Review: Paul Gilbert -Tribute To Jimi Hendrix
Music Theories Recordings – June 12th, 2026
Reviewer – David Mark Pearce
Originally released in 1991 this album or performance was supposed to have been quite different ……..
The place was the Frankfurt Jazz Festival and Paul was scheduled to have headlined the festival with none other than Albert Collins, but sadly Albert was taken ill a few hours before their set was to have taken place, a headline set no less!
So there was now a 45 minute set that had to be filled so the organiser was panicking asking Paul to headline instead. Paul had no band or material prepared but when you’re Paul Gilbert and can pretty much play the ass of most guitar folk on this planet then you go recruit the bassist and drummer from Ten Years After and as luck would have it they all shared a common love for one Jimi Hendrix, so the only thing to do was to quickly rehearse some Hendrix tunes and that is what eventually became this album!
Now the funny part or not, if you were the one having to do it, was the time constraints and the fact they only had time to rehearse 5 songs so Paul told the promoter I’ll have to play really long solos! What a shame eh haha
Paul has since admitted that he doesn’t think he’s played such long solos in his life, which I find hard to believe ……. In the nicest way possible!
Anyway, I’ll admit I’m not a huge Hendrix fan, I appreciate him but have never got the bug etc but I do love Paul Gilbert and I got this album in 1996 when I was at University, from Tower Records, that place took the majority of my student grant money, but Paul‘s playing here is just off the scale. The songs on offer are ‘Red House‘, ‘Hey Joe‘, ‘Highway Chile‘, ‘Midnight‘ and ‘Purple Haze‘.
But just like Hendrix, Paul goes off on wonderful tangents, and Paul has said the music just invites you to play with other musicians, listen to each other, and pull off the incredible playing that is all over this album. It really does rip your face off in the best way possible – with a guitar into a loud amp, with a great backing band, just like the Experience of old!
Track list:
- Red House
- Hey Joe
- Highway Chile
- Midnight
- Purple Haze
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