Ladell McLin

I knew very little about this artist before I picked up his CD, Stand Out. I found his album advertised in the back of Relix magazine, which I subscribe to. He was referred to as a “new Hendrix” and I’m a sucker for anything related to Hendrix. Let me start by saying that he has Hendrix’s look down. He looks and dresses very similar, and this should have been a red flag to me, but it wasn’t. I listened to the album after I got it and was struck by two things: Firstly, how similar his voice and vocal style is to Hendrix, and also how similar his writing style is to Hendrix’s; Secondly, this didn’t get me at all excited. Though this guy plays well enough to comp some of Jimi’s riffs, his songs could be mistaken for long lost Hendrix songs, and his voice sounds like Hendrix more than any artist I’ve ever heard SINCE Hendrix…it doesn’t do it for me. It’s a case where you think you want something (i.e. someone to pick up the torch and carry on as the reincarnated Hendrix) but when you find it you’re disappointed. What McLin has done for me is help me realize Hendrix is dead and should be left that way. Wherein a thousand good guitarists have covered Jimi’s works and even expounded on them to great effect, trying to channel Jimi’s songwriting doesn’t work. Ironically, McLin’s downfall is that he’s channeled too much of Hendrix. And, by no means is this album bad, I don’t want to leave the reader with that impression; McLin may go on to do very well. But for me it’s a case of Icarus flying too close to the Son.