RacersReunionRadio: Brian Lohnes & John Cerchio on September 17!

Bill Pratt
@bill-pratt
12 years ago
460 posts

Join us on Monday night, September 17, as we chat with Brian Lohnes from Bangshift.com, the crazy Internet startup that has distinguished itself by providing live Internet video feeds of of nostalgia drag races. We also will interview John Cerchio, the popular nostalgia funny car racer who pays tribute to Dale Pulde with his beautiful "Warpath" Buick Regal.

And in possibly our last show to feature music, John Bockelman features JIMI HENDRIX and we play three hours of Jimi's best tunes on the Racin' & Rockin' After Party! Join us to start your week off right!

Racin' & Rockin' with Draglist.com
MONDAYS, 8-10 PM Eastern Time
(7-9 Central, 6-8 Mountain, 5-7 Pacific)
REPLAY: 8am and 2pm EST on Tuesdays

LISTEN ON THE INTERNET:

http://zeusradio.ning.com/page/racersreunion-radio

TOLL FREE CALL IN: 1-877-500-9387

JOIN OUR LIVE CHAT during the show: http://dragracersreunion.ning.com/

SEND QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS: radio@draglist.com

RECORDED ARCHIVES OF OUR RECENT SHOWS!
http://archives.zeusradio.com/category/racers-reunion/racin-and-rockin-with-draglist-com/

Producers: Barb Santucci, Bud De Boer


updated by @bill-pratt: 12/05/16 08:52:53AM
John R. Bockelman
@john-r-bockelman
12 years ago
62 posts

I made a special Hendrix poster for the show. Hope you can join us! JB

Bill Pratt
@bill-pratt
12 years ago
460 posts

Folks:

Below is the list I made of Jimi Hendrix's songs for the after-party Monday.

The song I picked as Jimi Hendrix's best is "Star-Spangled Banner / Purple Haze" rom Woodstock.

Looking forward to a fun show with Brian and John Monday night!

Thanks, JB

Star-Spangled Banner/Purple Haze (Woodstock)


Wild Thing (Monterrey Pop)


Sunshine Of Your Love (Live at the BBC)


Them Changes (Band Of Gypsys)


Machine Gun (Band Of Gypsys)


Who Knows (Band Of Gypsys)


Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (Electric Ladyland)


Fire (Are You Experienced)


The Wind Cries Mary (Are You Experienced)


I Don't Live Today (Are You Experienced)


Third Stone From The Sun (Are You Experienced)


Little Wing (Axis: Bold As Love)


If Six Was Nine (Axis: Bold As Love)


Hey Joe (Are You Experienced)


Stone Free (Are You Experienced)


Bold As Love (Axis: Bold As Love)


Castles Made Of Sand (Axis: Bold As Love)


Wait Until Tomorrow (Axis: Bold As Love)


Spanish Castle Magic (Axis: Bold As Love)


Manic Depression (Are You Experienced)


Love Or Confusion (Are You Experienced)


Are You Experienced? (Are You Experienced)


Foxy Lady (Are You Experienced)


Red House (Electric Ladyland)


Crosstown Traffic (Electric Ladyland)


Burning Of The Midnight Lamp (Electric Ladyland)


Rainy Day, Dream Away (Electric Ladyland)


All Along The Watchtower (Electric Ladyland)


Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) (Electric Ladyland)


Dolly Dagger (Rainbow Bridge)


Room Full Of Mirrors (Rainbow Bridge)


Freedom (The Cry Of Love)


Ezy Rider (The Cry Of Love)


Johnny B. Goode (Hendrix In The West)

John R. Bockelman
@john-r-bockelman
12 years ago
62 posts

I wasn't pleased with the Hendrix graphic so I went looking through my files and found a scan I made of a pen-and-ink drawing my buddy Tom made in 1984 of Hendrix that was intended to be a template for a tattoo that he was going to do. I saved it and made a color background for it and used it on a Fender Guitar Funny Car sponsorship graphic proposal for a promotional agency 8 years ago. I wanted this to be good. Thanks to Thommie for giving me that drawing. I will post the full text of my commentary about Hendrix on Racers Reunion. I might run out of time on the show Monday. Hope y'all can drop in and listen! With BP, Brian Lohnes, John Cerchio, plus the music of Jimi Hendrix, it should be a great one! Cheers, JB

John R. Bockelman
@john-r-bockelman
12 years ago
62 posts

This is the text of my tribute to Jimi Hendrix from tonight's Racin' and Rockin' show. JB

This is my personal tribute to the greatest electric guitarist of all time,

the incomparable Jimi Hendrix. Rather than open Wikipedia or Rolling Stone

or any of the websites that have exhaustively detailed Jimi's life

and accomplishments and read it to you, I have decided to editorialize my commentary

and speak from the heart, because that is where Jimi Hendrix lives within me.

His story is as unique and solitary as anything that ever happened in the history of

rock 'n roll. There was only one Jimi Hendrix. There will never be another. I have

studied several life stories of rags-to-riches rock 'n roll stars, but this story is about

an introverted, completely disadvantaged boy with virtually nothing

who grew up to become a legend beyond anyone's wildest dreams, only to die

in the bloom of his youth, leaving behind a window to the most extraordinay

music of his soul that again and again scaled unimaginable heights of

sonic ecstasy. And he did a lot of it playing with his teeth.

Tomorrow is the 42nd anniversary of the day of Jimi Hendrix's earth death.

He would be almost 70 years old now if his body had survived the life he occupied for the

last 3 years of his physical existence on this planet with us. To say that he went out

undefeated and untied in his field would be about as accurate as possible.

You could ask anyone who was around when Hendrix was playing and they'd all

agree and then some. The astounding impact that he had when he exploded on the

scene in 1967 was at that time indescribable but the group of rock stars who were

witnessing what he did were to a man, knocked over backwards by the sheer

brilliance of his playing combined with showmanship beyond anything that anyone

had ever dreamed of up to that point. I'll go back to this after I lay a little groundwork

of Jimi's life, because I feel I must apply an outline here for timeline purposes.

Johnny Allen Hendrix was born in November of 1942 to a young, unstable girl who

had no idea of how to take care of a child and a father who was away in the armed forces

In World War II. He spent a lot of his childhood with his grandmother, who had been

a vaudeville dancer on the Dixie circuit in her youth. His father renamed him James

Marshall Hendrix after his brother died and the nickname Jimmy stayed with him.

With a broken family life, living in abject poverty and being shuffled from one home setting

to another, he was actually the privileged one of his six siblings, whose real

parentage was in question and their frequent absences for all intents and purposes

made Jimmy an only child. He grew up shy, withdrawn and prone to fantasy and

daydreaming, but he did memorize all of his grandmother's records, which were

blues recordings from many years past.

He was not an outstanding student in school but he did show a natural intelligence

that his teachers took notice of and they recommended music as a career path.

He was 12 when he got his first guitar and he never put it down. By the time he was

15 his dad got him his first electric guitar, which to me is an amazing fact in this

man's life. He had only been playing electric for less than 8 years when he hit the

big-time, and the first few years of that, he was playing without an amp. Go figure.

A short stint in the Army paratrooper division, a broken ankle and the true fact

that Jimmy Hendrix was not intended for anything in life except one thing...playing

guitar....ended well with his honorable discharge from the service in 1962.

His playing evolved quickly and he rose up from the ranks of local and regional

bands to join Little Richard and then the Isley Brothers before he had

an awakening; an epiphany, and he decided to move to New York in 1965.

He had become fascinated with the lyrical poetry of Bob Dylan and he was

also hugely impressed by the power and energy of the white rock 'n roll bands,

as well as thoroughly schooled in the realm of soul and blues music.

The cornerstone of his future had been laid by this time.

He had developed and refined a completely realized alter-ego from

his previous gigs and the two Jimi Hendrixes that existed by this time

had completely separated from each other. The onstage showman who

frightened his audiences with roaring power, amazed them with musical

mastery, plus the visual image of the mix of the wild Afro and Cherokee guy

wearing a psychedelic bandleader suit, dancing on his effect pedals. setting

his guitar on fire and conjuring unheard-of sounds out of his row of amps,

etc, etc, and the offstage, private, sensitive, soft-spoken and articulate poet

whose troubled mind tormented his life. His struggle to find emotional

and psychological freedom in life, combined with his supremely gifted musical

talent as a tool to release this inner storm created a once-in-a-lifetime...Experience.

By the time Chas Chandler dropped in to the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village to

see this kid play on the recommendation of a friend, Jimmy James and the Blue

Flames were established locally as a pretty hot act but they were living hand-to-

mouth, playing dives for chump change and just hanging by a thread to society's

lower East side. Chas saw potential in this kid. He made him an offer to move to

England and put the pieces together of a band like no other. A vision that Chandler

had in his mind from seeing what Jimmy could do and he made him an offer he

couldn't refuse....dare to be great. Take it beyond the next level. Create a new

dimension. All these seemingly pie-in-the-sky ideals made sense to Jimmy

Hendrix. He went to England in 1966 and did what Chandler said. Chandler

changed the spelling of Jimmy's name to Jimi. He held auditions for his band and

settled on John "Mitch" Mitchell, and guitarist Noel Redding as his band, which

he aptly named the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

The next three years have been thoroughly documented day-by-day and detailed

from every perspective possible, but in summary I can say that he didn't have much

down time until the end. Drugs, endless touring, intense recording, jamming with many

of his contemporaries and a fringe lifestyle took their toll and he often found

himself inexplicably homeless and penniless at the height of his fame, just as he'd

been when he started out. This kind of predicament was almost expected to happen.

This was before rock 'n roll started getting up at 5 AM and went jogging, had accounting

firms and teams of lawyers directing their finances and had nutritionists and fitness

gurus controlling their diets and exercize regimens. In the late 60s, rock stars like

Hendrix were living on the razor's edge between life and death. It would be a long

time before that situation would change, and it never really completely did change.

There were notable peaks. The Monterrey Pop Festival gig. Woodstock. The Fillmore

East New Year's Eve gig. His 5 albums: Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As

Love, Electric Ladyland (on which he played almost all of the bass parts since Noel had

left the band by then), Band of Gypsys, The Cry Of Love, and Rainbow Bridge are the

real and lasting documents of his career.

All of the main musicians from his bands that played on these records and toured and

performed with him, and many of his mentors have died except for Billy Cox, his

bass player with the Band of Gypsys. Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding, Chas Chandler,

Buddy Miles, Jesse Ed Davis, Michael Jefferies, all gone. Billy Cox has continued

to promote Hendrix's legacy, philosophy and style with his continued career. Larry

Lee, Jimi's rhythym guitarist at Woodstock, as well as Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez

from the same band, Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, are still around. Eddie Kramer,

the engineer on Jimi's official Capitol Records recording projects, is still kicking.

I believe his finest moment was at Woodstock in August of 1969. His impomptu

version of the Star-Spangled Banner has stood the test of time and was a truly

inspired anthem that united a nation for decades to come. In my world, that event

in his life stands as a testament to Jimi Hendrix's genius and the depth, passion and

coviction that he posessed. It is the song I picked as Jimi's greatest.

His array of effects were not trickery, they were all analog devices that anybody else

could buy at a music store. He had a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz-Face pedal, an

Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, which is a power-booster and distortion pedal, a

Uni-Vibe reverb and vibrato pedal, a Vox Cry-Baby Wah-Wah pedal, and they were

all battery-powered. His amp of choice was a Marshall 100-watt stack with 4 12-

inch Celestion speakers. Everything was turned up all the way. He controlled the

volume with his guitar's volume knob. The studio effects that were applied to his

music were phase-shifting, delay and echo, voice-doubling and octave-splitting.

He didn't use any of those effects in live performance, though. This was before digital

technology, and they tuned by ear back then.

Completely self-taught, he was a 100% left-handed guitarist. His deal was a pefect

mirror-image of a right-handed player. Even the guitar was flipped over instead

of him using a left-handed player's guitar. Our buddy Jim Sanders plays that way as

well, but the upside-down Stratocaster was an iconic image that is instantly

identified with the Hendrix style. Others have tried to copy him and duplicate what he

did, but hey. Sorry, guys. You're good, but you, sir, are no Jimi Hendrix.

I've seen them try. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson, Robin Trower, Frank Marino,

Randy Hansen, even to some extent, Randy California, who had the right to do it

since he was renamed Randy California by Hendrix when he played in Jimmy's band

in Greenwich Village before the Experience came to be. But for as great as these

guys could play, and the sincerity and depth of their determination to keep Hendrix's

music alive, and for all the respect I have for them, no matter how great of an example

of your playing ability you are making, Jimi Hendrix simply cannot be redone and have

it sound like the original. Eric Clapton's version of "Little Wing" and Stevie Ray's "Voodoo

Chile" are indeed great, but I'd pick one original Hendrix song over everything that has

been done to cover his work combined.

Hendrix happens. When he shows up in you. You don't calculate

and predetermine what time that will be and what you're going to play.

HE does it. It's happened to me before. Here is the best way I can describe it.

You're playing, you reach a certain point, and there he is. A door

opens and he walks in and takes over. It's fleeting, but it's the most awesome

feeling a guitarist could ever have.

I have never attempted to sound, imitate or "be" like Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix is a spirit now and he manifests himself within the soul of the artist.

It's the only way he can live until his soul and his body will be unified in eternity as

a natural existential element of passage. That didn't happen when his body

died. Since then he has wandered the earth restlessly and without peace and

his journey will continue until all his karma evens out. As for me, his brief

presence was grace from God. I have no doubt that not all of us have had

that happen but that is my belief and that is what I'm saying tonight.

To Jimi, to all of us, and to the Lord, I am grateful for this time to speak to you tonight.

Thank you.

May God bless Jimi Hendrix and all he did for us. Let the good times roll.