Aretha Franklin with Jimi Hendrix - Save Me (MASH-UP)

As far as I know, Aretha Franklin and Jimi Hendrix never played music together, either on stage or in the studio. But they kind of did, in a weird way, which is what the mash-up is all about.

In 1966, Hendrix was still known as "Jimmy James," and was a little-known lead guitarist backing up various soul music acts. He got occasional work as a session musician. For one such job, he was the guitarist for a 1966 song by Ray Sharpe with the King Curtis Orchestra, called "Help Me." The song was divided into two parts, and the part 2 B-side contained a Hendrix guitar solo.

The song was basically a soul version of "Gloria" by Them (with lead vocals by Van Morrison). It has the same driving three chord guitar pattern, and part 2 of "Help Me" even uses some of the same lyrics. The basic groove of "Help Me" sounded so good that the backing track was reused several times. For instance, King Curtis used it for an instrumental called "Instant Groove." King Curtis was also the original songwriter.

But the most important recycling of the backing track was by Aretha Franklin. She, along with her sister Carolyn, added her own lyrics and melody and completely transformed the song. It was included on her classic 1967 album "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You," and the song has become a classic in its own right. Unfortunately, while that version used the backing track that Hendrix played on, his solo was wiped from the final version.

What I've done here is take the Franklin song "Save Me" and then splice the Hendrix solo back in where a guitar solo would logically go. I tweaked the pitch and tempo slightly to get them to match. I think the mash-up works well, but I'll let you be the judge.

Hendrix's solo is about 30 seconds long. If you're expecting the amazing guitar pyrotechnics that he's famous for, you'll be disappointed. His solo is in a very different style than what he became famous for later. It's quite minimalist, and heavily influenced by guitar great Steve Cropper, in my opinion. But still, I think it's quite fascinating to hear his solo style from early 1966, before he changed his name to Jimi Hendrix and made radical changes to his life, dress, and personality.

I made this today because I'm working on posting some albums of Hendrix as a session musician. I'll probably include this on one of those albums, when I'm ready to post it. But I thought it was notable enough to merit its own blog post. I'm really surprised this mash-up hasn't been tried before (or at least I couldn't find one) because it's just combining different versions of the same original recording.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15239497/ArethaFJimiH_Save_MeSongEdit.zip.html