I have already dealt with all the Level 1 musical loves of Sean’s life, so to speak – his genuine heroes. I now move on to Level 2 … artists he really liked, and listened to a lot at one time or another.
One of these was Jimi Hendrix. We bought a two-CD set called The Jimi Hendrix Collection some years back, and used to listen to it in the car or in the house. The first CD has a lot of Hendrix’s classics; the second is live, and quite dull, meandering and poorly recorded in parts.
Sean particularly liked the riff in ‘Highway Child’, which he would hum around the house. He always loved the classic Hendrix version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’. Others he enjoyed included ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Voodoo Child’.
A Hendrix-related memory … earlier this year I collected Sean and Clio in Virginia quite late at night. Due to a misunderstanding, I was waiting perhaps half an hour for them (I don’t have a mobile phone). When they showed up, Sean expected me to be annoyed, and was defensive … I thought he was being rude, things escalated, and soon I stopped the car and told Sean to get out, which he did. I said I would take Clio home but not him.
In the event, I managed to squeeze a begrudging apology out of him, and he got back in the passenger seat. We drove the six miles home in stony silence, except for some particularly turgid tracks on the live Hendrix CD, which happened to be in the player … both of us were too stubborn to change it.
We were alike in a lot of ways, as Pauline always said … we were both quite obstinate. But when we had these flare-ups we always sorted them out pretty quickly. There was underlying friendship and respect that never changed.
The road to God knows where ... Brendan O'Brien 
Did he ever like (or watch) Withnail & I?
I don’t know. I watched it a couple of times, and liked it well enough.
Wow!!!
Whoever remastered “Voodoo Child” did an excellent job.
Not often that I listen to Hendrix for breakfast, but it definitely wakes you up.
Good at any time of the day, Rainer. 🙂
Hello Brendano. I think that flare-ups are often the sign of a healthy relationship. Polite distance has nothing to do with love.
You speak of how your son was similar to you in terms of character; there is also a physical similarity, I think. Same eyes, and not ‘glabre’ (a French word that does not translate well into English).
And Hendrix – unforgettable.
I have “smooth” for glabre. Sometimes learning Lithuanian is easier…
Hello Cymbeline … thanks for this. People did sometimes say they saw a resemblance.
I hope you and your family have had a good Christmas. Heavy rain here now after all the snow. We’ll be going out to the pub in an hour or so.