever replace the raw musicality he had in his arsenal.
Hendrix had already started to befriend more musical thinkers like Joni Mitchell, but as the folk-rock icon remembered, he was getting more and more agitated about how people were reacting to his show, saying, “He didn’t like beating up his guitar and setting fire to it. He felt it humiliating after a while and degrading because he felt people thought he beat up women, and he didn’t. He had presented an image that was shocking, a violent act, and people assumed that he was dangerous. But Jimi was a sweet guy. He became very uncomfortable with the image he had presented.”
If people wanted to see what Hendrix could do, the most memorable performance isn’t at the Monterey Pop Festival or even Woodstock. On Band of Gypsys, the live version of ‘Machine Gun’ is the true reason why he should be so missed, taking all of the pain that he’s ever felt in his life and channelling it into a song that every concerned parent must have been living through when dealing with their kids being shipped off to Vietnam and coming back in a box.
Everyone loves a good amount of showmanship in rock and roll, but Hendrix was never in the business to be a dancing puppet. He was an artist in every sense of the word, and had he not been taken from this Earth so quickly, there’s a good chance he could have joined the ranks of Miles Davis as one of the finest composers of the 20th century.
