Something 4 The Weekend # 94

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced?: "I Don't Live Today" [mp3]

As I'm sure you're aware, Mitch Mitchell, drummer in The Jimi Hendrix Experience, died in his sleep of natural causes last Wednesday, and I feel a bit guilty for taking more than a week to post anything about it...

And perhaps you think the song selection for this week's S4TW is crass and dishonorable, or a lame attempt at irony and possible cleverness, but rest assured, it's one of the better showcases for Mitch Mitchell's stellar skills, and just how important he was to Jimi Hendrix...

Hendrix was an extraordinary talent, but if he was truly going to soar, to reach his own artistic potential as a musician, he needed to play with others who were not only capable of "keeping up", but who could actually complement, enhance, and even improve what Hendrix was trying to do...And he had that in bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell...

But especially Mitchell...He blurred the line between rhythm and melody, the interplay of his snare and tom almost like a speaking voice, echoing Hendrix own vocals at times, other times skittering around the edges of the songs, filling in spaces with his own vibrant ideas and skills, bursting through the long strings of feedback with a rolling thunder of his own...Mitchell was a Jazz drummer in a Rock band, but somehow, The Jimi Hendrix Experience were neither Jazz nor Rock...There was Funk and R&B mixed in there, and Avant Garde tape manipulation and general studio trickery, all that feedback and noise exploration, and nobody else in the Pop/Rock world of 1967 were even close to doing stuff this singular...

Except for Zappa, I suppose, but this isn't about Frank...

This is about the first truly brilliant, legendary drummer in Rock history, Mitch Mitchell...May he rest in peace...

Hotcha! Hank