Category: Music

Jimi Hendrix

He is one of the most important musicians in rock history. Considered to be one of the, if not the, greatest guitarists of all time, he helped to change rock and roll during the 1960s.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame calls him the greatest instrumentalists in the history of rock music, and he is still considered to be one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.

All this in a career that spanned four years.

Born in Seattle on Nov. 27, 1942, he began playing the guitar at the age of 15. In 1941, at the age of 19, he enlisted in the US Army and was given an honorable discharge the following year. He soon moved to Tennessee, where he was part of the Isley Brothers’ backing band, and later he would serve as the backing band for Little Richard.

In late-1966, he was discovered by Chas Chandler of The Animals, and he moved to England. Within just a few months, he had three top ten hits in the United Kingdom (Hey Joe, Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary) and would become famous worldwide after the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.

His legend would grow that year, and on March 31, 1967, after thinking of a way to get The Jimi Hendrix Experience noticed, he poured lighter fluid over his guitar after a 45-minute show, and then lit it on fire. This earned him the title of “Black Elvis” and “Wild Man of Borneo” by the London Press. Later on that year at the Monterery Pop Festival, he would once again burn his guitar, which became an iconic image of rock and roll and blew his legend throughout the world. Immediately after the festival, he was booked for five more concerts.

In 1968, Electric Ladyland, his last studio album, hit number one in the United States. This would prove to be his most successful album and help make him the world’s highest-paid performer. In 1969, he was the headliner for the Woodstock Festival and in 1970, he would play the Isle of Wight Festival.

In 1969, The Jimi Hendrix Experience broke up and he officially became a true solo artist. Their last performance was on June 29, 1969.

He would sadly die on Sept. 18, 1970 at the age of 27 from a drug overdose.

Influence

The influence of Hendrix cannot be understated. Inspired himself by rock and roll and blues, he began to favor overdriven amplifiers on high volume and gain. He would be one of the leading artists to popularize the guitar amplifier feedback.

He would also help to bring in the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock and he would be the very first artist to use stereophonic phasing in musical recording. Prior to Hendrix, musicians had experimented with feedback and distortion but it would be him that would turn those distortions and other sounds into music and, as some describe it, a fluid vocabulary.

During his lifetime, he would receive several awards for his work. In 1967, he was voted the Pop Musician of the Year by readers of Melody Magazine. In 1968, Billboard and Rolling Stone chose him as the Performer of the Year. He was awarded World Top Musician in 1969 and 1970 by Disc and Music Echo and that same year he would be named the Rock Guitarist of the Year by Guitar Player Magazine.

In 1992, The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and 13 years later, it was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. In a ranking of the 100 greatest albums of all time, all three studio albums by Jimi Hendrix would be included by Rolling Stone. In addition, he was ranked as the greatest guitarist of all-time by Rolling Stone, and the sixth greatest artist of all time by the same magazine.

Hendrix also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, his first album has been preserved by the United States National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, an English Heritage blue plaque exists at his former home at 23 Brook Street in London, the first granted to a pop star. There is also a statue of Hendrix in Seattle, as well as on the Isle of Wright. Jimi Hendrix Park in Seattle is also named after him.

Some of the artists that he has helped to influence, and there are many, include Prince, George Clinton, John Frusciante, Eddie Hazel and numerous hip-hop artists.

Queen


No history of rock music can be complete without a mention of Queen. A British band of four men who started their humble beginnings in Trident Studios in 1971, Queen was soon to become one of the most queen posters blackvenerated rock bands of their era, with Queen posters selling all over the world.

In a star-studded reign spanned two decades, the rock group came to dominate the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and their powerful spell only paled with the death of their lead singer, Freddie Mercury.

Queen members – Freddie, Brian, Roger and John

Quite interestingly, the four members (Freddie, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon) all held bachelor degrees in business, and they only came together to concentrate on their music seriously after finishing college. In 1973 they released their first album, QUEEN, which a straight-metal album and failed to make any splashes in the British music scene.

Undeterred, the band continued to tour and perform and their second album, QUEEN II, became an unexpected British hit in 1974. On the strength of their chart-climbing release, the band embarked on its first American tour as support cast, but ended up stealing the show across the States with their dynamic stage performances. The tour ensured that Queen posters were becoming commonplace on both sides of the Atlantic.

The band released their third album, Sheer Heart Attack by the end of 1974. During the production of this album Brian came down with hepatitis, and the bond that developed between the four members during the process would become the rock upon which the Queen foundation would be built.

A second tour to the United States came about in 1975 and the response was amazing. Shows sold out almost immediately, and Freddie Mercury, lead singer and star performer, continued to lead the show despite a serious throat problem. From now on, Queen posters were fast becoming collectors’ items.

A return to their homeland saw the start of a new album and a new management team. The resultant album, A Night At the Opera, became their ticket to success, launching Queen into stardom and establishing them as the rock band of the decade. The first single from the record, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, became their signature song and by creating a supporting music video to aid the song’s and album’s launch, the rock group had started an unstoppable trend. The song was a testament to their skills, and helped keep their album and Queen posters in the Top Ten in America and England for weeks to come.

Albums are climbing up the charts

In the following years Queen continued to amass accolades, produce hit singles and consistently produce albums that hit the Top Ten charts. Their excesses became the stuff of legend as they profited from their popularity, but they also worked at a steady speed, churning out chart-topping music regularly. The critics (read the rock press) came to scorn the group because of their in-your-face acceptance of their own popularity, yet that mattered nothing to the masses who continued to buy their records and adorn their walls with Queen posters.

Hit singles such as ‘We are the Champions’ and ‘We Will Rock You’ took the world by storm and accentuated their transcendentalist style, while the single ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ became an international hit freddie mercury queen postersdespite their outrageous antics – staging a nude female bicycle race to promote the song. Their popularity was un-ebbed, and Queen entered the 80s at the peak of their popularity.

The Game was released in 1980; their first number one album in the Americas, but that was the beginning of the end of their love affair with the American crowds. When future tracks and albums failed to capture the public’s hearts as before, the band took on a tour of the world, going to places like Latin America, Asia and Africa to drum up popularity in places most rock bands traditionally ignored.

The group returned in 1985, and spent the next five years releasing several albums that proved to be massive hits in the European market but failed to make any major impact in the States. It was, in some ways, a sign of things to come.

Fredie Mercury’s death

In 1991, Freddie Mercury’s health declined alarmingly, and on November 24, he died of AIDS. It had been a well-kept secret, but the realization also brought to fore Freddie’s homosexuality, a fact that made no difference to future record sales as it was his charismatic and outrageous stage performances that the crowds always remembered.

In his memory a concert was held in Wembley stadium in the spring of 1992, broadcast to an international audience of over a billion and graced with scores of guest stars such as Guns N Roses, Def Leppard and Elton John. The proceeds went to Mercury’s AIDS Trust, a fund to help AIDS victims across the world. This concert was more than just a goodbye to Freddie Mercury; it was a farewell from Queen. In the following years John Deacon retired and the other two members, Brian May and Roger Taylor, released individual albums, but they never performed under the label of Queen again.

Their flagrant style and extravagant sense of camp and excess made them an irresistible commodity in the 70s rock culture. Whereas they failed to establish themselves as the stuff of legends in the manner of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, their enigmatic presence on stage and media stunts ensured that after the Beatles, Queen was the most selling rock band of the 90s.

It is an honor not to be given lightly, and one imagines freddie mercury’s stage performance queen postersFreddie would have received this news only as he could; a raucous laugh and gleaming eyes, a picture perfect display for the countless Queen posters now across the world.

A band’s popularity is often judged by how they set trends. Queen posters, emboldened by Freddie’s irrepressible personality, are by far the least significant symbols of their heritage. Traces of their influence can be found in rock bands everywhere during the 80s and 90s, with popular examples being Metallica and Smashing Pumpkins.

And despite their virtual end more than a decade ago, the band’s presence is still felt, and Queen have sealed their place in the history of rock as one of the most influential bands to ever perform.