Was Jimi Hendrix a blues musician? There are some who will think this question in the same league as 'Is the pope a Catholic?' etc...
But for others, it seems, the very idea of Hendrix being thought of as a blues musician is akin to heresy.
A Facebook group called The Real Blues Forum hosts intricate and erudite discussion on the blues, but someone (not me) recently had the temerity to put up some pictures of Hendrix for discussion, because Jimi was seen to be holding actual blues albums in the photos.
When the subsequent discussion (all right, I did play a part in this bit) turned to Jimi being a great blues player, the originator of the strand made it clear that if there was another mention of Jimi's music (rather than the blues albums in the photos), he would remove, i.e. censor, the whole discussion.
A forum is a 'meeting place for open discussion'... but not The Real Blues Forum, it seems.
When I posted a quote from BB King — 'Jimi to me was one of the great explorers of the so-called Delta blues' — toys were thrown out of the pram and the discussion was closed down.
What is so terrible about suggesting that Jimi was part of the great blues tradition? BB hit on something with his reference to the Delta blues... for surely Hendrix was little more than the Robert Johnson of his time.
If Johnson had lived into the electric blues era, there is no telling where he and his playing might have gone. His music might even have been banned from being discussed on The Real Blues Forum.
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