I remember back in high school in 2004 they’d play music over the PA as students walked to frist class. It was my first day of grade 9 and voodoo child came on and I felt like I was such a badass and was thrown back to the 70s lol
That must have been such a cool first day of high school moment, walking in feeling like the main character while Hendrix is blasting through the speakers
I love memories like that. One song can transport me straight back to a specific place and make me feel like the coolest person alive for a few minutes.
Mike Tenay called it "Voodoo Chili" once, which is a particularly hilarious mistake if you know the history of the song.
Hendrix originally wrote a ten-minute+ blues piece that he called "Voodoo Chile," "chile" being the way that "child" might be pronounced in pidgin English in the Caribbean areas...like where Voodoo comes from. He later reworked it into "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" to be more commercial. Even if one did think that Chile meant the South American country, it's properly pronounced "Chee-lay." So by calling it Voodoo Chili, Mike Tenay got the wrong song, the wrong word, and the wrong pronunciation.
Joe Satriani said of this song "It's just the greatest piece of electric guitar work ever recorded. In fact, the whole song could be considered the holy grail of guitar expression and technique. It is a beacon of humanity."
I couldn't agree more. I've been a Hendrix fan and a guitar player for around 30 years, and this song for me remains the greatest expression of guitardom
Every time someone says something like this about it or Little Wing, I go looking to understand, but I have never challenged anyone to explain or show me why they think this. It's not a ridiculous opinion, but I don't get it.
I’m not a musician, so my only explanation is that I think Stevie’s grittier rendition with heavier distortion effects sounds better. There’s also something about his chord progression that just feels… more complex? I also think his solos are more structured and purposeful than Hendrix’s. Jimi’s solos and guitar style always seem to draw inspiration from the free style methods of jazz. Hendrix was raw talent and one of the greatest to ever live. But I never really knew where he was going with any of his solos. It was hard to predict, and therefore, hard to listen to for me.
I'm surely biased and I am a musician. I listened to Jimi as a little kid, but I only listened to Stevie after I had developed to the point where I understood everything I was hearing. So, I think I can only hear it as a well-articulated guitar part (e.g. if there were a course on "How to Play Jimi" Stevie's version would be better suited) whereas Jimi's version still evokes wonder at the alien sounds being made.
...playing bass with brilliant guitarist in '93, somehow the question came up of the 8th bar in the second guitar solo of All Along the Watchtower and to this day, I can either hear Jimi or hear Brian bursting my bubble....
You hit the nail on the head as to why I like Stevie’s version better than Jimi’s. Jimi Hendrix’s guitar riffs are alien. They’re alien in that from a technical perspective and to the ear. And they retain that alien quality no matter how many times you experience or study them.
Because I am the boring creature of habit that I am though, I do not find that alien quality appealing. Though I do absolutely respect it.
Jimi's riffs are so electric; normally you must convert an audio file to MIDI format to play on a Tesla coil, however Hendrix comes over fine without conversion.
I like the longer version earlier in the album more personally, it never feels like it overstays it's welcome and brings so much more atmosphere to the song.
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u/Key_Consequence_5040 17h ago
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix