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The Cry of Love: Matt Besey Band Prepares to Pay Tribute to the Music of Jimi Hendrix October 24th By Robert E. Martin Of the many seminal artists that helped define the evolution of Rock ‘n Roll, certainly Jimi Hendrix stands on a rather singular pedestal, poised halfway between the bedrock of the Blues and the upper rarefied air of an acid-laced atmosphere that literally re-invented the electric guitar as we know it.
And so it is that fans of both artists will have a rare opportunity to witness Besey perform his own translations of Hendrix on Saturday, October 24th, when Matt Besey, bassist Ryan Fitzgerald, drum Mark Dault, and keyboardist Loren Kranz assemble a special Tribute to the Music of Jimi Hendrix at Saginaw’s Pit & Balcony Theatre, located at 805 N. Hamilton St. “After the success of our Allman Brothers’ Tribute show last year, we wanted to follow it up this year with something equally as challenging,” explains Matt, “so thought that doing Hendrix would be a logical next-step. There was some talk about doing the Allmans again, but we didn’t want to repeat ourselves, and the only other option was putting together a Carly Simon Tribute,” deadpans the artist. Given his own indelible sonic flare on the guitar, few artists possess the panache to pull such a challenge off; yet one suspects that of any guitarist, Matt is definitively up to the task. “It’ isn’t going to be a cake-walk to pull off,” admits Matt, “but yeah, we’re looking at doing some of the songs that I grew up playing – songs that literally taught me how to perform. Assembling the set list is the biggest challenge because we’ll be tackling some of Hendrix’ material that I always liked but never really performed live. For this show we’ll be focusing on songs from his three studio albums, and possibly some of his later posthumous material from First Rays of the New Rising Sun.” For those unfamiliar with this work, First Rays was recorded between March 1969 and August 1970. After years of legal wrangling, it was the initial album released under the direct supervision of the Hendrix family, containing classics previously found on the posthumous albums The Cry of Love, War Heroes and Rainbow Bridge. First Rays was intended to be the double-album sequel to Electric Ladyland, a concept that died with Hendrix in 1970. “We won’t be performing material chronologically, but arrange it thematically with different songs,” continues Matt. “It’s very easy to take all of his songs and go out on some 20-minute jam with them, so we have to be very careful. I can tell you that we won’t be doing a 20-minute jam on Purple Haze, even though Jimi always said that he had 20 verses to that song but Chas Chandler made him cut it down.” Besey admits that Hendrix was formative in informing his approach to the guitar. “Hendrix early on for me was the most important artist,” states Matt. “Through him I got led to other things. I wasn’t a big jazz fan before Hendrix, but through him discovered Miles Davis, Curtis Mayfield, and branched into other artists that informed him.” “I feel fortunate to play these songs and do them justice in our own way,” reflects bassist Ryan Fitzgerald. “We want to be respectful of the artistry of Hendrix, because he breathed his art; so we don’t want to copy so much as channel the songs. As a bass player, it’s incredibly daunting to back up a guy changing the way the guitar sounded. With Hendrix you don’t want a bass running all over the place, because you’re talking about two busy instruments; so my role in many ways is to hold the sound down.” “People often think that it’s easier to play in a larger band, because you have other musicians covering you,” notes Matt, “but actually it’s the other way around in terms of freedom. With three musicians you can get away with playing more to fill that space; but the more musicians you add, the less freedom you have. You can’t vary much from the structure of the song unless you feel like running the risk of getting lost. The more people you have, the more structured things have to be.” Matt states that most likely the group will perform two 90-minute sets, but laughs that he could easily end up doing two 3-hour sets. “Originally we talked about doing all of the Electric Ladyland album, but the first thing on that album (And the Gods Made Love) we couldn’t re-create because it’s nothing but tape loops, and I didn’t want to go that route because it seemed for us to do that would be fake.” “If you listen to Jimi in interviews he wasn’t big on using effects on-stage, so that’s how I want to keep this,” continues Matt. “I don’t want to use any pre-recorded stuff, just as I don’t fancy chipping any teeth playing with my mouth, or burning my guitar for that matter.” “In his later interviews, Jimi lamented doing that, so I feel it’s more of a tribute to him not to do it either in concert. It’s more about the music that I wish to be respectful, and not the theatrics.” “During his early days, when Hendrix was performing in Europe, smashing and burning guitars, the press would call him ‘The Black Elvis’ and the ‘Wild Man of Boreno’ and say all these crazy racist things about him,” continues Matt, “so my feeling is that leaving all that out is the right thing to do.” ‘It doesn’t really define who Jimi was and what he was truly trying to accomplish.” Tickets for The Matt Besey Band Tribute to Jimi Hendrix on Saturday, October 24th are $10.00 at the door or in advance at the Pit & Balcony Box Office, which you can reach by phoning 989-754-6587. The show starts at 7:00 PM. |
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So
for a musician such as Matt Besey, himself formidably gifted at
crossing genres and exercising a flourish or two of breathtaking notes
on the fret-board, the notion of dedicating an entire evening to
performing the works of Jimi Hendrix seems not only natural, but
an engaging challenge for any artist.