Suffice to say that if Henri Herbert wasn’t such a stone-cold force of nature on his instrument of choice, he wouldn’t be living in Nashville right now. It’s actually a documented fact: The native Brit wouldn’t have his green card if it wasn’t for his otherworldly skills on blues piano. And, apparently, more than a few people get it. A 2017 video of Herbert pounding out his tune “Gettin On Down” in a London train station has more than 73 million views on YouTube.
So when the Hendrix of boogie-woogie piano gets ahold of Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire,” you can expect something along the lines of Jerry Lee Lewis orbiting the sun.
“My dad met Hendrix in Reading, U.K., in the 1960s,” says Herbert, an established session ace who’s played with everyone from Nick Lowe to Bryan Adams. “He said it was the best and loudest gig he’d ever seen. We always like to play this song live. I think it surprises folks the way we do it.”
We’re proud to premiere the video for “Fire,” the latest single from Herbert’s new LP, I Got The Fury, coming this summer.
—Hobart Rowland
See Henri Herbert live.
