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Celebrating Jimi Hendrix's 70th birthday
Jimi Hendrix wasn't with us for long, but his influence both in life and in death is staggeringly broad. As Time magazine points out, you can hear him in everyone from Metallica to Prince to ZZ Top to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The music and style legend would have turned 70 on Tuesday, November 27, and we're celebrating by looking back at Hendrix in his heyday.
Born in Seattle in 1942, Hendrix taught himself to play guitar as a teenager and played in high school bands before enlisting in the Army, according to Rolling Stone. By the early '60s, Hendrix had been discharged and was playing backup for acts including Sam Cooke, B.B. King, Little Richard and the Isley Brothers.
By 1967, Hendrix had gone to London and had formed The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Here, Hendrix is seen with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, far right.
Seen here in October 1967, Hendrix receives an award from Radio One DJ Jimmy Savile. The Experience's first single, "Hey Joe," was released that year and was a phenomenal hit in the U.K. Another smash, "Purple Haze," and the group's double-platinum first album "Are You Experienced?" soon followed.
While he was surging in popularity across the pond, Jimi Hendrix and his captivating way of playing guitar soon became known to U.S. audiences. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, seen here at the London Airport in August 1967, performed at the Monterey Pop Festival.
With the release of albums "Axis: Bold as Love" and "Electric Ladyland" in 1968, Hendrix, as seen here performing in the late '60s, was turning into a larger-than-life rock musician.
Here, Jimi Hendrix and drummer Mitch Mitchell board a plane in London in 1968, along with various members of the Byrds, the Soft Machine and the Alan Price Set. The Experience disbanded in 1969, but that same year Hendrix gave a memorable performance at Woodstock.
Between the end of The Experience and his death in 1970, Hendrix went on to form the Band of Gypsys with an Army friend, Billy Cox, which yielded a self-titled album. Hendrix and Cox also collaborated with Mitch Mitchell from The Experience, which brought about the 1971 album "The Cry of Love."
Here, Hendrix performs at the Isle of Wight Festival in August 1970, which according to Rolling Stone was the rock guitarist's last concert before his death.
Here, Hendrix walks through the London Airport with Eric Barrett on September 2, 1970, 16 days before he died at the age of 27. His talent and contributions to both music and style have lived on, however, and musician Andre 3000 is lined up to portray Hendrix in a 2013 biopic, "All Is By My Side.
Source: CNN
Source: CNN
Did the Beckham project succeed in the U.S.?
In my book it was always going to be unfair to charge him with the near impossible burden of becoming America's soccer saviour.
It was simply never going to happen in a land where the beautiful game is routinely forced to play second fiddle to its more established alternatives - and I'm sure deep down Beckham himself knew this.
Realistically- his inner goal when he signed for the Galaxy would have been to make an impact and there's no question he's certainly achieved that.
Strikers Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane were both likely influenced by Beckham's move to the U.S. Other stars will follow too, with Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard already being linked with a high-profile move to LA.
Attendances are up. Galaxy jerseys went through the roof when he arrived and the league has seen seven extra franchises added since the start of 2007.
There are now 19 clubs in the Major league Soccer (MLS) and most of them have state-of-the-art soccer-specific stadia.
That's fantastic growth and Beckham can be proud of his contribution to that and the overall MLS feel-good factor, though Seattle and Portland will rightly point to their own hot-bed of soccer passsion which exists whether the former England captain is around or not.
However as far as his playing legacy's concerned it's vitally important he leads the Galaxy to victory over Houston at the weekend otherwise he's bowing out with just one title in nearly six years.
That is far from spectacular given the franchise won two MLS Cups in a four-season spell prior to Beckham's arrival.
Victory would be a fitting end to his LA career.
Certainly a far cry from his early days in California when fans and even teammate Landon Donovan questioned his commitment to the cause due to his insistence on returning to Europe for various loan deals.
I'd be surprised too if some sections of the Galaxy fans aren't disappointed by his decision not to complete the two-year deal he signed earlier this year.
I'm certain he WON"T retire. I take him at face value when he talks about "one more challenge", though I don't subscribe to the view he can have his pick of clubs. Old Father Time has seen to that ambition.
My own verdict? The popular Englishman certainly played his part and will rightly have his place in MLS history.
The game in the States continues to thrive as a result. I believe he's taken the game here to the next level. But there's still plenty of work to be done making the Beckham Experiment not quite yet mission accomplished!
Posted by: CNN World Sport Anchor, Patrick Snell
November 29, 2012
Fear
I’d love to stay, but I really have to go...I’m sorry,” I told my friends. It was 11 o’ clock; the party had ended about an hour ago, and I needed to get back home. I would have spent the night at my friend’s house, but my father had been against it. And so there I was, bidding them a half-hearted goodbye, and heading home.
It was dark outside; everything around seemed drowned in the obscurity of the night. The silhouettes of a few houses my eyes, as strained as they were, could barely discern, seemed passive and snoring; all possessing the look of a burning lamp which had only just been extinguished. The only visible light came from my friend’s house, and I was walking away from it; alone.
I did not really know why, but a weird sort of feeling began to creep up on me. The open arms of darkness had absorbed me completely. The air around me was so cold and empty that I felt bare; naked. It was a queer sort of feeling, and I felt rather unprotected.
As light from the nearby houses began to fade, the queasy uneasiness only grew. I felt as if I had reached the middle of nowhere. I began feeling confused, muddled; I wasn’t even sure if I was walking in the right direction. I felt as if I was being forcefully misled into an unknown world; almost as if the path I walked on were an illusion created for me, or maybe for someone else who would be on it at that hour.
A sudden, cold gust of wind sent a chill down my spine. The unexpectedness of it nearly startled me to death. I felt my whole body shiver. I do not, even today, know why; but at that instant I, sort of forcefully, remembered God’s name. I kept chanting his name to myself until the cold that had spread through out my skin began to feel less powerful.
I did not want to think about anything, but could not help myself. The last thing I wanted to do was let my mind get the better of me. Recalling God made me think of ‘the devil’. Images—still photographs and movies—of all sorts; of ghosts and ‘creatures of the dark’ that dwell in evil labyrinths began to conjure themselves up in my mind. I could see an evil alertness suppressed in the calmness of the silence. The environment I found myself a part of; soaked in
absolute darkness, was somehow elucidating and exhausting; the queerness of the atmosphere was getting more unbearable by the moment. Every direction seemed tempting; almost alluring, but the road seemed to be waiting for me with unpleasant intent; probably waiting to torment me, or to scare me to death, or to horribly use me in a sadistic game of blood-shed and lust—red, spouting, and steaming, thick, raw blood.
I cursed the clouds that had enveloped the night sky so inconsiderately. The silvery brightness of the moon and stars might have made for a friendlier atmosphere, had they not been covered by the indolent clouds. I wondered why this particular night had to be so cloudy; it seemed to me as if the night and the clouds were conspiring against me. “They must have been waiting for this chance all the while,” I said to myself. It had to be cloudy because it was part of the grand plan. The clouds were there to create hellish effects; they existed only to block the heavens. No!!! I had to stop imagining such horrible things… I had to distract my brain; perhaps the party…
My thoughts drifted towards objects I saw in front of me. Every dimension, every object—natural and man made seemed to have the potential to come alive any moment. I could almost feel the hidden, invincible, Dark Strength of every object I laid my eyes on. I was only a human; a mere living person with no supernatural powers; I was helpless; I was a nothing in front of them. These almost unreal objects were lying in wait; they would pounce at the first opportunity to put a stop to my smooth flowing life. I was practically doomed! The eeriness of the night was suffocating me; creeping up on me from every possible angle, causing my heart to thump and beat about twice as fast as normal.
I had never ever imagined that a short, ten-minute walk could feel like eternity. The atmosphere around me was unbearable. Suspicion and a jumbled chaos of fearful emotions had reached their climax within me. I felt thirsty; as helpless as fish pulled out of water, and thrown upon a sandy surface. With clenched fists and tight, uneven held breaths, I dared to drag myself slowly and cautiously, with as little movement as was humanly possible, against the stiff and icy resistance which my fear had created within me. I half-closed my eyes to see only what was absolutely necessary. I wanted to omit, to blur out any unnecessary object that might creep up on the periphery of my vision.
Just then, in the distant darkness, I noticed light. It was coming from the window in my living room. At that particular moment, I could think of nothing but running. “Run!” I said to myself. “Run as fast as you can.”
My heart felt extremely heavy. The objects on the ground seemed to realise that their victim was running towards safety; they seemed now to be desperately reaching out to get hold of me. They no longer had the time to play games with me. They had to make that last shot right then. They had to grab me as best that they could. I could feel them tugging at my feet.
My feet were numb; they had run faster than ever before when I finally reached home; ‘home; sweet home’. I pounced, and rang the bell, and then turned back to take in my final glimpse of the darkness. The sudden passiveness of the objects reminded me of an alligator which had returned to the water’s murky depths after an unsuccessful attempt at getting hold of its prey, determined to try harder the next time.