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Ustad Nishat Khan & Zakir Hussian Concert, , 09th Feb,2010   
  February 2010
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: Ustad Nishat Khan & Zakir Hussian Concert
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Guitar Hero, Jimi Hendrix  
  - Kobad Mobedjina
Like Obama many decades after him, Jimi Marshall Hendrix exploded in a role that was dominated by white people. Till 1967, the role of a rock guitarist was played by assorted white stratomasters. But his appearance in the Monterey Pop festival of that year shattered that stereotype, and the world accepted a black man as a guitar icon.

It was his musical acumen that made him keep what the others were throwing away. While guitars were tuned and recorded in a way to keep out feedback and distortion back then, Hendrix did the opposite and immediately entered genius territory. The world was introduced to a brand new sound and during the height of the protest years, this “anti-sound” was simply beautiful. This one move alone is still giving Hendrix all the superlatives from any guitarist who relies on the basic crunchy sound. Rock music will owe its success to Hendrix forever.

But if you were to talk about his musical compositions, actual songs or even albums, you may wonder what the fuss is all about. Most of his music has not aged well at all and casual fans who loved ‘Hey Joe’ are always in for a rough ride while hearing his album tracks.

You probably won’t get through more than five minutes if you are sober, and that’s why all of us are still romancing his handful of poppier tunes. His version of Dylan’s ‘All along the Watchtower’, the still wonderfully depressing ‘Hey Joe’, the classic ‘Little Wing’ (covered by groups as diverse as Skid Row to The Corrs) and ‘Stone Free’ have left us with too few nuggets that can be revisited.

Like most vocalists, Hendrix was a far better singer than a talker (check out his interviews on YouTube). His singing voice was not unusual but set against his kind of music, it was thick and rich – a quality more associated with gospel. But it was his inventive guitar work that put him above the rest, a position confirmed by the prestigious Rolling Stone magazine when they declared him the greatest guitarist ever, in a list published in 2002.

So how relevant is his legacy in 2009? Just listen to any rock group and you will realise that if it wasn’t for him, the soundscape could have been something completely different. He certainly started something that has no end in sight and if he is looking down from heaven today, we are happy to know that he managed to kiss the sky while he was alive.
 
 
 
 
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