Is it a diss? He says that Jimi's "got an incredible musical talent. He is really one of the finest musicians around on the Western scene."

The racial language is objectionable, of course. It'd be useful to know how "spade" was received at the time, as it doesn't seem to be intended as a slur here. A CNN article on Jimi's early days notes how Rolling Stone called him a "Psychedelic Superspade", and another magazine called him the "Wild Man of Borneo", both helping foster the "stereotype of the hypersexual black man that Hendrix played up for fame." Clapton seems to be criticising taking him on those terms, here, though, and stressing the talent behind the onstage antics and reductive write-ups.

Eric well and truly blotted his copybook some years later. Here, he seems rather complimentary, though.

deebee said:

Wow! Electric Flag? Pink Floyd likes to experimnet with electronics? The beginning of the album as the focus?

That interview was a time capsule. Thanks for the link!

jjhunsecker said:

deebee said:

Is it a diss? He says that Jimi's "got an incredible musical talent. He is really one of the finest musicians around on the Western scene."

The racial language is objectionable, of course. It'd be useful to know how "spade" was received at the time, as it doesn't seem to be intended as a slur here. A CNN article on Jimi's early days notes how Rolling Stone called him a "Psychedelic Superspade", and another magazine called him the "Wild Man of Borneo", both helping foster the "stereotype of the hypersexual black man that Hendrix played up for fame." Clapton seems to be criticising taking him on those terms, here, though, and stressing the talent behind the onstage antics and reductive write-ups.

Eric well and truly blotted his copybook some years later. Here, he seems rather complimentary, though.

"Spade" was common hippie parlance in the 1960s. You see it used by people like Keith Richards and Michael Bloomfield, who worshipped Black musicians. It wasn't INTENDED as a slur, just a "cool " term. Though it seems to have fallen out of favor pretty quickly- probably those called that found it fundamentally offensive

Cheers - I didn't know about its use in hippie slang, but that sounds about right for its use in this interview. It's mentioned here too. Strange. I think its usage must have been more vigorously contested by the 1980s, as I only recall it ever being thought of as a derogatory (or at least ignorant) term, as far back as my memory stretches. Plenty to contest, too. When you see popular media like TV shows from the 70s and 80s (The Black and White Minstrel Show, etc), there's an awful lot of stuff that would never get aired today.

deebee said:

NorthC said:

Same here. When did some folks become so oversensitive?

Probably when they realized that the people at the center (the white, Anglo-majority in the case of the US) should not be the ones who get to decide how the non-majority are defined.

Political Correctness is a wonderful thing that has made our society much better.

ThePanther said:

Endearing or not, I never realized Spade was a racial term.

ThePanther said:

NorthC said:

Same here. When did some folks become so oversensitive?

Probably when they realized that the people at the center (the white, Anglo-majority in the case of the US) should not be the ones who get to decide how the non-majority are defined.

Political Correctness is a wonderful thing that has made our society much better.

So much so that this old slang I never really heard in my lifetime.

Cinny said:

Spade..........king of the deck.

Graycap23 said:

Spade..........king of the deck.

I was guessing the term came from "Black as the Ace of Spades"