Jimi Hendrix has always been known for his on stage antics such as playing the electric guitar in various positions, smashing his guitars, and also setting them on fire. But one thing Jimi never really was acknowled for was his actual virtuousity he held over the instrument. "Band Of Gypsys" really shows Hendrix's talent without any of his famous antics getting in the way.
Standing in at 6 songs, Jimi Hendrix show cases his talent with old military buddies Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, different then the "Jimi Hendrix Experience" which was Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding. The album holds nearly 15 minute long jam songs such as Machine Gun, and Who Knows, something Hendrix really hadn't experimented with too much in previous concerts.
The first song "Who Knows" starts at with an announcer introducing the Band Of Gypsys, and Hendrix quickly rolling into the slow guitar riff. The song is shared vocal wise with drummer Buddy Miles, who really shows his gospel singing influences on this album. Half way through the song, Jimi slowly fades his guitar out with the thunderous drums keep roaring while the heavy bass keeps thumping, and a very un-expected vocal solo happens. Buddy Miles literally sings the guitar solo out loud with his voice, and in his own very unique style.
"Machine gun" starts out with Jimi dedicating the song to soldiers all around, and also the "Black Soldiers" fighting in Chicago for their own cival rights. Soon after the song rips into a machine gun sounding guitar riff, absolutely dripping in vintage univibe. The song, even though called machine gun, emphasizes peace, and how all people are really only families apart. The song is similiar to a Frank Zappa tune, that really creates a movie for the ears, with screeching war sounds, and machine gun style beats lasting just over 12 minutes.
After Machine Gun, the show takes a light turn once again for Buddy Miles to take another swing at singing with an original song he wrote called "Them Changes." The song has a nice funky style groove to it that really gets your feet thumping along to the song, even when drummer Buddy Miles chimes in with his soaring vocals. The song eventually has a slight drum break in the middle where Buddy gets the whole audience involved and clapping their hands together to the beat of the drums, which was a very nostalgic point for me being a musician.
The next song "Power To Love" starts out with an intense Cream style jam with the whole band shredding away at their instruments. After the intense jam goes on for a brief minute, Jimi starts a funky blues esque rythm, that was mixing a few genres together. The whole song lyrically is my favorite with the mantra "With the power of soul anything is possible" and that really made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
"Message to love" was a song Jimi Hendrix wrote while with the Experience, and it was also his opening song he played at the very famous "Woodstock Music Festival" a few months earlier. Another long jam song, except with something Hendrix really hadn't done before, vocal harmonies. The song has another mantra in it that gave me tingles down my spine which was "Everybody come together, everybody love together, everybody come alive" another song emphasizing peace.
The very last song "We gotta live together" was written by Buddy Miles, and is yet another song that succesfully includes the audience clapping along to the beat, and singing along with the band one last time before they closed their stint at the Fillmore East. Another very groovy beat lead by Jimi, the whole audience sings along saying "Home Sweet Home" which I'm sure is what Buddy Miles was thinking after playing 2 shows a day for a straight week.
Overall, Band of Gypsys is a phenominal album, and my favorite Hendrix album to this date, provided they don't release anything more from before he died. From the gospel influenced vocals, to the shredding guitar solo's, I can't find a single flaw with any part of this record. This record alone inspired so many guitar players from Kirk Hammett of Metallica, to Robert Cray, and is the shining diamond out of Hendrix's very long discography.
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