Nearly 40 years after his death, the music of Jimi Hendrix will continue to live on stage with the 2010 edition of the Experience Hendrix Tour. The biennial trek kicks off its fourth run March 4 in Santa Barbara, CA, and hits theaters in 17 cities before wrapping March 27 in Atlanta.
Featured on the run will be an all-star list of guitar-slingers - including Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Aerosmith's Brad Whitford, Doyle Bramhall II, Ernie Isley and Living Colour - who will perform music written and inspired by Hendrix. Former Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton and bassist Billy Cox, who played with Hendrix in Band Of Gypsys and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, will man the rhythm section.
"
This is going to be the concert event of the year," guarantees
Cox. "
There won't be no lip-synching, no soundtrack. This is the real deal."
Cox calls
Susan Tedeschi, who will be joining the tour on select dates, "
one of the greatest female Blues players out there." He points out that
Lang,
Johnson,
Shepherd, and
Satriani have "
incredible chops," that
Isley was "
mentored by Hendrix," and notes that
Whitford may bring along his guitar-playing son on some dates.
As for Layton, Cox says he's a drummer that his late rhythm-section partner Mitch Mitchell "respected a lot." (Five days after the 2008 Experience Hendrix tour concluded, Mitchell was found dead in a Portland, OR, hotel room from natural causes.)
Also joining the tour on select dates are Los Lobos' David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas, Sacred Steel featuring Robert Randolph, and former Howlin' Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin. "If you've never heard a steel-guitar player playing Hendrix tunes, then you got to see Robert," Cox enthuses. "He and his group are incredible." Cox notes that Sumlin's "getting up in age, but he's still playing very, very good."
Cox himself is looking forward to seeing the fans and his fellow musicians. "There are two kinds of guitar players," he cracks, "Ones who will admit being influenced by Jimi Hendrix and those who will not admit being influenced by Jimi Hendrix because of his innovative style. All the people asked to play on this tour are people that respected and admired Jimi Hendrix, so therefore they understand the feel and have a love for the music and give it a different flavor."
What would Jimi think of the Experience Hendrix Tour? "I think he'd like it," Cox says. "He'd appreciate it and respect it, because he put a lot of work into his music and a lot of thought. A lot of his arrangements are still fresh and unique today, 40-some years later."
Thanks for the report to Livedaily.com.
