Rainy Day Dream Away

I see I didn't write through all of 2013, not even half a page of scribbled lines. Time. 

It flows , it flies. It brings the Rock back to one's life. I returned. Couldn't even remember that I had left !

Woke up this morning to a gloriously rainy morning. (This is Dubai , baby). It put me in the mind of Jimi Hendrix after a VERY long time. Rainy Day Dream Away.  

For no particular reason , I didn't get so much into Jimi for the longest time. In the late 80's I had a cassette of  Are You Experienced  plus the singles around that album  (The Wind Cries Mary , Hey Joe , Highway Child , etc). The next album I picked was the CD of Axis : Bold As Love in 2001. One of the reasons why is that I thought this track was on it. 

I'd heard Rainy Day Dream Away just prior.On a BBC World documentary at that if you please !  Surfed upon it minutes before the show was ending with , if memory serves me right, that Wah-Wah at the end.It was instant bewitchment. I finally picked up Electric Ladyland a bit later.And played Rainy Day day in and day out for months !  

Jimi doesn't figure in my list of top five guitarists most days or maybe just about does. (Although I now realise that technically I know jackshit to really judge ! ) To me , apart obviously from being the definitive rock star's  rock star , he was a songwriter first, a true songwriting genius. There were already legendary writers on the rock scene by then who had done stunning new things with words and structure. 

I believe Jimi was the first who added sound to it. And it had all to do with the guitar. It was both the language he wrote in and the tool he used. His greatness as a guitarist lay in the distance he took the guitar by virtue of that. The sound - distortion , effects and all - and the attitude was the template all subsequent guitar rock music built on. 

This track is such a good example both of Jimi the writer and Jimi the axeman. And I bet Jimi the man as well.  Laid back , sleepy eyed , groovy.  Sit back and groooove on a rainy day ! 

Happy new year. Thanks for being here. Much happiness and a superhappy ear !