Thanksgiving Eye Candy: Hendrix

If he were still with us Jimi Hendrix would be 66 years old today. As it is, he's been gone for 38 years but what he wrought in his short career remains blisteringly present. Within the three (yes, just three) studio albums he released in his lifetime and a series of incendiary live performances at high profile late '60s festivals like Woodstock and Isle of Wight, Hendrix laid down a musical tapestry people will spend lifetimes picking over – and still never quite unravel the genius and in-the-moment electricity contained in this one man. Saying he changed the way guitar is played is a grotesque understatement, and it's hardly right or fair to limit his influence to six-strings. Instead, think of Hendrix like Mozart, Miles Davis or any other of a small, brilliant line of musician-composers that changed the way everyone approached sound after them. More than a happy birthday, we shed a tear or three for his absence from this world. It is our hunger for what might have been that fuels the nigh endless series of posthumous releases culled from the odds 'n' ends he left behind. On a day where many of us pause to consider the blessings of our lives, spare a minute for Jimi Hendrix, who gave all of us much to be grateful about in his brief time here.

We'll scrape some skin off in a minute but it's worth being reminded that this fella sure could play the blues. Let's go down to the "Red House" together and take a listen.

Off to the Experience's 1969 performance on the Lulu Show, where the overthrusters are fully charged on "Voodoo Chile" and "Hey Joe."

There's a nice lesson in guitar evolution in this rendition of "Johnny B. Goode." One wonders if Chuck Berry liked Jimi's interpretation or not.

This is rare footage of Hendrix celebrating his last birthday with The Rolling Stones at the Madison Square Garden in New York City on November 27, 1969. The music is "My Little One" recorded by Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Dave Mason and Mitch Mitchell at the Olympic Studios in London on October 5, 1967.

The mutability of Hendrix's songs is illustrated by this short, stoney "Machine Gun" from The Dick Cavett Show.

Hendrix had a seriously romantic side that surfaced from time to time, like this live stroll through "The Wind Cries Mary" from Stockholm in 1967.

A sponge for all things new and exciting, Hendrix quickly threw himself into any fresh scent that wafted by, as evidenced to by this jagged run at Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," which was released only months before this 1969 performance.

Even for all the other wildness happening in 1967, "Purple Haze" still had to be VERY strange to most ears. Oozing sex and rebellion, it's a sonic grenade that's still sending shrapnel deep into us. This madly wonderful '67 version from Blackpool, England seems as fine a point as any to end our birthday salute.