January 27, 2014

Here’s a colorful show: Purple Haze plays blues in the Red Room, a psychedelic rock combination to be sure.

A Jimi Hendrix Experience homage, Purple Haze – Ralph Woodson, guitar, Pete Roberts, bass, and Leo Vigil, drums, – plays the after-party to Metal Shop’s hair band tribute Saturday, Feb. 1 in the Crystal Bay Casino.

Woodson told Tahoe Onstage his band will play Hendrix’s greatest hits as well as “Pali Gap,” an instrumental from “Rainbow Bridge,” one of the dozens of posthumous Hendrix releases. The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding) released just three studio albums, and there was one by Band of Gypsys (Hendrix, Billy Cox, Buddy Miles), a live recording of a concert at the Fillmore East. Woodson, who along with his band mates, dons psychedelic era clothes for Purple Haze shows, also will play selections from his latest acclaimed solo album, “Incredible Dreamer.”

And no Hendrix tribute in the Red Room would be complete without “Red House,” Hendrix’s best known blues song.

“Jimi would rock you out and when he played the blues, he played the blues like he was 400 years old,” Woodson said. “He had a vocabulary of the blues. When I do Jimi, I am copying his licks. He never did the same thing twice. He wasn’t trying to be consistent. A lot of people say Jimi wasn’t consistent. He wasn’t trying to be consistent.

“He pushed the envelope. It was really jazz. ‘How do I feel tonight?’ You heard all the different textures and nuances and they played the dynamics where they break it down in the middle of the song where it gets real soft.”

Based in Richmond, Purple Haze recently played shows in Benicia and Pittsburg. Woodson said he wants his first Crystal Bay Casino show since September to be accompanied by a much needed snowstorm, which weather forecasters have called for. But if it’s too warm for that, he has an appropriate song to play: “Still Raining, Still Dreaming.”

Source: Tahoe Onstage