‘Pali Gap’: how Hawaiian inspirations gave Jimi Hendrix his worst guitar solo
Trying to find Jimi Hendrix‘s worst solo is like searching for Keith Moon’s worst drum fill or Geddy Lee’s lamest bass riff. Celebrated as one of the greatest guitarists of all time and praised for his expressive style of playing and pioneering embrace of amplifier feedback, such an acclaimed legacy of creative work means it’s less ‘worst’ and more ‘the least good’ among the master’s psychedelic oeuvre.
Like many of his 1960s peers, Hendrix had an extensive recording history before becoming ‘Experienced’ with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. Lending his guitar chops to big names from Curtis Knight, Little Richard, and The Isley Brothers, Hendrix was already on a confident trajectory as one of the lauded session musicians.
He was also a well-oiled live machine, playing in backing bands of Wilson Pickett, Slim Harpo, Sam Cooke, Ike & Tina Turner, and Jackie Wilson after his honourable discharge from the army in 1961.
There’s a hell of a lot of Hendrix to sift through for the futile task of finding that one solo that falls below his irreproachable high standard. The three studio albums released in his lifetime, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland, still stand as virtually flawless demonstrations of his Fender Stratocaster virtuosity, despite his final album’s slight stodge of filler moments across its hefty double-LP.
It also feels like a cop-out to point to one of the voluminous amounts of outtakes and cutting room floor sessions that litter his posthumous discography, sketches of tracks unfinished and never intended to see the light of day in the unpolished forms they’re now available for all to hear. To pick Hendrix’s worst solo, we have to head toward the material released shortly after his death that can confidently be claimed as the work intended for his next possible album.
Released in 1971, the Rainbow Bridge compilation, erroneously subtitled as a soundtrack to the countercultural low-budget movie, features several cuts that were possibly intended for his unfinished First Rays of the New Rising Sun fourth LP. Among dazzling cuts such as ‘Earth Blues’ and ‘Room Full of Mirrors’, the Hawaii-inspired ‘Pali Gap’ initially hits all the right buttons; Hendrix’s caramel guitar licks glide in atop a P-Funk style groove, so far so good.
But 2:40 minutes in, we’re pulled out of the intoxicating instrumental jam with a twiddly blast of fret wankery which oozes indulgence and showmanship, a million miles away from the harmonious and affecting style he typically conjures with effortless magic.
Just like his on-stage pyromania and teeth solos, Henrdix’s dabble in showboating surely honours some subconscious fancy, and why not? Speaking to Guitar Player in ’68, Hendrix revealed his intuitive, creative process: “I just keep my music in my head. It doesn’t even come out to the other guys until we go to the studio. Sometimes, if I have a new song, or if the guys want to take a vacation or something like that, maybe I’ll go to the studio by myself and have an acid tape made and have a rough idea about the drums, guitar, bass and vocal.”
Concluding, “Then, other times, I’ll just come in banging away on the guitar and be singing and say this is a new song. We try to put our own self into it no matter what song we play.”
