Repost: He's walkin' through the clouds...

Lansdowne CrescentOn the morning of September 21, 1966, a Pan Am airliner from New York landed at Heathrow carrying among its passengers an American musician from a poor home. Barely known in his own country and a complete stranger to England, he had just flown first class for the first time in his life. His name was James Marshall Hendrix.
On September 18, 1970, four years later, there was a story of extreme urgency on the front page of the London Evening Examiner and a picture of Hendrix playing the Isle of Wight festival, only 18 days earlier. The text reported how Hendrix had died that morning in a hotel on Lansdowne Crescent in Notting Hill.
During those three years, 362 days living in London, Hendrix had conjured – with his vision and sense of sound, his personality and genius – the most extraordinary guitar music ever played, the most remarkable soundscape ever created; of that there is little argument. Opinion varies only over the effect his music has on people: elation, fear, sexual stimulation, sublimation, disgust – all or none of these – but always drop-jawed amazement.
And today, 45 years later, nothing really has changed. We ponder whether the guitar master is Clapton or David Gilmour, Jack White or Steve Howe, but no one questions Jimi's impact, his mastery or sell-your-soul-to-the-devil virtuosity (a la Robert Johnson).


September 18th should be a day of celebration over shear remembrance, a day to pull out the vinyl, scratches and all – play it all day, and tonight, slow it down, think, put on "Little Wing"…
Well, she's walking through the clouds,
With a circus mind that's running wild,
Butterflies and Zebras,
And Moonbeams and fairy tales.
That's all she ever thinks about.
Riding with the wind.

When I'm sad, she comes to me,
With a thousand smiles she gives to me free.
It's alright, she says it's alright,
Take anything you want from me,
Anything.
Fly on little wing.