Notice
Jimi Hendrix forever immortalized this Earl King classic, turning in a beyond classic performance of his own on Electric Ladyland. King released the two-part single (part two featured the extended instrumental section) in 1960, and he's still receiving royalties on Jimi's version to this day (not to mention the success of Stevie Ray Vaughan's version, from the Soul to Soul album). The signature tritone movement in the interlude was inspired by jazz great, Barney Kessell, which he showed to King while King was recording r&b in New Orleans under the name of Rock Murphy. Jimi quotes freely from Earl's solo on the original, you can imagine a young Jimi sittin' and pickin' the riffs off the record. Earl's version is most readily available on Trick Bag - The Best 0of Earl King (Imperial/EMI America SQ-17238).
Jimi begins the tune with double-stops (thirds diatonic to E minor), which Noel Redding supports by setting up an E minor tonality for bar one and a Bb (!?!) tonality for bar two, resolving back to E minor. Jimi's playing on the first chorus is colossal, combining single note lines and chords like a true master. Recreating this part with the sense of energy and spontaneity inherent in Jimi's performance is a tall order; many guitarists have worked on this tune for years (and will continue to when they get their hands on this transcription). All of Jimi's single-note lines (on the chorus and solo sections) are based on E pentatonic minor (E,G,A,B,D) and the E blues scale (E,G,A,Bb,B,D). At the end of the second chorus, the band plays quarter-note triplet accents, and here Jimi plays three and four note chords voiced similar to a horn section, launching into the solo section. These three choruses of soloing are some of Jimi's finest, combining even-tempoed melodic lines with bursts of fire, stretching the boundaries of blues/rock soloing. Jimi "crams," squeezing many notes and going across bar lines, utilizing the concept of tension and release with an aggressive attack.
The interlude features the aforementioned tritone forms, spelling out sevenths for each chord of the I-IV-V progression. Jimi augments these forms with single note lines utilizing open strings, sustaining the seventh chords throughout. Check out the original version to see how Jimi is building on Earl King's example. During the second chorus of the outro, the band gets a little lost during bars 5-8, and the music sounds very haphazard (this has been smoothed out a bit in the transcription).
So, now that you know all this, sit down and treat yourself to some of the finest playing by the genius of rock guitar, James Marshall Hendrix.
