Do you have a hobby or outside-of-work activity you’re passionate about? Or do you know a co-worker who does? Tell us about it at shorelines@northshorebank.com!
Jeff with his 1964 Fender Jazz bass, which is almost identical to the instrument played by Noel Redding in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He adds: “I’m standing next to the Marshall half stack amplifier, which mimics the setup the band used on live TV shows in 1969.”
Treasury solutions operations manager Jeff Marsho was “instantly hooked” the first time he heard Jimi Hendrix — and that might be an understatement. While the legendary guitarist and singer (who died in 1970 at age 27) has millions of fans, few are as ardent as Jeff, whose collection of Hendrix memorabilia goes well beyond records and CDs. He has even contributed to three published books about the Woodstock headliner — Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy, by Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek, Plug Your Ears: A Comprehensive Guide to Audio and Video Recordings of Jimi Hendrix, by Kees De Lange and Ben Valkhoff, and Eye Witness: The Illustrated Jimi Hendrix Concerts 1969-1970, compiled by Valkhoff.
Jeff talked to Shorelines about his long history as a Hendrix fan.
How old were you when you became a Jimi Hendrix fan?
I was … 14, I believe, when I heard my first Jimi Hendrix song on Milwaukee’s WLPX 97FM. And actually, it was a partial song — I had just turned on the radio and heard “Hey Joe” from about the second verse on. I was instantly hooked on the melody and the sound. Of course the DJ didn’t say who the artist was, so I didn’t know it was Jimi Hendrix until I again heard the song a few years later. I remembered it right away, and then had to find every Jimi Hendrix LP I could get at record shops after that.
What was it about Hendrix that resonated with you, as opposed to other great artists?
The power, passion, and feeling he put into his music. Hearing his music instantly opened my ears, is the best way I can describe it. Having a lifelong passion and appreciation for music, I could hear more than what some of my friends and high school classmates heard. Until hearing Jimi’s music, I don’t recall any other musician striking that much of a chord — pun intended — with me, and I grew up with music. I saw the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra regularly in grade school, played records constantly whenever I could, played trumpet in the fifth-grade school band, and then began playing bass guitar at 17, and still play 37 years later. And I almost always have songs running through my mind in the background. Of course, by the time I heard and knew who Jimi was, it was already the 1980s, and he’d been dead for at least 10 years, so I completely missed seeing any concerts.
What’s your favorite Hendrix song? Album?
Oh, gosh … “all of them” is the simple answer. I guess it really depends on the mood I’m in, since that will determine which ones I’ll listen to. Some of my favorites, that cause me to really stop what I’m doing and just listen, are his rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” recorded at Woodstock, in August 1969; “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” from his third and final studio LP, Electric Ladyland; and of course, the first song I heard: “Hey Joe” — which always makes me want to grab one of my bass guitars and play along.
How did you end up working on the books?
I ended working on Electric Gypsy by responding to an ad in a Jimi Hendrix fan club newsletter in the mid-to-late 1980s. The author, who was living in Ireland, was looking for people around the world to help research Jimi’s life. My involvement with the other two books was a result of that first project. The author of the second and third book lives in the Netherlands and got in touch with me after he had heard about me from my work on Electric Gypsy.
Who’s the most interesting or coolest person you spoke to during your research?
Both Caesar Glebbeek and Ben Valkhoff. Caesar authored Electric Gypsy, and Ben has authored many books about Jimi. Both got to not only see Jimi live in concert in Europe, but also to meet him and hang out with him briefly after some shows. Caesar even got Jimi to autograph a photo he took from the front row at a Jimi concert in Denmark in 1968. Ben has taken — and complied — so many photos of Jimi, and he created and curates the Jimi Hendrix Photo Archive from his home in Holland.
What kind of Jimi memorabilia do you own? What’s the coolest piece? The weirdest?
LPs, CDs, books, magazines, posters, photos, pins, magnets, T-shirts. The coolest piece is probably my 1964 Fender Jazz bass. When I found out Noel Redding, bass player in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, played one — well, that was it for me. As a bass player trying to get that sound, I had to find one, and I did. Same color as Noel’s, and I use the same strings and pick he used, too. I even set the action of the bass the same, so I can totally get the sound/tone from the band’s recordings.
The weirdest piece of memorabilia is a baseball hat that has nothing to do with Jimi, yet it does: I used to work for Dana Corporation (a supplier of axles, driveshafts, transmissions, and other products for vehicle manufacturers), in the early 1990s until 2001. One of their divisions is the Hayes/Dana axle division. A plant controller I briefly worked with had worked at the Hayes/Dana axle plant in Barrie, Canada, where he was on their slow-pitch baseball team. He gave me his cap for my collection. It’s got a faded purple brim, and silkscreen-printed on the cap is the team name and logo: “Purple Hayes.” (“Purple Haze” is one of Hendrix’s best-known songs.) It’s a one-of-a-kind oddity only those on the short-lived baseball team had.
What other musical artists are some of your favorites?
In no particular order: Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rush, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Ten Years After, the Moody Blues, Cream, and the Rolling Stones.
What would you recommend to someone interested in getting into Jimi Hendrix’s music?
Open your ears and your mind. The three studio albums he released during his short musical career are each different works of musical art. Through it all, Jimi was a blues player who just happened to play blues in an amplified and electric way that hadn’t been done before. Pay attention to the guitar work and how he would communicate through his music, setting a scene or tone or visual through sounds. The lyrics are poems and writings he got from his interest in science fiction and life going on around him.
Last of all, do you have any Jimi Hendrix–related aspirations you haven’t achieved yet?
It would be incredible to be able to play guitar as fluidly and easily as he did, but I’m a bass player. I’ve tried to learn guitar, but after almost 40 years of playing bass, the guitar strings are too skinny and too close together for me to play much more than erratic noise! And of course, seeing Jimi live in concert and then getting to chat with him about music would be first on the list. But I was only 3 years old when he died, so I missed it all.