Posted on 12/31/2021 9:15:33 AM PST by DoodleBob
Heavy metal, or just metal, is a strange genre in the sense that we don’t know exactly where it came from. Much like punk, the genre derived from a wide variety of influences that over time coalesced and merged together to create something new, with no definitive starting point. Some posit that Link Wray’s 1958 classic ‘Rumble’ was where it started to germinate, and others claim that it started with the psychedelic rock movement of the ’60s with bands like Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge, 13th Floor Elevators and Coven and that their loose similarities were tied together under one concise banner the moment that Steppenwolf frontman, John Kay, sung the words “heavy metal thunder” in 1968’s ‘Born to be Wild’.
The topic remains an interesting debate because it’s so multi-faceted. Other commentators argue that it was bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, the ‘unholy trinity’ of heavy metal, who actually, as a group effort, helped to proliferate the new genre. Then, on the peripheries of the argument, you have more niche opinions that wager that it was artists such as Arthur Brown, those with a penchant for the macabre and theatrical that first set foot in the dark side.
Objectively, we’d argue that all those mentioned created heavy metal, as nothing in music is ever definitive. It’s a loose, fluid discipline that has always had an all-encompassing, outward-looking perspective, culminating in it being the most accessible of the creative arts. There’s something about music’s inherent dexterity, which has made it able to recreate itself time and time again, outliving societies and individuals. Going right the way back to classical music, it has taken from other places and augmented itself, creating invincibility that will never wain. If you briefly think about how rock and pop have changed over the past 60 years, you’ll heed our point.
Metal is undoubtedly a bi-product of rock and pop, however, we’d argue that it was first Jimi Hendrix who laid down the sonic blueprint of what would become heavy metal in 1967. He took what came before him, adapted it, and sent rock down a harder and more visceral path. Whilst the going assertion is that Hendrix started heavy metal with tracks such as ‘Purple Haze’ on 1967’s Are You Experienced, I’d argue that it was on that year’s ‘Spanish Castle Magic’ from Axis: Bold as Love, where he really created the genre.
Heavier than anything anyone had heard at the time, it pushed Hendrix’s sound to the limits. We hear him play similar licks on ‘Voodoo Chile’, but this was undoubtedly the heaviest Hendrix ever got. It’s a shame that he never made it past 1970 because it’s sure he would have tread new ground in terms of brain-splitting riffs in that decade. His hard soloing, punishing riff, and guitar tone set a precedent for metal moving forward on ‘Spanish Castle Magic’, and for a track recorded in 1967, it remains mindblowing.
Where you can really hear how pioneering the song was is on the 1969 Olympic Studios version. It hits you like a punch in the face. The middle part is effectively a breakdown, and in terms of song structure, you can hear this all across metal in its different forms today. It builds up to a crescendo that drags you back in for another barrage of licks.
One of the highlights of the track is that the bass used was an eight-string Hagström bass. Played by original Experience bassist Noel Redding after being offered the model whilst the band were touring Sweden, never before had the low end on a track sounded so ominous. Showing just how ahead of their time they were by using the instrument, it was only the seventh H8 model ever made. Whether you listen to the Axis: Bold as Love version or the Olympic Studios version, our point is clear. Strangely, you can hear flecks of sludge and stoner metal in the track, showing just how ahead of the curve Hendrix was.
There’s a power to ‘Spanish Castle Magic’ that was miles ahead of any of the other heavy rock music that was out at the time. Hendrix and Co. pushed the boundaries of rock, and in doing so, created the blueprint for metal, and many of its other offshoots.
Listen to the Olympic Studios version of ‘Spanish Castle Magic’ below.
heres Jeff Beck and the Yardbirds...1965..on a show called “SHIVAREE”....lol..not sure if they expected this....also, the Go Go dancers on that show cracked me up....
Precursor of heavy metal? or at least psychedelic rock....
Yardbirds (1963), began with Eric Clampton, and replaced by Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck when he left.
Is this another one of those black invention myths?
Classic blues, even with an electric guitar. Precursor to rock? Sure I could go that far, but metal? Nah.
First metal?
“Helter Skelter” - Beatles
After my freshman year at Cincinnati (Go Bearcats! vs ‘Bama), the petite blonde with BIG blue eyes who lived next door joined me in heading to LA - eventually found an apt in Hollywood...and just a few months before Charlie Manson & his satanic followers.
One Saturday afternoon listening to my cheap clock radio tuned to KHJ, I was hearing new songs and a guest DJ who spoke about what the song was about or what was happening in the studio during the recording sessions.
The songs? The complete “White Album”
The guest DJ? George Harrison
A week later the album was released and I bought a copy at a small shop on Sunset...it had the “raised” serial number.
Jimmy Page at home listening to Link Wray’s “Rumble.” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RLEUSn8y9TI
Thank you for posting that. It’s awesome. Watching Jimmy Page air guitaring is a first for me. Damn! I’m gonna watch that some more.
Still got that album? Silly money.
Jimmy
The usurper
/s
That’s closer to blues with a jazz riff if you ask me
Sadly, over the years that album kinda drifted away into the ether.
I did acquire the entire Beatles collection on the EMI/Parlaphone label including first pressings, BlueBook (UK), BlueBook (Japan) MFSL versions - all MUCH higher sound quality than the garbage Capitol versions.
But I’d still like to have that Capitol “White Album” - just for the memories of that time in Hollywood.
Blue Cheer, circa 1966. Would they be the first?
That is a scene from the film “It Might Get Loud”. It is a pretty cool movie.
Definitely a blues song--in a minor key and each verse is three lines with the first one repeated. The band includes the renowned blues man Big Bill Broonzy playing rhythm guitar and Washboard Sam playing his musical washboard that includes a bell, with which he plays the final note.
It was recorded in the Leland Hotel in Aurora, Ill., which still stands but is now a high-rise apartment building.
Sludge, or stoner metal would be a slower-tempo, sometimes detuned, but seriously heavy.
Black Sabbath pioneered this genre.
BLACK SABBATH - "N.I.B." (Live in Paris)
In the late 1990s, Queens of tthe Stone Age would carry the mantle of stoner rock.
QOTSA - Mexicola 2001 Big day out (Live)
Today, one of the best bands out there doing this type of music is The Sword out of Austin, TX. These guys are so damn good!
The Sword - Freya (Live At Rockhouse, Salzburg, September 4th 2015)
I love SCM both for its music and the LSD lyrics, which Hendrix was a master of. That said, the use of feedback as a real musical tool more than a special effect, plus all of Hendrix’s other tricks and innovations, were all being played with in various ways a long time before that.
The Beatles “Paperback Writer” introed with feedback as did Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride.” The Beatles were also already using backward loop recording consistently.
Hendrix’s style was sui generis. Unlike Clapton, he didn’t play repeating licks that built on each other; but unlike Beck, he didn’t go Full Monty and dive into solos that were more of an expression of how odd they could be without leaving the original song. I really can’t describe Hendrix.
I would call him “heay metal,” but certainly not in the vein of Iron Maiden or Metallica. That’s what makes him so evergreen-—his style was unique and so different from others’ that even today it seems new.
I never thought of Jimi as metal - I also never got the "Zeppelin is metal" theory so maybe the problem is me. But there are tunes of Jimi's that have a metal attitude, like Can You See Me at Monterey. By that "attitude" metric, even The Who and of course the Fudge could be metal. Personally I consider Wagner to be the father of metal (the overture to The Flying Dutchman seals the deal for me) but I can see where someone thinks Jimi or Blue Cheer or some other band "birthed" metal.
Vinny Martell of Vanilla Fudge just put out a book-—kinda. I got a copy, but apparently his backer got the book done before the China Virus, then backed out, so he doesn’t have $ to publish it.
Jimi said very favorable things about Vinny’s guitar playing.
Vinny was also in the U.S. Navy during the Cuban Missile Crisis & was down in the Caribbean.
I caught Vinnie giving a very moving and credible Born Again testimony at a church in Paramus a few years ago. He’s a excellent public speaker, covering his time in the Navy and the rock and roll roller coaster. Oh, and his playing remains excellent...he covered Hear My Train A Coming and it was the best Hendrix cover.
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