Jimi Hendrix Tribute

My neighbor and great friend Sean (ain't it cool when a neighbor can be a great friend? Rather than a pain in the arse?) both share an abiding love for the music of Jimi Hendrix. Sean is a right-brainer, intuitive, sensitive, creative, a great musician. Me, I tend to be more left-brained, verbal, linear. We are an odd match.

I think I was supposed to be a right-brainer, but when I was born, I didn't get enough oxygen, and for some reason, my right side of the brain took the hit. I have a significant amount of neurological  impairment on that side but not enough that I can't function. My strengths pull along my weaknesses like a stubborn mule. But there are signs, like in how I like to row a canoe and shoot a hockey stick, that a Lefty is lingering. Right brain on a low ebb.

I surmise my love for the music of Jimi Hendrix is an echo of a right-brain dominance that was reversed. I have never been able to put my finger on it but I get the musicality of Hendrix in the sense of having a deep appreciation for it. He was a once-in-a-generation guitarist who broke open the potentiality of the instrument into a rainbow of sound. He was the whole palette of acoustical color and used them all to paint musical masterpieces on the level of the greatest classical composers of all time.

On Tuesday night, Sean and I went down to massive less-than-intimate The Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, to attend a Hendrix Tribute Tour concert--of musicians who have been influenced by Hendrix, playing his songs. It was a cool night. The test of talent is time. Pop fads crumble like Castles Made of Sand, Into the Sea, Eventually. Hendrix's music lives on.

However, it was disappointing in deep sense because of two issues. One, hearing others trying to play Hendrix, no matter how proficiently, is going to be a step down. A Xerox. No one can match his playing. He was the best...the rest are fighting it out for the silver medal. The second reason the night was disappointing was the reminder than Hendrix's life ended far too soon. If ever a life demonstrated "the candle burning twice as bright only lasting half as long" principle, it was his. More like four times as bright, one quarter as long.

The flame has gone out but the light remains...