Jimi Hendrix would have been 69 years old today. I like to think of a world in which Jimi existed for more than the 4-6 years that he changed the face of rock music. But we only had him for a few years and boy did he jam a bunch of awesomeness in to just a few years.

I don’t want to make this a long post – I want to get back to listening to Jimi on his birthday. Here are my two favorite Hendrix recordings, as well as a couple of covers by people who do Jimi correctly.

Jimi doing Like a Rolling Stone live in Monterey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J2WdcW0ZY4

Jimi doing Bold As Love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xTcLrTabS4

And on to the covers…First up is a Chicagoan,
Stan Skibby, doing an awesome cover of Hear My Train a Comin’. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Stan & crew a few times. In addition to being an amazing guitar player he is also a phenomenal human being. Check him out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgfRAw3LfUg

Next up is Stevie Ray doing Little Wing/Third Stone. This one goes without saying as one of the greatest-of-all-time interpretations of Jimi’s music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAG-kX_IlUw

To round out the covers, I offer you John Mayer doing Bold As Love. Say what you want about him being a douche, he kills this song. And kudos to him for introducing 16 year old girls around the world to the music of Jimi Hendrix. Oh, and Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan are the best rhythm section in the history of blues and rock music. Yeah, I said it :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQSGa8nZs8g

Working on a solo acoustic set…here’s my version of “Soulshine” by Warren Haynes. Allmans do a great version of it. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lyw1mteBzc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVGu0visDbE

I had the opportunity to meet BB King on Saturday night, and all I can say is “wow.” This is a world class musician who has toured the world dozens of times, played over 15,000 shows in career lasting 60+ years, met heads of state, and changed the face of music…

…and he’s also incredibly humble.

I continue to be surprised by the amount of famous and ridiculously gifted musician’s I’ve met who are the most down-to-earth, humble folks in the world. (Bruce Hornsby, Stan Skibby & Brian Vander Ark come to mind…) BB was no exception.

After telling him that he was a huge influence on my guitar playing (and decision to study music), he said “You started playing at 6? I didn’t start until I was 11. By the time you’re my age you’re going to have a lot more experience than me.” I told him that I couldn’t figure out how to make the damn things (guitars) work, and he said “me either. There are a few guys who have really figured it out…Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, but I’m not one of them.” I said “if you haven’t figured it out yet, Mr. King, that doesn’t bode well for the rest of us normal guys!”

We then took a couple pics and he signed a show poster for me. (I wanted to pick up my 335 to have him sign it but didn’t have time to get it…) Then I went on my way.

There’s a lesson in here for all of us – greatness is complemented by humility.

Check these guys out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBaskRZDbNA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoDx0fcvyLw

This dude plays with Derek Trucks… Check out his cool interpretation of Little Wing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFwMjMPFvqo

I don’t normally stop famous people when I see them. I ate dinner next to (literally right next to) Randy Couture at a locals spot about a month ago, and despite my lady poking me on the leg every 45 seconds, I did not identify that I knew who he was or ask for an autograph or pic. We talked a bit and we had a great conversation with his girlfriend (who loves dogs and is from South Bend, IN). But I normally don’t like to be the douchebag fanboy – I prefer to leave them alone. I wouldn’t want people glomming on to me all the time, so I try to be respectful.

That said, Vernon Reid was a huge influence during my formative musical years, so when I had the chance to meet him, I took it!

After the Experience Hendrix Tour, I headed off for a bit with my drummer, music hombre, and BFAM Corey Owens. As we headed back to the casino to drink some water and prepare for our drive home, I spied the one and only Vernon Reid walking from the concert venue to his hotel room.

I said “hey, you played tonight, right?” He seemed to try to ignore us, looked around a bit and then said “yeah, man.” I told him he sounded great…better than last year. He clearly didn’t want to be fucked with so I tried to whip up a question that would make him think, complement him, and let him beat a hasty retreat if he wanted.

What I asked was “Who would you rather jam with – Joe Satriani or Steve Vai?” I asked this because he ended this year’s show jamming with Steve over Foxey Lady. Last year’s show ended with him jamming with Satch on Watchtower.

He said “Wow…” and actually thought for a second before saying that they were both sick players, but he really enjoyed the Vai experience. He also mentioned that there was talk of Satch showing up to create a Satch/Vai/Reid jam at the end of the night this year, but that Satch couldn’t pull it off with his schedule.

I also asked if he played a Parker guitar (which he clearly did) and he just said “yeah.” I figured he could have elaborated if he wanted to, but since he gave the one word answer I guessed he wanted to get up to his room.

After telling him it was great to meet him, Corey and I shook his hand and we walked off.

The Experience Hendrix tour opened their 2011 tour in Vegas last night. What a show! Just like last year, the bill was full of rock guitar monsters paying homage to Jimi. (I tried to record a bit of it but was slapped down by the man, so you’ll have to do with the written descriptions.) Just a few highlights:

Brad Whitford (Aerosmith) is an absolute shredder, and went back and forth with Kenny Wayne Shepherd (another guitar badass) Johnny Lang (another guitar badass) on a number of Hendrix classics.

Johnny Lang started an acoustic version of All Along The Watchtower with Chris Layton (SRV’s band) on drums, the guys from Los Lobos on guitar, and a sick slide player from a group called the Slide Brothers. This turned in to one of the hardest rocking versions of Watchtower that I’ve ever heard.

Just like last year, Living Colour and guitar player Vernon Reid rocked out everything they played. (I met Vernon later in the night – more on that in a future post).

Eric Johnson played a couple of tunes backed by Billy Cox, Hendrix’s bass player! Eric is a hell of a good singer and his fluid style combined with some obvious Hendrix quotes made for fantastic jams.

Mato (from Indigenous) also came out and played on a few tunes, although I was pretty disappointed with his performance. After hearing Pachyderm Studios 1998, I know the guy is a sick blues player. He seemed to really hold back on stage. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was trying to not upstage some of the other players or if he just wasn’t in to it, but I was hoping for a bit more from him.

At the end of the show, Living Colour came back on the stage so Vernon could jam with Steve Vai on Foxey Lady. That was about a 10 minute morsel of jaw dropping, guitar shredding awesomeness.

Here’s a link to the 2011 tour schedule. This is a “don’t miss” show.

I’m helping my good buddy Steve Nixon put together a jazz piano lessons site called FreeJazzLessons.com

Check it out!

A few weeks ago, I had the immense pleasure of seeing Bruce Hornsby live for the first time. I have to admit, I wasn’t that excited at first. I was only familiar with Bruce’s work that went mainstream – songs like “Mandolin Rain” were what I thought represented the bulk of Bruce’s creative stylings…and his crossover album with Ricky Skaggs.

BoywasIwrong.

I was absolutely floored to learn that Bruce’s music is a lot more like highly technical jam band/roots rock than the pop stuff I’ve heard on the radio for all these years.

So check out his music, particularly “Noisemakers.” Totally rad. Great grooves. The man is also a jaw-dropping technician…so much so that 2 non-musicians in our group were even overwhelmed by what the guy can do on a piano. But that’s not the point of this post. The point is to talk about what happened after the show.

Thanks to my good buddy Joe Patti, we were lucky enough to spend some time backstage with Bruce himself, where I learned a hugely important lesson that applies to music, business, and life in general!

Some background: Bruce has been touring consistently for 10, 15 years or more. He has very high retention with his band members. In fact, many of the band members have been with him for the bulk of his solo career. I knew this going into the performance because my buddy Steve is a huge Bruce Hornsby fan.

One of the things that really stood out about Bruce and his band was how happy they seem to be while playing. These are guys that have been playing together for many years, many shows, many frustrations and yet they still seem to be so happy to be playing with one another. What gives?

Once we got backstage I had the opportunity to ask Bruce that question. He said it’s really simple. He keeps things fresh by “f***ing with them” all the time. (His words, not mine.)

When asked to elaborate, he said he keeps things from getting stale by changing key signatures, time feels, grooves, bridges, jam sections, tempos, etc. on his guys. He keeps them challenged by keeping it challenging. He doesn’t let them fall into the “yet another day at the office” rut.

The music sounds fresh because it’s fresh. The band looks happy because they’re happy.

The most important portion of this lesson, though, was how he left it. At the end of the conversation, he said that in order to keep things fresh for his band, he has to take a lot of musical risks…risks that could end in the band sounding loose and sloppy. However, the risks are worth it because of what happens when he takes a risk and it works. He said that he is willing to have the band sound okay or mediocre 70% of the time if it means that the other 30% will blow his listeners out of the water.

Great business insight from a music industry monster! You can apply this to site builds, product launches, new hires, promotions…wow!

Questions: Are you okay with letting your employees/business partners/clients/children fail occasionally if it helps them achieve excellence? Have you created a culture at work or at home that teaches that it’s okay to take risks so long as those risks are calculated, and that you are not simply setting yourself up for failure?