Quote:
Originally Posted by davidbeinct
Christgau, like many rock critics, focuses far more on image than music. I don’t think it takes the benefit of hindsight to realize that a white rock critic calling a black performer an Uncle Tom is not a good place to be.
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Yeah, it's hard to read that review. The man is an idiot, obviously, but what a bunch of ugly crap to write. I'm glad I missed all that.
I may have seen Jimi Hendrix in concert, at the Monterey Pop Festival, but I was 11 and don't really remember any of the performances. An older kid down the street had asked my parents if they would take him to this upcoming concert that he heard about, his parents wouldn't. Mine were up for anything, often dragging me off to stuff like this, and pulled camping gear together and, with the kid in the station wagon with us, off we went.
It wasn't until a few years later that I bought a little transistor FM radio with the first money I made on a paper route, and really tuned into all the music going on at that time. I do remember my family walking through the grounds during the day at the Monterey Pop and coming across a building with a very large room that was filled with people who were not saying anything. They were all just in there hanging out in a huge group, absolutely silent. It was so weird I had to ask my Mom what was going on in there. She told me to ask her again about it in five years.
I loved Jimi's last album and some years after getting that LP, got a CD that contained a bunch of unfinished stuff to go with it, just mixed in. It was a little odd but it made me realize what a perfectionist he was, in the studio, and how long he took to fully develop songs. He was a unique cat.
Turtle