If Jimi had lived might he have eschewed frets at some point in favor of an extra measure of expression? If he had he might have sounded something like this.

On April 15th, 2012 , Chris Buono (Karsh Kale, Lithium Tree) rocked a set of Jimi Hendrix tunes on his fretless  Excalibur Surfreter Supra.  An SRO crowd at the annual Brookdale Guitar Show was treated to cuts from  classic Hendrix  albums: Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold As Love, and Electric Ladyland . Buono was joined by Tobias Ralph (Adrian Belew) on drums,  Steve Jenkins (Vernon Reid) on bass, and Eryn Shewell on vocals.

For this performance Buono put aside his Fractal-based touring rig for a Line 6 DT25 head/cab rig. From the Surfreter he plugged into an early 90’s Z.Vex Fuzz Factory followed by a vintage TS-808. In the effects loop was an Ernie Ball VP Jr. preceding a dual delay chain of a Boss DD-7 for long delays on “May This Be Love” and a Line 6 DL4 for tape, analog with modulation and reverse delays on the other tunes.  For clean sounds Buono went with the DT25’s Voicing I (AC30 model) and for the dirt it was Voicing IV (Dual Recitifier model).