Video Sunday – Jimi Hendrix

I’m going down to Yasgurs farm, think I’ll join a rock ‘n roll band…

This week, in one of those “and in other news” news items on the radio, Jimi Hendirx’s “Voodoo Chile” guitar riff was voted the best guitar riff of all time by a completely random music publication in an equally random and probably not-very scientific poll.

However, because I agree with the result of the poll without having to think too hard about it at all, here is the aforementioned Voodoo Chile as performed at Woodstock in 1969, a time long, long ago when the biggest gig in the history of the world could be organised on the whim of someone who simply hired a farmers field for a weekend, simple times when you had no need to pay heed to such things as Health and Safety laws, or even the need to feed and refresh your audience, for they’d bring their own food and drugs water.

This little tune of Mr Hendrix’s hit the UK singles chart at this time of year in 1970 and featured on our Neds “Top of the Pops” album at christmas of that year, an album which had appeared to be such a bargain when we spotted it in the racks in Lewis’s record department, but which ultimately proved to be a severe disappointment when we got it home to find that the artists performing that years number one singles were not the original artists but in fact the sort of “turns” that our dad watched at his local club every saturday night, in fact our dad swore that he recognised the singer who sang Dave Edmunds “I Hear You Knocking” on the Top of the Pops album.

The Top of the Pops album version of Voodoo Chile was performed by a 62 year old music hall ukulele player by the name of Archie Crighton – true story.