For the month of January, I’m selecting some of the most memorable and influential songs of the 60’s. While they all hail from the same decade, these are some of my favorite songs of any era. They remind me that the 60’s were so much more than just Woodstock and psychedelic rock. It was a flourishing period for blues, folk, progressive and straight-ahead rock. #31DaysOf60sSongs
While I was in high school, I had various introductions to classic rock. Friends introduced me to Zeppelin. A radio station introduced to bands like Cream, The Doors, among others. And my younger brother (I know, usually it’s the other way around). introduced me to an ultra-talented guitarist who was a mediocre singer, but had these amazing playing skills, lit his axe on fire and navigated his way around blues and rock nearly effortlessly. His more brash bangers were the songs I liked best initially, but it’s the quiet strength of “Little Wing” that has made it one of the most enduring Hendrix recordings for me personally.
There’s a recording of the song at the Monterey Pop Festival where Hendrix says: “I got the idea like, when we were in Monterey and I was just looking at everything around. So I figured that I take everything I see around and put it maybe in the form of a girl maybe, somethin' like that, you know, and call it 'Little Wing', and then it will just fly away.” This, to me, captures the creativity and essence of the psychedelic movement. The mood and atmosphere was so strong, they deserved to be personified through a gorgeous blues guitar riff, the unexpected glockenspiel and an incredible imagination.
“Take anything you want from me. Anything. Fly on little wing.”