Robin Denselow 

Benji Kirkpatrick: Bendrix Songs review – brave set of acoustic Hendrix covers

To mark 45 years since Hendrix’s death, Bellowhead guitarist Benji Kirkpatrick strips Jimi’s songs down to their basic building blocks
  
  

Benji Kirkpatrick.
No furious guitar solos … Benji Kirkpatrick. Photograph: Adrian Burrows

This week marks the 45th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s death, and Benji Kirkpatrick bravely marks the event with a solo acoustic album of Hendrix songs. A key member of Bellowhead, who will be breaking up next year, he has been a Hendrix fan since childhood, and his aim is to show Hendrix’s skill as a songwriter “by stripping back the songs”. There’s no sense of danger or furious guitar solos in this respectful study of Hendrix’s musical building blocks: Kirkpatrick concentrates on melody and lyrics, backing his sturdy vocals with bouzouki, banjo and mandolin. Foxy Lady is treated to a strummed riff, The Wind Cries Mary and May This Be Love sound like lyrical folk songs, and there’s a driving blues backing to Hear My Train a-Comin’. A well-performed set – but it sent me straight back to the far more thrilling Hendrix originals.

 

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