The "savior" of my title isn't capitalized because the capitalization of "savior" refers to Christ and I'm not interested in touching any debate concerning that. Rather, "savior" refers to someone who "saves, rescues," which seems self-explanatory. What this article is about isn't necessarily the influence of Jimi Hendrix's personal life on mine, though I find his life extraordinary. This article details my experience of discovering guitar, which happened through Jimi Hendrix.
It wouldn't have happened without Hendrix, without seeing a clip of Jimi performing "Rock Me Baby" on the VHS "Rolling Stone Presents 20 Years of Rock & Roll" hosted by Dennis Hopper. I saw that video in 1999, a video given to me by my aunt who hadn't completely turned her back on the counter cultural 1960's and 1970's music of her youth (which most of my conservative family had).
In 1999 music wasn't really about guitar or about interesting guitar work (to me). There's nothing interesting in the guitar work of any member of Third Eye Blind, Sugar Ray, Goo Goo Dolls. The exposure to music I had was limited. I lived in a rural area. We had no indie record stores like Wuxtry, Criminal Records, etc. We had On Cue if one could afford the then outrageous CD costs of $25. Our family didn't get dial-up internet until 2001 and we really only got a Windows 95 PC that year. Equally important was the lack of satellite/cable television. At one point a channel called The Box came on regular tv that allowed people to request videos by Everclear, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, etc while charging them via phone costs. Consequently, my exposure to music was modest, usually mainstream music via my sister's musical tastes or radio stations like B93.7 out of South Carolina and Star 94.1 out of Atlanta.
So that "Rolling Stone" video, trivial and almost inconsequential now, was consequential to me because it was an introduction to the swath of music that existed before I was born. Ultimately, it would spur me on a quest to find interesting music.
Hendrix, though, was the main attraction. That clip may have been one minute, one minute 30. From the Monterey Pop Festival, it showed Hendrix in his prime--dive bombing, eating his guitar, blistering through the slow blues standard. I had no idea something like this existed. It was like hearing for the first time after being deaf for 10 years. Something in myself connected deeply with Hendrix, with the sound of feedback, with the electric energy.
The importance of this brief clip reverberated in a massive way. I was 10 upon seeing this, heading towards puberty, towards the cognitive level of revolting against everything. This was a sonic representation of revolution for me. Capitalizing upon this clip I bought "Are You Experienced," the 1997 reissue, and let it open my mind. Any personal sensibilities I have I probably wouldn't have had had it not been for Hendrix (the uses of "have" and "had" are deliberate, by the way).
To get on track, however, this brief clip was imperative in sending me towards art by getting me interested in playing guitar.
Seeing Hendrix automatically makes you want to play guitar. There's no getting around it. I would find objects to use in place of guitar. I had no conception of how to play guitar. I had an old Harmony hardware store guitar that I received one Christmas. I tried to figure out how to play without knowing about chords. I thought people had unique chords that differed for each song as opposed to the same chords like G, E, etc. I had one string and I would make noise on it, focusing more on how to look than how to play. Of course I tried to play left handed. When I discovered Led Zeppelin, I would find our step-ladder, fold it flat, and pretend to play "Stairway to Heaven" using the legs as the 12 string and 6 string necks of Jimmy Page's double necked guitar. I would sift through Sears and JC Penny catalogs to look at the cheap ass rip off guitars, the Harmony's. I would eventually break my Harmony, trying to emulate Hendrix, while listening to "Fire."
My father, perhaps being annoyed at how into Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and other artists I was learning about after we got satellite tv with VH1, gave in after 5th grade when I was 11. My dad was cheap and he saw through my older sister the flaw of investing a lot of money into something that might turn out to be a phase. That was fair and he decided to get me a cheap Santa Rosa guitar, a Fender acoustic knock-off, from Habersham Hardware. He wanted me to learn acoustic before electric. He argued that Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix learned acoustic before electric. He probably didn't want to hear me making horrible noise without amplification. I know this because as soon as I got the guitar I started to try and play it, with my father coming into my room to tell me to stop until I learned guitar from our next-door neighbor, who taught lessons. Wonderful.
As soon as I started taking lessons I practiced incessantly, trying to make something out of the tabs at the end of my Guitar World magazines which I started buying every month. I would record myself using cassette tapes to hear what I was doing. I had to learn six songs before my father would buy me an electric guitar. In reality, he didn't have the heart to tell me that he didn't have the money for it yet. As six songs passed I didn't get an electric guitar. Still, I fell in love. All I wanted for Christmas was CD's: the Jimi Hendrix Box-Set that had come out as the 30th anniversary of his death loomed, Led Zeppelin's Greatest Hits from 1973-1980, and AC/DC CD's. My mom threw in a Guitar World in my stocking.
In my daily life I would listen to the radio and record songs I liked, those that were hard rock but not shit like Limp Bizkit and Korn.With a project in class to do a survey I asked people their favorite artist. Mine was Jimi Hendrix, naturally, though I wavered at the time with Led Zeppelin. I would make 100 Greatest Artists lists like VH1 did, but have my own artists. I would call Rock 101 WORQ to make requests. I would use VHS tapes to record "Rock Show" at midnight, Behind the Music specials on bands I liked, etc.
In conjunction with this learning of guitar, this immersion into music, I underwent a painful period of my life. I was different and I could feel how different I was. To give an example, I remember in 7th grade undergoing a Geography BEE, a subject I knew well, and once I was in the final round with two people left the other individual beat me and everyone cheered that other person specifically for beating me. During the round when we faced off I was cheered against, with disgust in the faces of people anytime I answered one right. To feel like everyone was rooting against you felt awful. I had no comprehension as to how to deal with my obesity (I weigh the same now as I did in 7th grade) and it was a source of frustration, with insults hitting me hard for being fat. This fatness also lead to rejection in the female arena. I was secular in a school full of devout Christians who would write in my friend's and my yearbooks "Christ died for your sins" because I didn't go to church and I preferred Iron Maiden to DC Talk. Going to school in my first day my initial thoughts were "I need to find people to be in a band with me." As the year progressed it became about how to get out. Getting into fights was common and I thought about individuals I knew I might have to fight. I still remember the names of some of those bullies (though I don't think about them too often). I was depressed. Frankly, I was 11 and 12 and thinking of suicide and awful, awful thoughts. The help wasn't there from other teachers who couldn't give me the proper attention due to swelling class sizes.
Of course now, as I am a substitute teacher (and actually like subbing for this school--which has drastically changed) I have the perspective to understand a lot of people went through my similar experiences. A lot of people had it worse because they had parents who were inconsistent, parents and cousins who got them involved in drugs, etc. That being said I also see this as the beginning point of my confidence issues, issues that still exist in me. It was during this point that I began to withdraw and become miserably shy. I don't know how biological some of my problems like introversion, depression, social anxiety were. There was no way I was going to get professional help or even help from my parents.
Home life wasn't much different. My parents were in the throes of a horrible period. My father was erratic in his emotional mood swings, which usually swung to the point of anger. I was in fear of my father. He was working over 40 hours (usually 50-60 hours) and financially we were growing to more debt. I still haven't forgiven my father as to how he acted because he put his frustrations on my sister and myself. With my mother, her time was hard because her mother, my grandmother was dying. She would die of breast cancer in 2001, which devastated the family and myself. Our extended family broke apart and even now rarely keep in touch.
I survived because of guitar.
In sixth grade I had no friends. The closest person to a friend was a guy I knew who liked KISS like I did that had way shittier parents than I did. Calling him meant hearing his mom scream and him scream (I think his mom may be a registered sex offender now). Going to school was wretched because I had to deal with people I didn't like. Going home was wretched because I had to deal with my family who would yell everyday, screeching me away.
Guitar was all I had at that time. My guitar teacher, who became something of a mentor to me, wanted to know what I wanted to learn. Because I fell in love with Hendrix I wanted to learn how to play the blues. He taught me scales, blues licks, and I would go home and play these incessantly. The reason I didn't end up using a pair of scissors to stab at my arms (which happened to someone I knew who was equally depressed) was because I came home and I practiced the blues. I'd like to think my taste in Delta Blues, Chicago Blues, R&B/Soul, and even Hip Hop came from this. It's the music of outcasts who grow up in working class environments.
Guitar was constructive. It required the ability to learn, the ability to focus. It required self-discipline, practice. It was a cathartic action, a lightning rod of my frustration.
I can remember my first electric guitar. A guitar shop opened up finally in Habersham County that didn't sell awful hardware store guitars. My father bought me a Squier Telecaster, a Peavey amplifier and later I went and got AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." Throughout that day I tinkered and played with my guitar, playing so much that my dad had to come into my room and ask me to stop because it was too late. This was the pinnacle of my obsession with music and guitar.
How music went beneath other interests was something I've thought about. For one, I am a visually kinetic learner. I respond more to visual stimulation, to touching and feeling. Once I discovered movies and books that were on par with Hendrix, I suppose I drew my focus in those pursuits. Another thing was that my parents decided my sister and I were fighting too much. Much of my music knowledge came from VH1 and MTV2 which I was rabid about watching. As a punishment they set parental blocks on those channels. The parental blocks my mom set in went into effect during They Might Be Giants' "Boss of Me," during MTV2's Control Freak. I actually cried when that happened, I must admit, because I didn't feel it was fair with those blocks as those channels were my primary viewing whereas my sister had other channels she watched. This led me into ESPN which put me into football and hockey (and the football team) for awhile as well as TCM and AMC which led me to movies.
That being said, I haven't broken away from guitar. Guitar is a hobby for me, but one that I have a special love for. I eventually found friends who are almost always musicians and therefore we jam. I would learn how to play as part of a band and once over my shyness I was in a band, if briefly. I need guitar now as much as I needed it then.
Though writing is where I am at and what I've realized I am destined to do, I wouldn't have reached his point if not for guitar. My family wasn't an arts family. We didn't go to shows, barely went to movies, and music was something in the periphery. My interest was primarily history at that time, not art. Seeing Jimi Hendrix play "Rock Me Baby" helped me dive into art as a way to constructively understand my well-being. I would've never considered majoring in Theatre, writing, or anything if not for allowing guitar to teach me how important my life was.
This is important because this is what art does. Art exists because it helps individuals understand how to place value in existence, into surviving. It's why I tell people to learn instruments when I see them struggling in my classroom, or when they are making tapping noises on the desk, or showing a lack of focus. It's why I allow students to draw in class after they've finished work if they don't want to read or do worksheets (despite many teachers advising against it). Their lives will be saved through art.
My life was saved because of guitar, because of Jimi Hendrix.
