All is Not Lost (When Death Comes Knockin’)

While writing about the electric guitar and about Hendrix and Vaughan seemed like it would provide enough material for an entire chapter, when I arrived at the lesson for this chapter (i.e., the greats create and destroy) then I had to grapple with what exactly the “greats” were creating and what they were destroying. Artists who break new ground smash existing paradigms and expectations for their mode of expression. They understand the past (i.e., how a particular style came to be) in such a way that they are aware not only of all that has been tried artistically but also of those things or paths that have yet to be explored. These groundbreaking artists see the whole picture while we only see a small fraction of the image. Thus, it could be that the destruction occurs only in the mind of the observer because what we perceive as “smashing” may simply be a broadening of our collective understanding of what is possible.

We know that Vaughan’s guitar playing was influenced in part by Hendrix’s so maybe if we can identify what draws us (including Vaughan) to Hendrix then maybe we can better understand the dynamic that is at play. I keep coming back to a couple of recordings of Hendrix’s that come from a “rarities” LP that I recorded from a friend who bought it during an excursion to Haight & Ashbury looking for rare recordings and bootlegs. I have not been able to find these particular versions of these songs on any Jimi Hendrix collections that are available on CD (but I would love to have them if they ever became available). The two songs are “Midnight Lightning” and “Peace Mississippi.”

It is important to note that Hendrix might have recorded several versions of a song before finalizing the lyrics and the music. The two songs I am discussing certainly fall into this category. The versions that spoke to me were not ultimately the versions included in studio albums or subsequent compilations. The first song, “Midnight Lightning,” was included in the album South Saturn Delta. So, this was a version selected by Hendrix himself. This version I will refer to as the 1970 version, and the version I like I’ll refer to as the 1969 version. The part of the 1969 recording that piqued my interest is absent in the 1970 version. In the 1969 version of the song, Hendrix talks about how in the middle of the night he sees these blue flashes of lightning. In the song, he doesn’t really get at what these flashes of lightning actually signify except that he thinks that something beautiful is happening and he’d like his darling to wake up and experience it too.

In the 1969 version, Hendrix doesn’t speak of anyone being with him when these lightning flashes are occurring. He’s alone, surrounded by lightning and mesmerized by the experience. I believe that this “Midnight Lightning” he’s describing is the creative process itself, and it was a process that he wanted to share with others, so he brought in the idea of waking someone up in the middle of the night to share it with them. I think Herbert Worthington, a friend of Jimi’s, put it well when he was interviewed in the documentary, Jimi Hendrix: The Uncut Story, and stated that Hendrix was about “understanding things for what they are and giving it back to us” and that “Jimi accepted that responsibility.” This statement led me to what I believe turns out to be a pivotal clue about why artists do what they do.

As I’ve alluded to previously, rock ‘n roll artists have decided to assume a very risky profession that brings fame and more but also the perils (or thrills) of sex and drugs. I think it is easy to think that it’s the thrills that keep the artists going, but I think that creative expression ends up playing a much bigger role in the decision to stay in the profession. In a second documentary, Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Chile, which is told using interviews of Hendrix and letters that he penned himself, Hendrix talks about the importance of love, harmony, and freedom. He talks about being “free to live.” Thus, we begin to understand that Hendrix came to understand or identify those things in life that truly matter and actually sought to express these ideas in his music.

Given this assessment, the way I’ve come to terms with why many great rock ‘n roll musicians have died is that they were in one of two camps: those who knew “truth’ (about what matters most in life) and sought to share it and those to sought to know “truth.” You could say it’s the life of excess that led to the demise of these great artists, but it could be that the excesses pursued by these artists made the difficult parts of the creative journey more palatable and/or bearable. While there aren’t many of us who would say we have known “THE” truth, I would argue that Hendrix was one of those rare individuals who did know truth on some fundamental level. He was such a young person who achieved such a deep level of understanding that it appears to an outside observer that this connection with the truth was an innate talent of sorts.

Vaughan conveyed something about his life experience that was drastically different from Hendrix. Vaughan shared what most rock ‘n roll artists share in some way … the hardships of life. Vaughan and his music resonated with us because we could relate some of our own experiences to what he was sharing in his songs. At his concerts, he would just play his heart out. He “left it all out on the court or out on the field” to use a sports analogy. The intensity of his playing offered him an opportunity to release some of the pent up feelings of frustration with life and love that he may have been experiencing. At the same time, our witnessing that release made us appreciate the fact that he was confessing (or “truth-telling” as I prefer to see it).

The difference in the truth telling by Vaughan and the truth-telling by Hendrix is that Vaughan was sharing something true and real about himself while Hendrix was sharing something true and real about the very nature of reality. When you see Hendrix being interviewed about something that happened that he dislikes or is frustrating to him, he isn’t bent out of shape. He maintains his calm demeanor no matter what, as if to project this idea that those things that he is frustrated with don’t really matter. It might not be unreasonable to suggest that music is the only thing that mattered to him, but I think it goes beyond that. It’s as if through writing and performing music, he was able to gain knowledge about the true nature of things. The things that appear to perturb Hendrix the most are things that limit creative experiences and expression.

There is a quote in the Vaughan biography by Joe Nick Patowski & Bill Crawford (Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire) that I read where Stevie poses the question to someone, “I don’t know why [Jimi] died and I am still alive, going through a lot of the same problems.” This comment is in reference to the fact that Vaughan was able to bounce back from the downward spiral induced by drugs that put his career at risk. He was able to get clean from drugs, get a new lease on life and jump start his career. In my opinion, some of Vaughan’s best song writing is on display after he emerged from drug rehab. He just seemed grateful to have been given a second chance and wanted to convey something useful about his experience to folks who were going through similar trials. I would argue that people who pay attention to what influential people are doing don’t mind those celebrities sharing with the general population about how life sucks and is difficult. When an artist like Jimi Hendrix starts speaking truth about politics, war, and the nature of reality, then that appears to come across as more threatening to someone. Could that be a reason why Vaughan got a second chance (albeit a short lived second chance) but Hendrix did not?

To finish my examination of Hendrix and Vaughan, I’ll do an examination of the song “Little Wing” which is one of the most popular songs and most covered songs written by Jimi Hendrix. My interpretation of the Jimi Hendrix version (1967) of “Little Wing,” is that of a fairy type being who comes to comfort him from time to time. These visits by Little Wing make Hendrix feel special since he has this thing going with this supernatural being who possesses special powers, particularly the power to bring him joy and to help him fly away (i.e., “ride with the wind”). She is so committed to him that she’ll allow him to “take anything’ that he needs or wants. Who really offers themselves up to another in that way? It reminds me of the sentiment in “The Giving Tree” story except in this case it appears that the relationship is more symbiotic and not destructive.

The Jimi Hendrix version of “Little Wing” can bring a tear to your eye, depending on how you are feeling at the particular time when you are listening to the song, but the Vaughan version (1991) can be devastating (in a good way, if that’s possible) in terms of its emotional impact if you are feeling even a wee bit vulnerable. It is an instrumental (almost 7 minutes long) version of the song that so masterfully captures the range of feelings Hendrix just barely touched on in the two and a half minute version of the original recording. I attribute this intensity to a couple of things: the incredible influence that Jimi Hendrix had on Vaughan (and Vaughan’s heartfelt desire to express his gratitude); and the issue to which I alluded earlier about Vaughan feeling like he had been given a second chance at life whereas Hendrix did not get a second chance.

Even though I feel that Vaughan’s version of the song can be interpreted as celebrating the Little Wing conceived or experienced by Hendrix, I think the sentiment in Vaughan’s interpretation of the song can almost be interpreted as an homage to Hendrix himself. It is almost as if Hendrix himself has become Little Wing for Stevie Ray. I say this only because Hendrix holds a singular place in my heart and soul. His music has a uniquely intense impact on me and a quality that remains unmatched in my mind. It is almost as if Hendrix has become a patron saint for rock ‘n rollers who seek to find peace or peace of mind. My feeling is that anyone who appreciates real music (i.e., musical sounds produced by real people playing real instruments) will be blown away by what Jim Hendrix accomplished in his brief period as a rock superstar. I think one can be blown away solely by the sounds Hendrix invented. When you couple that with the fact that he composed the lyrics to the music he recorded and sang his own songs, creating a most distinctive sound, then one cannot help but marvel at the genius. His musical style, his style of dress, and the way he articulated himself made Hendrix a most impressive individual. I will end by noting that if there was a guitar player that most closely resembles the things I’ve just describe about Jimi Hendrix, it is most likely Vaughan. May they all RIP!

What about other iconic figures of rock ‘n roll who passed before their time? What does what I’ve just described in my comparison of Hendrix and Vaughan suggest about groups such as Led Zeppelin, The Doors, AC/DC, and Metallica? With these four bands we have two examples of bands that disbanded after the loss of a band member and two examples of bands that decided to continue performing under the same name. I figured there was something to be gleaned by the fact that bands can grapple with a similar situation but make decisions that are diametrically opposed.

I arrived at two ideas that seem to come into play: the spirit of the band and the purpose of the band. These are issues that have probably never been articulated by the bands themselves, so please take this analysis as the opinion of just one fan. We know that all four of these bands are significant, and I will not attempt to count the ways in which they are significant since books have been written that do just that. I will try to keep the focus on the overarching themes of “spirit” and “purpose.”

I’ll start with Led Zeppelin because they reached the top of the hill of hard rock and, I would argue, have yet to be toppled. Their recordings represent one of the most impressive bursts of creative energy since they hit the scene. The band members were asked how they could possibly sustain the pace they were keeping in terms of producing albums and being on tour, and they would say that it was not sustainable and that they would keep it up as long as they could. I feel the idea that may have helped to prolong their success is that the purpose of the band was to celebrate life in the fullest sense. To be clear, I don’t mean to enjoy the good or happy things about life, but to appreciate the fact that life represents such a roller coaster ride. Their music covers the highs and the lows, the good and the bad, the raunchy and the tender, the humble and the arrogant, the mundane and the mystical, etc. This “band of joy” approach, which is the name of one of the bands Robert Plant was involved with prior to joining Led Zeppelin, may be one of the reasons they enjoyed such a long stretch of musical accomplishment. They were embracing life in the fullest sense, and”life” may appreciate being fully embraced. Yes, it came to a halt, but that’s what happens in life. Things that go up must come down. You just don’t know what is going to give, when it’s going to give, or what form the give will take.

The Doors are a little tougher nut to crack in terms of spirit and purpose. Like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the band predates Led Zeppelin and everything that came after Led Zeppelin, so they were a band of immense influence in terms of what was happening in the music scene when they were active and also from a historical point of view. I think that there is no denying that The Doors had a love of music and the creative process. They really pushed things to the limit lyrically in their songs and thematically/theatrically in their live shows. Their musical style was, for the most part, straight ahead rock ‘n roll when there wasn’t an epic tale being told, in which case the feel tended more towards the ethereal. In the classic book, No One Here Gets Out Alive, it becomes apparent that The Doors were experimenting with the musical styles and structures, and equally, with the impact that those styles and structures have on people during their live concerts. It’s almost as if the goal of the live performances was to elicit specific responses from the crowd that were not necessarily related to “have a rockin’ good time.” It seemed that the end goal at times was for a show to have a trance-inducing effect on participants. At other times, the goal of a live show was to work the crowd into a frenzy, which could be triggered given the frenetic social upheaval of the time (and the fact that the cops were not very fond of the band). I would argue that the approach taken by The Doors is quite distinct from the “embracing life in all of its fullness” spirit that I describe for Led Zeppelin.

The second set of bands to which I will devote some attention, AC/DC and Metallica, experienced the loss of a band member, but were able to remain mainstays of the hard rock scene for several decades afterwards. The question of why they were able to continue as a unit is a very personal and complex one. I, for one, am grateful that they did continue.

What I’ve come to believe about AC/DC’s and Metallica’s ability to persevere through the difficulties of losing a band member is the notion that the bands highlighted in this chapter have their own “spirit” or a “purpose” even though these things may not be explicit in any way.

I’ll start by considering the loss of AC/DC’s front man, Bon Scott, in 1980 (RIP). Scott died in February 1980, and AC/DC’s next album was recorded and released in July of that same year. The band was about to begin recording the album when Scott passed. They decided to release the album in tribute to Scott. One may wonder how the band could have moved on so quickly, and it is here that I argue that the idea of AC/DC was larger than one band member. Scott was most certainly the face of the band (coupled of course with the school boy look of Angus Young) but his persona is what stood out the most for fans and the thing that would be difficult to replace. He seemed to embody the rock ‘n roll lifestyle portrayed in the songs recorded by the band. I think the very thing that allowed the band to continue is that fact that they had already very clearly and consistently articulated in five albums what the band was about.

AC/DC was 100% about rock ‘n roll, the music and the attitude. No apologies. No reservations. As we saw in Chapter 2, they not only lived the lifestyle, they also described in very great detail the music and attitude of rock ‘n roll. They had already said a ton about what the band was about and the image that fans had of the band was based on the narrative that the band created for themselves. The lead singer tends to get so much more attention than other band members, so it is easy to assume that if the head of the unit is gone, then the unit has no focus. I think that what has emerged is a consistency in the band’s approach to making music that has an internal coherence. It leads me to believe that what AC/DC was at the time of Scott’s death was an idea of what they wanted the band to be. That idea had not died with Scott. The other band members were bought in to the idea 100% and thus the idea still had life. The criteria for bringing someone into the band would be if the person understood the idea behind the band. I think history has borne out that Brian Johnson was the right person to keep the idea of AC/DC alive.

We proceed along this highly dubious path to Metallica’s loss of their bass player, Cliff Burton, in 1986. Metallica had three albums under their belt, so they had not reached the milestone achieved by AC/DC (i.e., five albums released at the time of Scott’s death). It could be that Metallica’s identity may not have been cemented as much as AC/DC’s when they suffered their loss. I would note that Metallica had been steadily expanding their fan base and notoriety with each album and Master of Puppets, the album for which the band was touring when the tour bus accident happened, was a critically acclaimed album. Metallica was at the peak of their popularity at the time of Burton’s death. And even though Burton was the bass player and not the lead singer, he was integral part of the band. Burton was a highly skilled musician, so much so that Metallica included a track on their first full album that was a solo bass guitar instrumental. Yes, you read that correctly, an entire song featuring nothing but bass guitar. It was and probably still is unparalleled on so many different levels.

The members of Metallica made a pretty quick decision about whether or not to continue as a band, and clearly the decision was to proceed. They took a few months to audition bass players, picking Jason Newsted who was at the time a part of the group, Flotsam and Jetsam. The meteoric rise of the band continued unabated. The reason for which it was possible for them to not skip a beat I feel is quite different than it was for AC/DC.

As I described above, AC/DC had a well-defined image of what the band was about. I think that Metallica also had an image to which it could cling if it needed to find a reason to keep the band together. My sense is that they were not concerned with image so much as they were with continuing to serve as pioneers in this new musical genre called speed metal or thrash metal. Metallica had a purpose and Burton’s passing had not changed what was driving the band to do its thing. They made the decision to go full steam ahead and have amassed an amazing body of work as a result of their dogged determination.

In our discussion of how to assign meaning to the death of a talented artist, it seems more appropriate to everyone involved to look at the band as a unit and not the artists as individuals. Regardless of the role in the band played by the person who died, in the end they were part of a unit and there is great strength and potential in making the decision to sacrifice part of oneself to be a part of a collective. Unless the band mates are the best of friends from childhood, there will be an inherent tension present. Different people with different personalities will cope with such situations differently. Because acting as a collective is a better way for humans to behave than acting individually, I feel that the Universe rewards people just for simply trying to behave in this way. The longer you stick with it, the greater the rewards. If a band shows positive qualities and shares positive messages in the process of expressing their art/music, then this too is embraced by the Universe.

You may be asking, if death has entered the picture, then how is that a reward? My thinking is that some sort of tragedy could have come sooner without this approach to making music/art. It is clear from the “code of rock ‘n roll” from Chapter 2 that people who choose to be rock artists are driven by much more than pleasure and excess. We also find that rock ‘n roll artists exhibit loyalty to rock ‘n roll and to their band (Characteristic #5), exhibit courage for choosing a risky profession (Characteristic #6) and pursue their passions with passion (Characteristic #8). I would also argue that there is a fourth characteristic at play (#7): rock ‘n roll can show you the way to redemption, hope, inspiration, healing and your true self. In sharing their stories and experiences, rock ‘n roll artists are offering guidance to those who choose to listen. The message may be, “don’t do as I do because it may come at a great price,” but even this message is a powerful one.

The Destructive Part of Creation

What I am arguing in this book is that rock ‘n roll has played a critical role in helping me survive the madness of this world. Could it be that what is important about what rock ‘n roll artists are trying to do is that they are trying to help people? It seems illogical to argue this point when referring to a genre dominated by personalities and egos that are larger than life and often self-centered and self-serving. The important point here is not a stated or overt purpose of the artists, but the effect of what they do on others. Many times, you’ll hear artists in all genres of music say that they do what they do for the fans. So there is some measure of selflessness in the art being expressed. But what is it that artists are doing for us?

In the end, I believe that musicians and other artists are trying to help us to understand our world, our society, and our lives. It may not be that they have everything figured out. Most of us are nowhere close to actually having life figured out. However, when artists share what they like and dislike about what is happening around us, then it helps us come to grips with how WE are feeling. Whether we agree or disagree with what the artists are saying in their work, we begin to make sense of things for ourselves. The gift to us from the artist is increased understanding. With greater understanding comes the ability to make better decisions for ourselves and for the world around us. In the end, it appears to me that what these cutting edge artists are destroying is “the B.S. of life,” which is apropos because Principle #5 in “the Code of Rock ‘n Roll” states that rock ‘n roll despises all thing that are fake!

Daily Prayer 2

To the Creator and Our Lord Jesus Christ:
Thank you for this day.
Thank you for this life.
Thank you for all of the blessings you’ve given to me and my family.
Thank you, especially, for my family for without them I would not have been able to understand your love and your truth.

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References:

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga – Stephen Davis

No One Here Gets Out Alive – Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman

Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire – Joe Nick Patoski and Bill Crawford

Birth, School, Metallica, Death – Paul Branigan and Ian Winwood

Bon: The Last Highway – Jesse Fink

Jimi Hendrix: The Story Behind Every Song – David Stubbs

Jimi Hendrix Gear: The Guitars, Amps & Effects that Revolutionized Rock ‘n’ Roll – Michael Heatley