Taking Sides: Funkadelic vs. Jimi Hendrix

but what if, had jimi lived, he had gone down the path of disco too????

EEK!

Stay calm, Nate. Find a paper bag to breathe into. You're in your happy place.

Best Hazel perf I know of: 'Unfinished Instrumental' on a CD called 'Parliament: The Early Years'.

Now, what I would've loved to hear was Miles and Jimi, or Jimi replacing McLaughlin on the first Tony Williams fusion record. Bootleggers, get on it!

That aside, Id say Hendrix's lyrics werent as good, but then, most of Funkadelics were just about having the funk.

I say Funkadelic though, only cause Hendrix has been played to death... no pun intended

"Who says a funk band can't play rock?" Get thee to a listenin' of "Super Stupid" or "I Wanna Know If It's Good To You" (or, inversely, "Little Miss Lover" or "Changes").

That aside, Id say Hendrix's lyrics werent as good, but then, most of Funkadelics were just about having the funk.

What about "Funky Dollar Bill"? "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks"? "Jimmy's Got A Little Bit of Bitch In Him" (one of the few supposedly pro-gay songs from the early '70s)?

And as far as I know Jimi and Betty (unfortunately) never recorded anything together. Although if they did it probably would sound something like that trainwreck between Hendrix and Morrison...

Funkadelic had Bootsy Collins, which was the bass guitar's Hendrix.

No, his blues fixation was what anchored him... and grounded his "outer space" moments... you can't go "past" the blues... music is not some evolutionary progression...

That having been said: Hazel was an underachiever on his own who needed the rest of the P.Funk; Hendrix led his band, for better or worse. So rockists must always opt for Hendrix' "vision," as well as the fact that "Crosstown Traffic" rulezz.

And Jimi Hazel was a bad-ass too, but the music gods were offended at his name-appropriation and doomed 24-7 Spyz to a one-okay-album-then-obscurity career. You don't mess with the music gods like that.

"Motor Booty Affair"

Am I the only person who thinks they would have hooked up at some point, had Hendrix lived? They were both totally on the same trip.

I can't chose one over the other. Both made music too powerful for me to not be in love with. Hendrix, P-Funk, and Fishbone...this is my holy triumvirate, the epitomy of what is possible with music...booty-shaking, thought-provoking, sexy, spiritual, intense, everything I could want out of music. I can't call one over the other.

Oh yeah. Probbly. But what I'd really want to hear would Hendrix avec ragin', full-on electric Miles.

i agree w.julio that he and miles wd not have hit it off, though i doubt miles wd have been the loser: hendrix wz quite naive and gentle really, and miles wz a front-rank headfucker

well Hendrix apparently admired jazz musicians because of the ease they had with improvisation and the ability to read music even though he rather hear rock sounds. he apparently couldn't read music well.

on the other hand r. wyatt told a story of how a lot improv guitarisst were out to 'get' hendrix. Larry correll (can't spell it) improvised with hendrix once. Wyatt said that hendrix played within himself and kept doing that whereas correll kept doing feedback/working at all sorts of tricks to try and upstage him and eventually lost the plot.

yes it's the admiration thing that wd have got him i suspect, at least to start with (obv who knows if he'd had 20 yrs)

but they shouldnt be compared really. i dont hear anywhere near the same grounding in the blues in funkadelic as i do in hendrix. hazel was good, but he doesnt really sound like jimi either - he copies a lot from hendrix, but again, hendrix sounded like it was about 3 guys playing at once while hazel had a prettier, generally more melodic, less gritty tone and feel. and all in all, hendrix is just easily better than hazel!

its also pointless comparing the crew hazel played with as funkadelic were about 20 members deep live (considerably less on record, esp in the early days) while jimi generally only played with two other musicians (apart from woodstock but you never truly got to hear what everyone else was doing there thanks to stupid engineers).

its also worth noting that funkadelic used to tour with the stooges, mc5 and ted nugent in their early days, so they did have some rock cred.

(Hendrix vs. Hazel?...Hendrix, since aside from his chops, he occasionally proved himself to be also a fine songwriter, and (yep) singer, in the Dylan mold. And yet, and yet, Eddie Hazel in "Maggot Brain" took sheer acid-blues/rock gorgeousness to a whole 'nother level that Jimi never approached, except maybe in "Villanova Junction" at Woodstock. And I'd suggest that by the mid-70s Hazel had achieved a kind of natural fluidity that surpassed Hendrix, except that I'd sound pretentious and don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about.)

lotsa people say the problem with Jimi was the rhythm section dynamix--to me, it's good, but also a concession to the "rock audience" that Hendrix made, semi-consciously, consciously, I dunno. I like the later stuff with Billy Cox fine. "Blues"--well, it's blues, a lot of it, but obviously also a lot more than just that. Hendrix was a very subtle player and thinker, and I like the little touches he put into a lot of his later songs--the fine intro to "Night Bird Flying," etc. And I like his blues explorations like the awesome "Hear My Train a-Coming" on "Rainbow Bridge."

Funkadelic seems a different thang--apart from the early stuff, which has its moments but which I don't like as much as "One Nation" or "Electric Spanking." Artistic achievement seems about equal here; I do listen to Funkadelic a lot more than I do Hendrix these days.

My dream Jimi would've paired him with the Meters; certainly Davis; or how about JH with the Hi Rhythm Section, and Steve Cropper? That would've been the super-cool post-soul shit of my dreams.