Good points...but the question is a bit unfair. There were so many things that Jimi was starting to tap into musically (in 1969/70), but he ran out of time before he could accomplish those ideas....Jimi was friends with Sly and played on many bills with him and some of that started to rub off on him....He also jammed with Larry Graham and Gregg Errico and almost put something together with them......Jimi (supposedly) was also aware of Funkadelic and had heard an earlier version of "Red Hot Mama......According to hearsay, this inspired Jimi to write "Dolly Dagger".....I think if Jimi had lived throughout the 70's, he would have had a lot of soul/funk/groove in his music, but the electric guitar still would have been upfront (like Santana or the Isley Bros)....It would have been interesting to see if his "soulful sounding music" would have played on 1970's r&b/soul radio back then. I could definitely see him recording with Miles or playing a guitar solo on a P-Funk track in the 70's.

SPYZFAN1 said:

I think if Jimi had lived throughout the 70's, he would have had a lot of soul/funk/groove in his music, but the electric guitar still would have been upfront (like Santana or the Isley Bros)

or Prince later on

SPYZFAN1 said:

Good points...but the question is a bit unfair. There were so many things that Jimi was starting to tap into musically (in 1969/70), but he ran out of time before he could accomplish those ideas....Jimi was friends with Sly and played on many bills with him and some of that started to rub off on him....He also jammed with Larry Graham and Gregg Errico and almost put something together with them......Jimi (supposedly) was also aware of Funkadelic and had heard an earlier version of "Red Hot Mama......According to hearsay, this inspired Jimi to write "Dolly Dagger".....I think if Jimi had lived throughout the 70's, he would have had a lot of soul/funk/groove in his music, but the electric guitar still would have been upfront (like Santana or the Isley Bros)....It would have been interesting to see if his "soulful sounding music" would have played on 1970's r&b/soul radio back then. I could definitely see him recording with Miles or playing a guitar solo on a P-Funk track in the 70's.

i only know sly and hendrix played at woodstock. idk about other bills.

had no idea he jammed with larry graham though - thats a new one on me.

i did read that he played with miles in a hotel room once (i think i read this in the charles cross book on hendrix), but that was as far as the two of them properly collaborating really went.

it would be interesting to see what hendrix did next if he lived.

there are a few songs and instrumental jams where he gets funky for sure, i just dont think he got there on the songs meant for that 4th album, he over produced and over laboured on those i think. sucked a lot of the life out of it.

i also think he was just too ahead of his time in trying to combine all those things.

really though, personally speaking, i just think it would have been a shame IMO if if he tried to tame his music. i like hearing hendrix embrace freedom, wildness (musically speaking), etc. not try to keep it grounded and in the pocket. he always had a sense of groove IMO, the experience were so tight as a unit, but they had that groove locked so they could go somewhere else with it, not keep it there. like i said though, the BOG sounded terrific playing old experience songs (and some of the newer ones), so i think the fault was the songwriting, the type of model hendrix was trying to work towards, rather than who he was playing with. i dont think he had figured out quite where he wanted to go, or how, or with who, etc.

Germanegro said:

I don't think so.

deep.

SantanaMaitreya said:

That's right, Hendrix hadn't figured out where to go, he was playing with everybody looking for inspiration. He was certainly getting tired of the old Experience format. And I think he wrote plenty of good songs, Machine Gun, Room Full of Mirrors, Angel...

machine gun and angel are obv great, but he wrote a lot of more uptempo rockers that were a bit 'one-note' or samey if you ask me - izabella, ezy ryder, straight ahead, etc etc

What SantanaMaitreya said.....Jimi was jamming (and recording) with everyone for ideas. He wanted to get out of the psychedelic Experience sound and wanted to get more "earthy" (as he described it)....He wanted a big band like Santana, War or The Chicago Transit Authority (percussion, congas, horns, organist, another guitar player)...he got close with the Woodstock band. He was jamming with the Brecker Brothers (horns), Larry Young (organ), Roland Rashan Kirk, Tony Williams (Miles drummer)...he said he also wanted to take some time off and study music compositon. Even Duke Ellington was blown away by his version of the "Banner" and wanted to work with him...Jimi just ran out of time.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Germanegro said:

I don't think so.

deep.

Searching, exploring, doesn't always mean that you are lost. Pressures from managers or drug mood/stamina-enhancers, however....

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Actually, my favorite Hendrix tracks include "Power of Soul (especially the one from the boot, "Paper Airplanes")", "Who Knows", "Message to Love", and "Machine Gun", I also love Hendrix's playing on Buddy Miles' 'Them Changes""--I love those, and consider them just as vital as Experience stuff like 'Manic Depression, Little Wing, Third Stone from the Sun, Axis Bold as Love, etc.....it's a different feel, but that doesn't make them any less valid. It probably depends more on one's personal preference (I even dig his little "Paligap" interlude-obviously).

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I just think he was tired of playing "Fire" and other hits night after night , and he wanted to do a lot more, but didn't have time to do it. As many others have mentioned here, he was supposed to hook up with Sly when he died, but he had also agreed to hook up with Eric Burdon and War. we know he was a big fan of horn bands like Chicago (Chicago Transit Authority back Then) and Blood Sweat and Tears. he always followed Rashaan Roland Kirk, and we know that Gil Evans arranged wrote a session with Miles that Hendrix was supposed to play on. He did record 'Doriella du Fontaine' with Jalal Mansur Nuriddin (Lightnin' Rod) of The Last Poets.

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He obviously was listening to everything, (some musicians call it having "big ears", the imagination and ability to play in a wide array of settings)--Just as Jeff Beck started playing with Narada Michael Walden, Stevie Wonder, Stanley Clarke, Jan Hammer, and Sir George Martin, Hendrix wanted to expand....

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"'Y'all wanna hear all those old songs, man...Damn, everyboddy's tryin' to get some other things together"-Hendrix, Isle of Wight, 1970

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So I think the problem is not that he was losing his way, it's just that he never really got started. From all accounts, Mike Jeffries was trying hard to steer him into the "just play the hits" direction, but he wanted something else....he was getting tired of endlessly touring. by all accounts, he seemed pretty exhausted during this late period, so I just don't think he really even had time to figure it all out.

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As Germannegro said a couple of posts up, "

Searching, exploring, doesn't always mean that you are lost. Pressures from managers or drug mood/stamina-enhancers, however...."

I think those latter day songs are indications of something he wanted to do, but didn't have time to fully realize.

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We're basically talking about an artist that started recording his own albums in 1966-1967, and was dead by 1970 - four years-, more or less---imagine if Prince had somehow passed away in 1981--we'd be sitting here wondering about what he would have done after "Controversy" and we certainly wouldn't have seen "1999". to say nothing of Purple Rain", and certainly not "Sign ofThe Times"

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And I don't mean to say that I think he would've stopped doing Blues---that was his wellspring--but the indications are that he was certainly adding a lot more colors to the paint box.....including soul and funk......

and that was gonna come out anyway, especially with his years of playing with King Curtis, playing with the Isley Brothers, and listening to Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions....

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Probably also worth noting that tracks like 'Izabella' and ' EZY Rider','Dolly Dagger', ' New Morning Sun", etc. never made it to a finished album in Jimi's lifetime....

he was trying out a lot if ideas and jams ...but it's hard to say if they ever would have made it to a finished album, had he lived...who knows, he may have refined them a bit more, or scrapped them all for completely new songs....In the notes for the release Both Sides of The Sky, even Eddie Kramer admits, ' . “He probably would have revisited (these recordings) and said, ‘I can do better,'” Kramer says. “He was never satisfied".

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[Edited 8/27/21 3:48am]