I resonate with the title of your thread, in the figurative sense. I was too young to be aware of him yet when he died, but hearing all his stuff on the radio during the day due to the 60th anniversary of his birth has me missing him as if I knew the guy. You just cannot hear Hendrix's degree of intrinsic, naked artistry, creativity, and expression in any rock (or even blues) made today. A once-in-the-history-of-a-music-genre phenomenon.
When I was learning to play the guitar at 11 years old, 'Purple Haze' was one of the very first rock tunes involving single-note picked lines that I made a dedicated effort to be able to play, as much as I could. My best friend and I got my little portable cassette recorder and did a cute little version of it: He wanted to be a drummer but had no drums, only sticks, and I just had a nylon-string acoustic guitar, but we got piles of magazines for him to beat on, and I shoved the side of the guitar up against the condenser mic and turned up the gain all the way, yielding my first 'fuzz-box' distortion sound. It actually came out amazingly well for what it was - I wish I still had that tape.
Oddly enough, speaking of anniversaries, when I was out searching for records in the hinterlands last week, a Hendrix single in a pile of records in a country antique store caught my eye. "Hey Joe" I thought, no big deal, but why couldn't I remember hearing the flip, "51st Anniversary"? Curious, and the record being very clean and very cheap, I bought it along with the other stuff I was getting, even though I was sure I had this song on 45. Turns out that the common single issue of "Hey Joe" is on the flip of "The Wind Cries Mary". The earlier A-side version was his first single release (and possibly his first release under his own name on record?), and books for up to $100 - obviously somewhat rare now, as is its obscure flip-side tune. Too bad the pic sleeve wasn't there; it goes for five times that much!
But this brings me to a question: I have always just stuck with owning Hendrix's studio and live releases originally issued on Reprise during his lifetime and shortly after his death, including the Alan Douglas-'finished' material. I have shied away from trying to wade into all the posthumous issues of 'jams', outtakes, radio sessions, more live recordings, etc. etc., with the exceptions of the "Winterland" disk and "Nine to the Universe". Any connoisseurs out there have some good suggestions about the real winners in the currently available plethora of further isssues, especially since his surviving family started directing things? Thanks in advance, and 'fly on', everybody.
