Post 29: What would Jimi and George have thought?
My colleague Ella sent me this interesting link the other day about Led Zeppelin who are about to unveil two previously unreleased albums of music. Apparently Jimmy Page has said he doesn’t want someone else to do it after he dies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27113822
It started me thinking about what Hendrix would have thought of that and, more saliently for us, what he would have thought of our little museum re-creating the room where he lived. For that matter would Handel have minded his whole house being over run with interested visitors?
Having mulled this over for a few days I have formed the opinion that on balance they would have enjoyed the fact that through their erstwhile living quarters their music was continuing to be introduced and enjoyed by more people. Both of them were showman and loved being in the limelight moreover I imagine they were keen to share their music. I am sure they valued private time but I don’t get the impression that they would have minded visitors popping around, indeed I think people frequently did.
Finally complaints of blog formatting have reached me, apparently you want to get right down into it and don’t particularly care whether I am enthused or not. So I have relocated my sound bites to the end of the blog and at least you can more easily avoid my trite-ness if necessary!
Comments
Any unreleased Hendrix material was systematically gone through and released after his death in a process that could only be described in the end as barrel scraping. As the stock of finished or nearly finished recordings and barely started outtakes and demos dried up ‘they’ resorted to linking up snippets of guitar playing using other guitarists to bridge the gap. I think Jimi would have been horrified at some of the stuff that got out which he never intended to see the light of day. ‘They’ ripped him off when he was alive and shamelessly carried on after he died. I can see where Jimmy Page is coming from.
On the other hand, I think Hendrix would love what you’re doing with his flat. From what I’ve read he always had plenty of guests round. Long may that continue!
Best regards
Paul
Jimi was quoted as once saying “when i die just keep playing the music”
So i doubt he’d have minded