I’m going to dip back into our Coustics Guitar Clubs catalogue to check out another one of the songs that’s stood the test of time. In January, I looked at ‘Hotel California’ by The Eagles, which we play at our ‘first Thursday’ guitar club. This time, I’m going to have a look at one of the songs from our blues club book, ‘Little Wing’ by Jimi Hendrix.
Listening to the studio version of ‘Little Wing’ as it appears on the 1967 album ‘Axis : Bold As Love’, one of the first things you notice is that it’s really short, clocking in at under two and a half minutes. Given how highly the song is regarded by some of the world’s most legendary blues guitar players, the brevity of the track seems unusual. A quick search through notable artists who’ve covered the song reveals that most clock in at twice that, easily. Even our Coustics version is longer. It’s also actually pretty slow, and there doesn't initially feel like there's much structure... have a listen.
Coincidentally, we had a quick discussion this morning at our songwriters group about whether songs need choruses. Our conclusion was not. Mostly on the artistic basis that songs should have what they need to have and no rule is absolute, but with the understanding that sometimes certain characteristics of a song are important if you want to achieve certain goals. I’m getting off track here… point is, ‘Little Wing’, no chorus, just two verses and a guitar solo outro. Not even really a repeated refrain, revolving around the title. I might be missing something obvious, but I can’t immediately think of another example of that.
Sidebar, your Honour...
'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' by Queen is under three minutes and doesn't really have a chorus per se, but it's considered a pretty classic pop/rock song I think. The various sections do have a strong refrain though - you're not left in any doubt what the song is called.... Just thinking out loud...
Origins
Hendrix began his career as a guitarist for many of the great R&B artists of the era, including Curtis Mayfield, whom Hendrix often described as a really great guitarist that he'd learnt a lot from in a relatively short space of time. Mayfield had a beautiful, understated touch with chords and rhythm playing, that ultimately fed into Hendrix’s unique style.
In 1966, Hendrix recorded a song called ‘(My Girl) She’s A Fox’ with The Icemen. Comparing the guitar work on the two tracks you can hear a lot of Curtis Mayfield’s playing style, and it’s clear the track operates as a blueprint for ‘Little Wing’.
Hendrix developed the lyrical idea for ‘Little Wing’ whilst playing in his band Jimmy James and The Blue Flames in the summer of 1966. The song was then further inspired by The Experience’s 1967 Monterey Pop Festival Appearance.
"...I got the idea like, when we were in Monterey and I was just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, somethin' like that, you know, and call it 'Little Wing', and then it will just fly away. Everybody's really flyin' and they're really in a nice mood, like the police and everybody was really, really great out there. So I just took all these things and put them in one very, very small little matchbox, you know, into a girl and then do it. It was very simple, but I like it though..."
‘Little Wing’ was recorded in October 1967, along with all the other tracks for the “Axis” record. The following is a clip featuring the original studio engineer Eddie Kramer, talking about the various parts of the track were recorded and mixed.
I’m not going to regurgitate the full contents of the song’s Wikipedia entry for you, but there’s plenty of info there if you want to delve deeper.
I think we love it because it’s a genuinely fun song to play, even in the stripped down, simplified way that we do. It’s easy to make it dynamic, which is always the sign of a good song, and for some reason we’ve developed a way of playing it that kind of involves a ‘mexican wave’ of twelfth fret harmonics. It’s difficult to explain. You might just have to take my word for it if you’re not a blues clubber.
For now, I’m going to leave you with a few of the other notable versions of ‘Little Wing’ which are out there. Derek And The Dominos’ studio version, The Corrs Unplugged version, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, who won a Grammy award in 1993 for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Fly on, Little Wing!
If you’ve heard any other great versions let me know… and yes, I know who Jess Greenburg is, cheers… Jon.
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