“Jimmie Jackson” hits the scene, 1984–1985

It was sophomore year of high school. I had not heard Jimmie Hendrix’s guitar-solo version of the Star Spangled Banner, but I liked the idea and wanted to try it. I practiced the main part for about a week, and then the ending is all ad lib. At this time, I was branching out from the mere playing of notes, learning to control things like feedback, string resonance, pick harmonics, and other such effects. (Gosh, can you tell?) 😉

To record just one guitar, all I had to do was plug the amp into the tape deck. Audio buffs will notice the lack of “cabinet” sound, giving the guitar a thinner, squeakier quality than normal. This is because the easiest way to get a line-level output from my amp was to disconnect the speaker and plug the pre-amp straight into the tape, while I listened through headphones and wondered why it sounded “a little different.”

My Jimmie Hendrix tribute, 1984–1985.