Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys

By Michael E. Veal

Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys album (1970) occupies a unique place within his recorded oeuvre. Revered by guitarists for its improvisational brilliance and a potent portal through which R&B, soul and funk musicians could interface with the aesthetics of psychedelic rock, the album was ambivalently received in its day by a rock press who found it a desultory come down from the heights of the psychedelic counter-culture of which Hendrix had been anointed symbolic king. But like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Sly & the Family Stone's There's A Riot Goin' On (both 1971), Band of Gypsys was the vision of an artist whose take on the utopianism of the 1960s was tempered by the hard realities of race, politics, war and the vicissitudes of the music industry.

In reality, the Band of Gypsys were put together to help resolve a long-standing contractual dispute. But for Hendrix, it was also a chance to explore musical ideas with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles - two friends who, like him, had come up through the ranks of 60s rhythm & blues and gradually found their way to the cutting edge of rock music. Together, they would find a way to fuse science fiction and psychedelia with Black Power and anti-militarism, expressed through the musical dialects of acid rock, soul, funk and gospel.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1501339818
• ISBN13: 9781501339813
• Release Date: August 2023
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Length: 152 Pages