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Old 10-18-2022, 09:16 PM
FrankHudson FrankHudson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by godfreydaniel View Post
I don’t agree with your assessment either.

As with pretty much any performer, his early career was his time paying his dues, developing as an artist, and working his way up. Everything before the Jimi Hendrix Experience falls into that category.

As for him being an underground artist, here’s how the first three albums (which were the only albums released before he died in 1970) did:

“Are You Experienced” hit #2 in the UK and #5 in the US. It sold over a million copies within seven months of its release.

“Axis: Bold as Love” hit #5 in the UK and #3 in the US. It went platinum in both the UK and the US.

“Electric Ladyland” - hit #6 in the UK and #1 in the US.

Woodstock - Hendrix was the highest paid performer and was chosen to close the festival. (He was originally scheduled to go on at Midnight, but due to all the craziness didn’t go on until 9:00 am the next morning.)

He died just over a year later.

Correction: “Band of Gypsys” was also released before his death. It hit #5 in the US and #6 in the UK.
We're getting into deep weeds here, and my point isn't that Hendrix of the Experience years was unknown -- and although I've been around music and radio industry people peripherally, and read extensively, I'm not an insider. But I did live through those years in the U.S. (The UK situation, a much smaller though vibrant world, was different, and not directly in my ken). I'd say Hendrix was more often appreciated by hip folks with a taste for an ascendant musical form in the United States. The kind of folks who listened to the first FM rock stations (who were not dominant in their markets then) or bought LPs instead of singles. Who maybe listened to their records instead of danced to them, some with illegal chemical aids. Yes, that's not his entire audience, but my memory says it was most.

My understanding of the Billboard charts for singles and LPs (the ones usually used by Wikipedia and the like) is they could be and were manipulated, but they're out there so folks (including me) will use them. On the singles charts, Hendrix did poorer than other ballroom/underground rock acts like their contemporaries Jefferson Airplane or Cream in the US, plausibly due to Warners not having the "promo men" to get AM radio airplay that was still so important in the US. Then you mention Axis Bold as Love selling Platinum. There were no Platinum LPs in Hendrix's lifetime. The award was started in 1976. Axis Bold as Love sold over the years as a catalog item, long after Hendix's death, to achieve that award. Certified stats (the ones used for Gold etc records) are different and subject to their own issues, but in theory count total sales not chart positions in a week, but for someone whose "career" has had such an extensive posthumous run they are problematic.

Woodstock was booked by the hip, for the hip, and therefore was not expected to draw like it did. It's an example of how the whole rock business was dynamic during Hendrix's career as a bandleader. The music world he faced in 1965 was generations different from the one he faced during his last year 1970 and in a year or two would be different again.

Since we're arguing relative levels of fame all our sidebar here is splitting hairs. Measuring fame with stats is hard work and not as exact as one might hope. Earlier in his Experience years, there's a reason (totally fame-related) that he was booked to open for the Monkees, not the other way around. At the time he died I'd say he wasn't as famous or as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Simon and Garfunkel, or Elvis. People are still behind catching onto Hendrix as a songwriter (and Elvis was so compelling, folks refer to his songs as if he wrote them). and his level of fame was as an outstanding guitar player with a flash stage act, and he wanted to ditch the latter. And let's face it, even though I've gone on too much in writing all this, fame isn't why I listen to and admire Hendrix anyway.
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