Jimi Hendrix – “Little Wing” Cover By Chloe
Fly On Little Wing!
The inspiration for this song came to Jimi Hendrix during the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The event happened two years prior to the Woodstock Festival. With more or less 200,000 enthusiastic music fans; Jimi penned about the atmosphere and vibe as though it were a girl. He coined the title because it felt like the feeling could easily fly away.
The guitar on the song is played in a very unique style. Jimi frets the roots of chords with his thumb, and then elaborates on them. It often involves shifts of quartile to tertian harmony and vice versa. In theory it is quite similar to the Jazz style of chord melody.
Jimi used his creativity to make unusual sound effects, something that he’s been known for. It’s particularly challenging to play and very difficult to emulate how Jimi does it. It’s definitely not something you can learn overnight, not even for great guitarists.
The song is particularly revered among guitar players. Tom Morello wrote in this 2011 tribute to Hendrix in Rolling Stone: “It’s just this gorgeous song that, as a guitar player, you can study your whole life and not get down, never get inside it the way that he does. He seamlessly weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that don’t appear in any music books.”
In this cover, Chloe ( a Rock School student), nails this tough song. You have to commend her, she’s very much intent on playing it right and that takes a lot of guts. She’s one talented guitarist and still young at that. Imagine what she can do years from now!
