did Jimi Hendrix event Heavy Metal?

a reply to: HouseMusic4Life

Hard to say. Metal, like any other genre, is a trajectory. A path along a spectrum. To decide at which exact point along that spectrum an artificial grouping of songs is classified as new compared to the parent groupings is subjective.

As a life long metalhead, I would not put Jimi in the metal category. Although, metal having waaaay too many sub-genres,
somebody else might.

I could not tell you who was first as I think it was a slow progression. Jimi was important along that progression.

Here you go. The earliest harshest metal I could find:

1966



Cave Men - it's trash

It's trash!
The way you go out on me every night
It's trash!
And no one can make me believe that it's not
You want my love
But you lie and deceive
You say you love me
But I do believe that it's trash!
It's trash!
To want someone like I want you is bad
It's trash!
When all you ever do is make me sad
I want your love but I won't give in
The way you lead your life is a sin
Cause it's trash!

a reply to: dfnj2015

More 1968:

1968. This one has a slow start but some really heavy ax work:

I'm so making a playlist on this late 60s heavy metal. This stuff is great!!!!

Check out the guy on the left head bopping!!!

1968:

The biggest cause of the heavy metal rock sound was the invention of the electromagnetic guitar pick-up and amplification system. The distortion of the early guitar pick-up and tube amp systems made heavy metal rock music inevitable regardless of the actual musical origins.

originally posted by: shawmanfromny
a reply to: HouseMusic4Life

Even though Hendrix's guitar playing was years ahead of it's time, I believe the first true metal riffs were written in the late 60's by guitarist Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. He tuned his guitar low because of the loss of several fingers on his fretting hand, which made his riffs sound so dark and ominous.

He lost the tips of two fingers in a press accident at work so he made some caps for the ends out of plastic. He ended up putting thin leather patches on them so they would grip the strings. That is pure determination.

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
The biggest cause of the heavy metal rock sound was the invention of the electromagnetic guitar pick-up and amplification system. The distortion of the early guitar pick-up and tube amp systems made heavy metal rock music inevitable regardless of the actual musical origins.

Did you know on "Revolution", Lennon and Harrison's guitars were plugged direct into the sound console and patched into another channel on the board to get that distortion sound?

Amp companies were trying really hard to NOT have distorted sounds before the mid-60s but as you said, music evolved because of what the players found they could do. Jim Marshall took the early Fender design and hopped it up to create the Plexi. I used to repair tube amps and worked on a real 1964 head that we think was one of the amps that were still made in the garage before they really took off.

a reply to: alldaylong

Lot's of everyboey were copying everyone else but no, I mean, these guys had speakers stacked to the ceiling and the width of the stage.

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
The biggest cause of the heavy metal rock sound was the invention of the electromagnetic guitar pick-up and amplification system. The distortion of the early guitar pick-up and tube amp systems made heavy metal rock music inevitable regardless of the actual musical origins.

Which Hendrix used to mind blowing effect in his rendition of Star Spangled Banner.

I EVENTED HEAVY METALS!!

I even had an event pass, well, it was a soldering iron hung around my neck.

... god no, he just made his own style.. some of the best metal today was shadowed on bands you cannot even recognise as metal. Budgie, the misfits.. youd not call them metal, but the best metal were inspired by them.

and all OLD metal is crap. there. I said it.

Are you sure you haven's ingested some heavy metals recently?

a reply to: gort51

“Revolution” heavy metal, not even to my grandmother, not even related to heavy metal in my opinion

Never heard of Blue cheer but they have it wrapped up in relation to what I would call heavy metal, 63 and the guitar and drums are metal, voice not classic screeching metal

Mind, I wouldn’t call AC/DC heavy metal, hard rock, thinking Iron Maiden kind of sound is heavy metal to me

That’s just my opinion

originally posted by: Hefficide

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Nobody invented metal, it was a step in a progression that began with gospel and folk music, moved through jazz, bluegrass, country, swing and the blues, filtered through early rock, surf rock, proto punk, psychedelic rock and electric blues and began to manifest.

Metal is as much a product of Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and Robert Johnson as it is an invention of MC5 or Black Sabbath.

It's iterative.

Hendrix would have said he was just riffing on Johnson, Howling Wolf and Muddy waters.

Heff nailed it. I wouldn't call Metal an invention as much as I would call it a divergence.

I’ve always hated the term “heavy metal” because it’s very open to interpretation. I think you have to give credit to Dave Davies of The Kinks for inventing distortion back in 1962. He used to slash his speakers with razor blades to get a distorted sound without that tone metal as we know it wouldn’t exist.

The Scorpions started in 1965 and were very heavy come the early 70’s. Judas Priest started in 69 but their early stuff wasn’t really Metal. Bands like Cream, Iron Butterfly, Mountain, Deep Purple, Hendrix, Zeppelin all had heavy guitar but I’m not to keen on labeling them Heavy Metal. If I had to say one band that was responsible for Metal I think it would be Sabbath but again, Im not a big fan of the term Heavy Metal.

1965




I think all metal, rock, whatever derived from experimental music from the previous popular genre.

Progressive if you will. It's all relative. Is it the 'label' you're looking for or the sound? Hell, the sound could have been out there during the caveman days. The egyptians could have started with a version of heavy whatever their music was called and it may have faded away for the easier listening soft stuff.

I think BACH was a pretty heavy form of classical music.

I mean... This is some pretty heavy $#!% right here.....



We still use this stuff for halloween. Heavy Metal is Brutal! Halloween is brutal! Thus... Halloween is Metal!

originally posted by: mtnshredder
I’ve always hated the term “heavy metal” because it’s very open to interpretation. I think you have to give credit to Dave Davies of The Kinks for inventing distortion back in 1962. He used to slash his speakers with razor blades to get a distorted sound without that tone metal as we know it wouldn’t exist.

The Scorpions started in 1965 and were very heavy come the early 70’s. Judas Priest started in 69 but their early stuff wasn’t really Metal. Bands like Cream, Iron Butterfly, Mountain, Deep Purple, Hendrix, Zeppelin all had heavy guitar but I’m not to keen on labeling them Heavy Metal. If I had to say one band that was responsible for Metal I think it would be Sabbath but again, Im not a big fan of the term Heavy Metal.

Tom Sholtz of Boston invented the "RockMan".... So maybe Boston invented Heavy Metal...