By March 1969 Jimi Hendrix was at the top of his game. Still brimming with the success that
The Experience's third studio album, Electric Ladyland had brought them, and the
immensely successful performances at London's Royal Albert Hall on February 18th and
24th. Hendrix was poised not only to convert the recordings made at the Royal Albert Hall
into a proposed live release, his creative influences were now focused on his next studio
masterpiece, First Rays Of The New Rising Sun -- a spectacular double-LP set that
unfortunately, Jimi would never live to fulfill. On March 11th of that year,
Jane de Mendelssohn of the International Times sat down with Hendrix at
his Brook Street apartment to talk about his musical future.
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The darkened stage explodes into light as guitarist Johnny A. touches off a cool and
creamy A13th chord opening his gig at Birdy's in Indianapolis, IN with an original
composition entitled "Up In The Attic." Johnny A. and his band are tight and the sound
is clean and bright. What grabs the listener however is the tone, a remarkable, retro
sound achieved by judicious use of a Bigsby tremolo and Johnny's deft playing ability.
This is one smooth cat who knows how to play and he does play well, stunningly so.
For the uninitiated who have not heard of him or had a sample of his instrumental CD
Sometime Tuesday Morning, they are certainly missing something very special in the
world of guitar-featured music.
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Since we first conducted this interview in the Fall of '99, the music world has
witnessed something of a second coming of George Clinton, Funkadelic, and the
P-Funk All-Stars. Between guest appearances on chart topping albums, sell-out
tours from coast to coast, and a series of hugely popular Nike television
commercials, George "Dr. Funkenstein" Clinton continues to dish out his unique
blend of funk, rock, and soul – and creating a sound that truly can be defined as
his own. Despite reading this now, two years into the future from whence it was
written, almost everything that Clinton has to say here stands as strong today as
it did when we first spoke. It's an interesting journey, behind-the-scenes with
one of music's most beloved artists.
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Somewhere within the sprawl of Inland Empire, California that runs east of Los Angeles to the Joshua Tree desert, a six-year-old Ben Harper was given his first guitar. "It was a cheap nylon string classical model," he recalls. "I'm not sure if I spent as much time playing it as I did riding my bike over it."
Harper was born into a musical family. Before moving west, his grandparents hung around with the Seegers and other members of the first family of East Coast folk music; his grandfather somehow ended up with Woody Guthrie's guitar but sold it. "My dad played percussion, and my mom and grandmother played guitar and sang, and they all had tremendous record collections," says Harper. "Their love of music was a huge part of growing up for me."
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