Hendrix's bass players: Noel Redding and Billy Cox. Ok Thread... agree with the OP... the rest you'll find a bunch of people making up stuff... some probably know what they are talking about and some are likely dudes that repeat rumors that aren't true.
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/hendri...x.1142330/
Actually, I'm surprised that none of the other members have taken up Redding's cause. If Redding's judged solely by how good the songs he played bass on are, it's not much of a contest. But theoretically, a bass player on a pop album could just be a hired gun and have no control over the creation of the music, just as a bass player could be a major contributor and have a significant tangible or intangible impact on albums, as you propose. Since I'm in the pro-Cox camp, I'm impressed that so many members are knowledgeable about Hendrix' career and have been willing to look beyond the surface of the songs, judge the bass playing on its merits, and take a wealth of different factors into consideration. Didn't mean to pile on -- I didn't see Romanelli's post till after I posted mine (though I do happen to agree with him).
Seth, except for Jack Cassady playing bass on Voodoo Chile, all of my personnel information comes from the Hendrix bio Electric Gypsy by Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek. It has a 144-page discography that gives detailed information about personnel on the official albums... and over 100 bootlegs. (It's madness that they even attempted to list all the Hendrix bootlegs -- I wouldn't wish that chore on my worst enemy.) It also has appendices that try to list all the guitars and effects Hendrix used and all of his concert dates. Before today, I only knew that Hendrix played bass on 1983: A Merman I Should Turn to Be, but I'd heard he'd played bass on some of the other tracks on Electric Ladyland though he's not credited on the cover. The discography doesn't mention Redding playing guitar on Crosstown Traffic -- though of course Hendrix created a kazoo-like sound using a comb and paper, and Dave Mason's one of the background singers.
I spent well over an hour researching for my post -- I went through the personnel listings of every single track on the three Experience albums in that discography -- so even though that doesn't 100% prove the validity of my information, please don't dismiss it as careless liner notes or internet gossip. I'm not offended, just want balanced treatment.
You haven't commented on Noel Redding only playing on 5 tracks out of 16 on Electric Ladyland. It's usually considered the second best if not the best Experience album, so that's a major reduction of his perceived track record. He didn't dig the disorganized scene at the Electric Ladyland studio and he started Fat Mattress in 1968, so the seeds of his departure were already planted early in the Electric Ladyland sessions.
I like Cox's playing quite a bit better. Think his funky, more fundamentally sound playing adds a dimension to the Band of Gypsys album that's not present on the Experience records. Redding more or less gets the job done, but is basically invisible, which might be appropriate some of the time, but doesn't add much value. Like I said, if the New Experience had been given the chance to jell the way the original Experience did, and Hendrix wasn't beginning to deteriorate as he was during his last European tour, I think they would've become a consistently better band.
Seth, though I don't agree with your proposition, I'm very happy you posted a substantive thread about a pre-90s artist.
Actually, I'm surprised that none of the other members have taken up Redding's cause. If Redding's judged solely by how good the songs he played bass on are, it's not much of a contest. But theoretically, a bass player on a pop album could just be a hired gun and have no control over the creation of the music, just as a bass player could be a major contributor and have a significant tangible or intangible impact on albums, as you propose. Since I'm in the pro-Cox camp, I'm impressed that so many members are knowledgeable about Hendrix' career and have been willing to look beyond the surface of the songs, judge the bass playing on its merits, and take a wealth of different factors into consideration. Didn't mean to pile on -- I didn't see Romanelli's post till after I posted mine (though I do happen to agree with him).
Seth, except for Jack Cassady playing bass on Voodoo Chile, all of my personnel information comes from the Hendrix bio Electric Gypsy by Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek. It has a 144-page discography that gives detailed information about personnel on the official albums... and over 100 bootlegs. (It's madness that they even attempted to list all the Hendrix bootlegs -- I wouldn't wish that chore on my worst enemy.) It also has appendices that try to list all the guitars and effects Hendrix used and all of his concert dates. Before today, I only knew that Hendrix played bass on 1983: A Merman I Should Turn to Be, but I'd heard he'd played bass on some of the other tracks on Electric Ladyland though he's not credited on the cover. The discography doesn't mention Redding playing guitar on Crosstown Traffic -- though of course Hendrix created a kazoo-like sound using a comb and paper, and Dave Mason's one of the background singers.
I spent well over an hour researching for my post -- I went through the personnel listings of every single track on the three Experience albums in that discography -- so even though that doesn't 100% prove the validity of my information, please don't dismiss it as careless liner notes or internet gossip. I'm not offended, just want balanced treatment.
You haven't commented on Noel Redding only playing on 5 tracks out of 16 on Electric Ladyland. It's usually considered the second best if not the best Experience album, so that's a major reduction of his perceived track record. He didn't dig the disorganized scene at the Electric Ladyland studio and he started Fat Mattress in 1968, so the seeds of his departure were already planted early in the Electric Ladyland sessions.
I like Cox's playing quite a bit better. Think his funky, more fundamentally sound playing adds a dimension to the Band of Gypsys album that's not present on the Experience records. Redding more or less gets the job done, but is basically invisible, which might be appropriate some of the time, but doesn't add much value. Like I said, if the New Experience had been given the chance to jell the way the original Experience did, and Hendrix wasn't beginning to deteriorate as he was during his last European tour, I think they would've become a consistently better band.
Seth, though I don't agree with your proposition, I'm very happy you posted a substantive thread about a pre-90s artist.
RE: internet gossip
I totally wasn't suggesting your post was, rather the talkbass.com forum often is filled with stuff like that. Musicians are the best fibbers. And I did credit you as having a more thoughtful response.
RE: every recording dun did chronicled
That's pretty awesome source material. Do they credit each recording for each instrument? I was just speaking to the point that many early albums did not credit the artist actually recording. Like, I don't see Carol Kaye on my Pet Sounds record... but I've heard she recorded on it (or most of the Beach Boys stuff). I was just speaking to that point that many session musicians, etc. never got credited. The vocals on the great gig in the sky, for example. Or the hang drum and tabla for any of the Beatles music (I'm 90% sure George Harrison plays the citar, but Ringo or anyone else in the band didn't master any Indian instruments). Anyway, I was just speaking to that. Heck even Smashing Pumpkins doesn't credit Billy Corgan for all the instruments except for drums on Siamese Dream, but he did it... that's all I'm speaking to... is if "the gospel truth" is from liner notes, you likely are misleading yourself.
BUT - if someone did some source material that was legit (published in a book also doesn't always equal legit), then that's an awesome resource. If it does list each musician and what role they played, and you trust it as a good source, I'd trust that over anything I read on the internet... hehe.
Do you have any tracks to show the bass prowess of Cox that you dig more than anything Noel did?
Also, I think this conversation wasn't really what I was going for, but I'll take it. I was speaking to the synergy Noel created in the band as someone who had a hard work ethic and potentially had more creative influence than liner notes give him credit for and I'm basing this off him suing the estate for much of the credit of later songs the Hendrix family released as Jimi's work, but actually was co-written material. Nobody really has spoken to this point, rather the point of if they like Noel or not.
RE: every recording dun did chronicled
Do they credit each recording for each instrument?
Yes.
Quote:
I was just speaking to the point that many early albums did not credit the artist actually recording. Like, I don't see Carol Kaye on my Pet Sounds record... but I've heard she recorded on it (or most of the Beach Boys stuff). I was just speaking to that point that many session musicians, etc. never got credited. The vocals on the great gig in the sky, for example. Or the hang drum and tabla for any of the Beatles music (I'm 90% sure George Harrison plays the citar, but Ringo or anyone else in the band didn't master any Indian instruments). Heck even Smashing Pumpkins doesn't credit Billy Corgan for all the instruments except for drums on Siamese Dream, but he did it... that's all I'm speaking to... is if "the gospel truth" is from liner notes, you likely are misleading yourself.
BUT - if someone did some source material that was legit (published in a book also doesn't always equal legit), then that's an awesome resource. If it does list each musician and what role they played, and you trust it as a good source, I'd trust that over anything I read on the internet... hehe.
True that being in a book doesn't automatically make something gospel. There's no Hendrix sessionography online that I can find -- pretty shocking -- so this the best I have access to, though there are other books that may be as good or better.
Your Billy Corgan example is similar to the Electric Ladyland situation. Hendrix' bass playing isn't credited in the liner notes at all, but he plays bass on either 5 or 7 tracks.
Quote:
Also, I think this conversation wasn't really what I was going for, but I'll take it. I was speaking to the synergy Noel created in the band as someone who had a hard work ethic and potentially had more creative influence than liner notes give him credit for and I'm basing this off him suing the estate for much of the credit of later songs the Hendrix family released as Jimi's work, but actually was co-written material. Nobody really has spoken to this point, rather the point of if they like Noel or not.
Well, people can only talk about synergy if there's evidence of synergy and people know about it. I know Redding hated disorder, but I don't know if pushing Hendrix to record more in the studio counts.
There's a reason no one has discussed Redding's lawsuit. He threatened to sue, but he never actually did -- he died three months later. The lawsuit threat wasn't close to being widely covered, so most people including me didn't know about it. Since it happened in 2003, it's totally understandable that you didn't remember all the details.
It took some digging, but I think I found as much information as is available online, and Wikipedia provided or pointed me to all of it. Redding threatened to sue Experience Hendrix a year before it released The Experience Sessions, a compilation of unreleased alternate takes etc. It included alternate takes of She's So Fine and Little Miss Strange. It also included an unreleased song, Dream, that Redding wrote and played guitar on. It also has a live version of Red House, which Wikipedia says Redding played rhythm guitar on. However, since he played the bass part on the studio version of Red House on the low strings of a regular guitar, my hypothesis is that he probably didn't play "rhythm" but instead played the bass part on a guitar on the live version too. After all, who else would've been playing bass on Red House during an Experience concert?
I also learned that Redding wrote and played guitar on another unreleased song, Dance, that's not on the compilation, and that Hendrix allegedly used Redding's guitar part as the basis for Ezy Rider. And Redding also felt the riff became the basis for the "Midnight" riff. So that may be what you were thinking of when you said that Redding helped write a song he didn't get credit for. However, those both appeared on posthumous releases, so that doesn't support the idea that he contributed more to the synergy of the Experience's three albums than he's gotten credit for (though it's a good example of how complicated boiling down the creative process into credits can be).
Also found this:
"Redding also believed he deserved compositional credit for what he contributed to 'Remember' and 'My Friend.'"
The same Wikipedia that provided me or directed me to this information also -- yeah, I'm repeating myself here -- also states that Hendrix wrote all the songs on Are You Experienced (the U.S. track version) before showing them to Mitch Mitchell and Redding in the studio (Chas Chandler wanted it that way), and that Chandler "directed" Redding's bass parts.
Quote:
Do you have any tracks to show the bass prowess of Cox that you dig more than anything Noel did?
A few half truths and unfinished recordings totally paint a full picture of my hypothesis, huh?
Thanks for totally debunking that theory. It was a half baked thought and clearly is wrong (mostly from your point about the whole album being written and parts were just shown to both). Which kind of goes back to me thinking Jimi Hendrix really was more of a solo artist, even if a while back it was the BEA consensus he wasn't in a different thread.
None of that was sarcasm, I really do appreciate you clarifying all those points.
If you can, I am interested in the Cox recordings you dig, even if it's a bit of moot point... the reason the bass was so good (one might argue) actually was because Jimi Hendrix wrote the part and possibly even catered the tone I like so much... and maybe since Cox was an old buddy, he wanted him to have more creative control on tone, etc... I don't know, just speculating.
your point about the whole album being written and parts were just shown to both). Which kind of goes back to me thinking Jimi Hendrix really was more of a solo artist, even if a while back it was the BEA consensus he wasn't in a different thread.
Protecting Hendrix's vision was Chas Chandler's paramount goal after his experience with in The Animals, where he felt everyone's vision ended up being compromised eventually. After the U.S. tracks of Are You Experienced were recorded, Mitchell and Redding were shown songs earlier in the process. It seems like Axis: Bold is Love, the 5 Experience tracks on Electric Ladyland and some of the the non-U.S. Are You Experienced and Smash Hits tracks are the closest thing to Experience band music. And, according to Redding, he helped write "Remember," which is one of the non-U.S. Are You Experienced tracks. Also, assuming Redding's claims are true, Ezy Rider's the most popular track on Cry of Love and Midnight's a badass instrumental, the closest Jimi ever came to metal (wonder if he intended it to have lyrics).
There well may have been more synergy with Redding as well as Mitchell in the Experience, but sometimes there's just no public information -- and since all of the principals are dead, likely no new information's forthcoming.
I'd be interested to read that BEA thread about whether Hendrix was more of a solo artist or collaborative artist.
According to Redding, Hendrix didn't want him to leave when he resigned. On the other hand, Hendrix originally wanted Billy Cox to come with him to England when Chandler offered to be his manager with the plan to launch Hendrix's career in England, but Cox didn't have a fully-working bass at the time and couldn't afford the ticket.
Seth, though there are many nice folks on here, Your genial, diplomatic style while posting frequently is unique and I've always appreciated it. Though I always avoid personal attacks online, I can be a vigorous debater and a little (more than a little?) stubborn.
Last edited by PurpleHazel on 06/06/2019 00:16; edited 1 time in total
Post subject: Re: Blasphemy! Noel Redding synergy to Jimi Hendrix
Romanelli wrote:
sethmadsen wrote:
You know I've listened to a bit of Jimi Hendrix (in a few different forms) lately, and maybe it was the drugs, but I really think Jimi Hendrix took a decent nose dive after Noel Redding no longer was in the band.
Please internet, shoot all my thoughts down and chew them up as your own distortion field of reality! You are my only hope.
Dude...Noel Redding? He was dropped from the Experience in favor of the far superior Billy Cox, and Hendrix started playing a much more adventurous and complex music that Redding was not suited for at all. And remember that Hendrix picked Redding in the first place because he had a good attitude and GOOD HAIR. Redding also insisted on having junk like this included on Experience releases (held together only by the playing of Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell):
The rest of Redding's career speaks for itself. As for what you hear as deficiencies in the songs released after Redding left?
1) Nothing they did with Redding was experimental in any way compared to pretty much everything he did after he was gone.
2) Redding's impact on Hendrix as a songwriter was pretty much nothing. And Redding's own songs were pretty much the reason he was never a good frontman.
3) Soul? I am not hearing how, in any way, Jimi's white bass player was the anchor of soul in the group...it was Mitchell who provided the jazz beats, Hendrix who provided the soul, and Redding who played the simplest of bass lines in the middle of it all.
4) "We settled"? Remember that much of what you hear of Hendrix post-Experience was either live with a new bassist or material that was released either posthumously completed or unfinished. There were no post-Experience studio albums released while he was alive.
But if you're joking...good one!
Have to agree with this whole thing basically, especially as the first thing I thought of when reading Seth's original post was how much I don't really care for Little Miss Strange. No disrespect to Noel, he played with Jimi in the first place after all, but it's hard for me not to think anyone could have made the Experience even more musically interesting. With Hendrix and Mitchell though, Noel was all that was needed. _________________ Attention all planets of the solar federation: We have assumed control.
Likewise PurpleHazel - great points made and never in a condescending tone which is always a plus. Good discussion making points for sure and more importantly better data to back it up .
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