Five songs that Jimi Hendrix should have played live a lot more
Jimi Hendrix’s dominance was inevitable, taking over the world the minute the world was ready to hear him. This is a man who has live performing down to a T, and was undeniable from the minute he took to the stage.
“It was probably one of the first shows he did [in London]. It was in a tiny downstairs club in Queensgate. It was a fashion club, mostly girls, 18 to 25, all dolled up, hats and all. Jimi wasn’t known then,” said Jeff Beck when recalling the first time he ever saw Hendrix play live and how much of a huge experience it was, gushing on, “He came on, and I went, ‘Oh, my God’. He had the military outfit on and hair that stuck out all over the place. They kicked off with [Bob Dylan’s] ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, and I thought, ‘Well, I used to be a guitarist’.”
Beck wasn’t the only artist who was moved by Jimi Hendrix; there were plenty of people, musicians and punters, who went to see him live and couldn’t quite believe what they were witnessing. Hendrix’s fame was a direct result of how captivating he was live, and subsequently, his live shows became one of the most sought-after things in all of rock, which would see him play studio songs, improvise, and stuff his sets with guitar-oriented excellence for the masses.
Because of how frequently he played live, the majority of songs he released were performed on stage; however, there are a few tracks which rarely made the cut.
Whether this was because he wasn’t a fan or they were too difficult to take to the stage is unknown, but the fact remains, Hendrix should have played these songs live a lot more.
Songs Hendrix should have played live more:
‘Bold as Love’
It can be tricky knowing how often Hendrix played songs live, but as far as this writer can tell, ‘Bold as Love’ only ever made it onto the setlist once. I can appreciate this, given the track starts quite awkwardly and would be hard to pull off in a live setting, but it feels like a song that fans would absolutely adore if they were given the chance to see it live.
Not only are Hendrix’s vocals incredibly beautiful throughout the entire track, but the guitar solo he employs to close everything out might be one of his best. It’s his classic blend of stopping and starting, quick and slow, soulful and chaotic, with the layout of the solo offering him plenty of room to improvise, should he have played the song live, but he never opted to.
‘$20 Fine’
Hendrix recorded this song a long time ago, but it was never released while he was alive; instead, it wasn’t made readily available to the public until 2018 on the record Both Sides of the Sky. A lot of his posthumous releases were mainly jams the guitarist had in the studio, which are fun to listen to but would likely have never made it onto any actual albums but ‘$20 Fine’ is a bit different.
This track feels well and truly fleshed out, ready to be released and of a standard befitting Jimi Hendrix. It was originally written by David Crosby, which you can tell by the layout of the song, but Hendrix adds his own spin, which makes it a real treat. “It sounds like Crosby, Stills & Nash except it’s on acid, you know,” said engineer Eddie Kramer when discussing the track, “Jimi is rocking it. It’s an amazing thing.”
‘Little Miss Lover’
It’s interesting that this song was hardly played live by Hendrix, given that when he was working out what tracks he wanted to release for the record Axis: Bold as Love, he almost opted to use ‘Little Miss Lover’ as a single. Instead, he went with ‘The Wind Cries Mary’, and the track was slightly cast to the side.
When you release so many great songs in such a short span of time, it’s always going to be tricky knowing which ones you want to put in your setlist, so maybe ‘Little Miss Lover’ was just unfairly done by. However, it still feels like he missed a bit of a trick not playing this song live more, given it only made it into his shows a handful of times.
‘May This Be Love’
Released on the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s first-ever album, this song remains a classic of the axe man. On it, he and the band brandish their psychedelic style wonderfully, and the lyrical themes of peace, love, transcendence and all things that would be associated with the hippie way of life are held aloft in the brightest of spotlights.
Despite it being such an early song by Hendrix, and one that acts as a great example of why he appealed to so many people, the guitarist never performed it live. It seems like a shame, given the track is such a wonderful representation of him as a musician, but it wasn’t a song he was ever content playing on stage.
‘1983… (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)’
You can understand why Hendrix might have been against trying to bring this song to the stage, given it’s one of his longest and most complicated tracks, but if he were to pull it off, it would have been something truly spellbinding. Not only is it a great track that highlights Hendrix’s complex approach to the guitar, but it also contains some of his most beautiful lyrics.
The words were so captivating that Patti Smith quoted them in her song, ‘Elegie’. “The last lines,” she explained, “’I think it’s sad, just too bad, that all our friends can’t be with us today’, are borrowed from ‘1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)’. I didn’t think Jimi would mind!”
