Jimi Hendrix Experience (Official Thread)

[Johnny-Too-Good]

New York, 1966


On January 13, 1966 a disillusioned Jimi Hendrix sent an Empire State Building postcard to his dad at home in Seattle, reporting sadly that “every thing’s so-so in this big, raggedy city of New York. Everything’s happening bad here.” He was entering his fourth year as a permanently broke jobbing road musician on the gruelling 'chitlin circuit' of black juke joints and clubs. This was where he developed the vital crowd-pleasing antics that he’d copped from T-Bone Walker and Buddy Guy, such as playing guitar behind his head and with his teeth.


He’d already made one failed attempt to settle in New York in 1963, but it wasn’t until he jumped ship from Little Richard’s band while playing in Harlem in 1965 that he finally made the decision to stay in the Big Apple. “I wanted my own scene, making my own music, not playing the same riffs,” he said later. “I was seeing the number 1966 in my sleep, so I was just passing time till then.”

His prophecy would prove to be self-fulfilling. After stints with Joey Dee And The Starliters, venerable sax titan King Curtis and a sporadic gig with second-string hustler Curtis Knight, Jimi’s big break came in May 1966 when he met Linda Keith, a 21-year-old model and the girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

Linda shared her boyfriend’s passion for the blues, and had come to New York to check out the scene in advance of the Stones’ fifth US tour. One night, her clubbing sorties took her to the Cheetah club on Broadway and 53rd Street, where Curtis Knight and the Squires were playing. Their guitarist, then calling himself Jimmy James, blew Linda’s mind with his raw charisma and repertoire of moves. Sitting in the sparse audience, Linda was mesmerised by Jimi, whose career she adopted as a kind of crusade. “He was clearly a star, though he was such an odd-looking star,” she later recalled. “The way he was playing guitar, just the way that he was. It made me feel so incredible.”

After the set, Linda and her friends Roberta Goldstein and Mark Kauffman showered Hendrix with compliments and invited him back to an apartment on 63rd Street. One of them had some LSD, which was still legal. Hendrix’s drug experiences stretched no further than marijuana and cheap speed, so when Linda asked if he’d like some acid, he replied: “No, but I’d love to try some of that LSD stuff.” It was life-changing for Hendrix, who said he looked in the mirror and saw Marilyn Monroe smiling back. Inspired by the apartment’s red velvet décor, he played a song he’d been writing, now called Red House. Linda responded by playing him Dylan’s new Blonde On Blonde, which would subsequently always remind him of his first trip. The following month he started playing his seismic version of Like A Rolling Stone, frizzing up his hair with curlers and, inspired by Dylan’s vocal delivery, started singing.

 

[Johnny-Too-Good]

The above was the second of the 10. I don't think I'll be able to access any more of the feature. The other gigs featured are:
3. Café Wha? New York August 3 1966
4. Regent Polytechnic, London October 1 1966
5. Ready Steady Go! Dec 13 1966
6. Blaises Club, London Dec 21 1966
7. Monterey Pop Festival June 18 1967
8. Woodstock August 18 1969
9. The Harlem Street Fair September 5 1969
10. Atlanta Pop Festival July 4 1970

 

[joker1961]

@Johnny-Too-Good thanks for the two posts here...

 

[Johnny-Too-Good]

Update to a post from last year -

Guitar icon's Brook Street home opens as a permanent heritage site next month


The director of London's Jimi Hendrix heritage site says visitors will "be transported back to 1969."


The flat at 23 Brook Street where the guitar icon lived between 1968 and 1969 opens its doors to visitors on a permanent basis from February 10 after a £2.4million refurbishment to return it to the state it was in at the time.

A Hendrix exhibition and exploration display will also be available and the flat is connected to 25 Brook Street, where composer George Frederick Handel lived 240 years earlier. That flat has also been refurbished and will open on the same day.

Michelle Aland, director of Handel & Hendrix in London, tells TeamRock: "The team has been working on the Hendrix flat since 2012 and it will transport fans back in time to 1969 when Jimi lived there and had all these amazing guests through his door.

"He lived and jammed here and people like George Harrison would come jam with him and sleep over. It's very exciting for us to see the flat back to what it was like and I'm sure fans will love it.

"It took many years for the Handel House Trust to acquire the Handel and Hendrix flats and then a lot more time to get them back to the state that we wanted them to be in."

Aland says the flat was the perfect place for Hendrix to live while his star was rising.

She adds: "It was a great time to live in London, especially for musicians and music fans. The location was ideal for Jimi Hendrix because it's right next to Soho and all the great jazz clubs and music stores where he would spend so much of his time."

Handel And Hendrix In London opens on February 10, from 11am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and 12 noon to 6pm on Sunday. Tickets are available via the website.

 

[Johnny-Too-Good]

I've managed to access the rest of the 'Classic Rock' feature from late last year talking about the gigs which built the legend of Jimi. I'll put them all on over the next few nights.


London, October 1, 1966, Regent College


It was Hendrix vs Clapton. And there was only one winner.


Jack Bruce (Cream bassist): I was in a pub in Charing Cross Road, and this guy came up to me and said: “Hi, my name’s Jimi Hendrix. I wanna sit in with your band.” Which was practically unheard of to us. So I said: “Yeah, it’s all right with me if it’s all right with the other guys.” We walked over to the gig...


Eric Clapton (Cream guitarist): He was very, very flash, even in the dressing room. He stood in front of the mirror, combing his hair, and asked if he could play a couple of numbers.

Neil Slaven (record producer): We didn’t expect anything unusual that night, until Clapton stepped up to the mic and said: “We’d like to introduce you to a friend of ours from New York City.” Then this guy walked on stage looking for all the world like nothing less than a black Bob Dylan, with this huge mop of hair.

Nick Mason (Pink Floyd): When Jimi Hendrix came on stage it tipped right over the edge. It was the musical moment of my life.

Eric Clapton: He did Killing Floor, a Howlin’ Wolf number I’ve always wanted to play, but which I’ve never really had the complete technique to do. Ginger didn’t like it and Jack didn’t like it. They’d never heard the song before. It was just… well, he just stole the show.

Neil Slaven: I will never forget the look of absolute shock on Clapton’s face. Here was this total unknown, using techniques that Clapton had not the faintest inkling of.

Chas Chandler (Hendrix’s manager): Clapton stood there and his hands dropped off the guitar. He lurched off the stage. I thought: “Oh God, what’s happening now?” I went backstage and he was trying to get a match to a cigarette. I said: ‘Are you all right?’ And he replied: ‘Is he that ****ing good?’ He had heard ten bars at most.

Kathy Etchingham (Jimi’s girlfriend): He walked off stage with this smirk. He knew exactly what he was doing.

 

[joker1961]

thanks for your post @Johnny-Be-Good...

 

[Johnny-Too-Good]

London, December 21, 1966


“Come and say hi to Jimi…" Chas Chandler led me through the crowd here to celebrate Chas’s birthday. We were partying in Ringo Starr’s flat, in Montague Square. And crouched on the floor, looking sad and lonely, was the future of rock’n’roll, Jimi Hendrix.


Jimi held out his hand but looked confused, surrounded by all these noisy English guys. Chas, the ex-Animals bassist who had become Hendrix’s manager, had set him up with a group to rival Cream and The Who, and told me excitedly: “They’re called The Experience, man. You’ve gotta see them. And Jimi is fan-tastic.”

Jimi and his new friends Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding began jamming at London clubs soon after I met Jimi at the party, which took place just two days after the release of Hey Joe, on Sunday, December 18. Also welcoming Jimi were Eric Burdon, Zoot Money, Andy Summers, Brian Auger, Alan Price and Bill Wyman. Chas had invited “just a few friends” and 40 people had turned up. (Chas got thrown out of the flat the next day.)

Three days later I saw what at all the fuss was about when The Experience played at Blaises Club, Queensgate, on December 21. The gambling casino in a hotel basement was reached by a narrow flight of iron steps. As I hurried past tables full of serious-looking dudes in eyeshades, dealing cards, I found a low-ceilinged room with barely enough space to swing a guitar. I had been to see The Who at the Upper Cut, an East End club in Forest Gate earlier that evening, and already been blown away by a ferocious My Generation. Now I was about to be wiped out by my first exposure to the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Gone was the shy guy I’d met at the party.

Instead there was “a fantastic American guitarist who blew the minds of the star-packed crowd”, as I wrote later in Melody Maker. Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Jeff Beck stared in wonderment as Jimi tore into Third Stone From The Sun. There was no stage, just Mitch Mitchell’s drum kit set up in a corner of the room, with Noel Redding hopping about in his granny glasses and frizzy hair, next to Jimi with even wilder masses of curls. “Hendrix has great stage presence and an exceptional guitar technique which involved playing with his teeth on occasion and no hands on others,” I wrote at the time. “Jimi looks like becoming one of the big club names of 1967.”

After this astonishing showing, the entire London in-crowd fought their way into the ensuing string of club dates, including a sensational press launch at the Bag O’Nails in Kingly Street on January 11, 1967. It was in yet another basement, but there was a proper stage and the club was packed with stars. As I fought to buy a Scotch and Coke, I found myself pushed out of the way by John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Brian Epstein.

Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and sundry Small Faces looked on, while a phalanx of awestruck guitarists including Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton realised this was the Master come to teach them all a lesson. As Hey Joe and Wild Thing roared into our battered ears, I wished I had a cassette recorder. Sadly such a thing hadn’t been invented yet.

 

[Johnny-Too-Good]

New York, August 3, 1966


It was folk singer Richie Havens who suggested Hendrix try his luck at downtown club Cafe Wha?, where Dylan first played when he hit New York in 1961. Havens called owner Manny Roth to tell him to expect this new guitar sensation. When Hendrix turned up at one of the afternoon hootenanny sessions, Roth suggested he play a solo spot during the house band’s break. Instead he found himself fronting its intrigued rhythm section, and blew the roof off. Roth instantly offered Jimi a regular stint, at six dollars for five sets a day. After years of uniforms, rules and frequent ridicule, he had found a place to develop his own audience.


Hendrix’s set included soul covers such as In The Midnight Hour and Knock On Wood, Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor and Don Covay’s Mercy Mercy, plus embryonic versions of his own Foxy Lady and Third Stone From The Sun. Jimi’s call-girl girlfriend Carol Shiroky recalls him learning The Troggs’ Wild Thing from the radio, and surprising her with it on her birthday after leaping out of the bathroom naked. The song became his first epic show-stopper. Hendrix also learned a murder ballad called Hey Joe, which had grabbed him when he heard it on the nearby Cock ’n’ Bull bar jukebox. It had been covered at breakneck speed by The Leaves and Love, but Jimi loved this new slow version by Village folkie Tim Rose and worked it into his set.

Hendrix was undergoing a transformation. Inspired by Sun Ra percussionist Jimhmi Johnson, he changed his own name outside the club to J-I-M-I. Ken Pine, guitarist with NY activist poets-cum-musicians The Fugs, gave Jimi his first customised fuzz box. Seeing this change first-hand, Linda ‘borrowed’ Keith Richards’s white Stratocaster and gave it to Jimi on indefinite loan.

She was also pivotal in corralling people to see Hendrix play live. Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldhan was unmoved – he said he found the relationship between Linda and Jimi uncomfortable; she said he simply found Hendrix too wild. More impressed was The Animals’ bassist Chas Chandler, who was hoping to move into producing and was scouring the city for someone to cover Hey Joe, which he’d heard on the radio. Linda knew just the guy, and invited Chas to an afternoon set, which Jimi began with that very song. “I thought immediately he was the best guitarist I’d ever seen,” recalled Chandler, who hit it off with Jimi and invited him to try his luck in the UK when The Animals’ tour finished.

He took him up on the offer. On September 23, 1966, Jimi Hendrix made that first fateful trip to the UK, and all the hardship, taunts and frustration soon melted into memory.

 

[Johnny-Too-Good]

Monterey, California, June 18, 1967


August 18, 1969. Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, the supreme moment in the history of rock – if not of the cosmos. But something’s wrong here… It’s not exactly the ecstatic event you might have imagined. By the time Jimi comes on stage at 9 o'clock on Monday morning it’s a scene of utter devastation. Between us and Hendrix there’s a high stockade fence straight out of Fort Apache, the mud is up to your knees. Half the 400,000 people who came have gone, and left behind are the lost and abandoned – among them me and my acid bride.


My state of mind may have something to do with crashing from three days of doing acid. Bodies are strewn on the ground, people are freaking out, passed out, pale haunted faces, kids throwing up from eating raw corncobs from Max Yasgur’s fields, there are desperate little fires you see on battlefields, leering hustlers are selling glasses of water for a dollar, the shit in the Portosans is bubbling up like some alien life form, and to add to the general sense of doom there’s the continual thrum of helicopters delivering food or medivacing out the wounded or the mad ones – it’s becoming difficult to tell whether we’re in Bethel or Da Nang. And like some freaky mirror image from the other side of the world, grunts and bloods are blasting Purple Haze on boomboxes in the jungles of Vietnam. A line from the song comes to mind: ‘Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?’


But, time spirit, wait, I want to go back to two years earlier to June 18, 1967, at Monterey Pop, where gods upon the earth, one after another, appeared and blew our minds: Janis Joplin’s jaw-dropping Ball And Chain; Otis Redding, an R&B Roadrunner in a streak of neon; The Who re-enacting World War II as a Clockwork Orange cabaret act; and not forgetting Ravi Shankar. The intensity of this new mutant music fuses performer and audience into a single vibrating entity. We retune ourselves to its frequencies, the music and lyrics materialising the Utopian future we all believed in. We fervently feel that this music could actually bring it on – which is why festivals in the 60s became such symbolic events.


At Monterey, Hendrix’s fluid, mind-stunning guitar playing seems to flow out of him effortlessly. His guitar speaks a subliminal language. We’re mesmerised by his telepathic ability to put the audience in a trance. It’s supernatural. The many-armed Shiva of the Ganges beaming stinging, whining, notes, spilling out of some psilocybin infested cave, sputtering, soaring, speaking in tongues. Standing in the photographers’ pit not 10 feet away from that hand-painted Fiesta Red Strat decorated by Jimi himself, I’m stunned, as if some alien from a hyphenated galaxy had zapped me with a ray gun.

Hendrix treats his guitar like an unpredictable creature with a life of its own, some extraterrestrial force he was barely able to contain. It’s an alien voice stuttering with rage and ecstasy, an instrument of almost neurasthenic sensitivity that could scan interstellar and intercortical frequencies simultaneously, tuning into the zeitgeist, the cosmos, and the occult bible of the blues.

But then there’s show biz. The famous coin toss between Pete Townshend and Jimi about who’s gonna follow whom. As sheer rock spectacle, Pete Townshend’s guitar smashing episode took your breath away. How was Hendrix going to top that? With solid-body sex and a burnt offering to the Fender god, that’s how.

At the conclusion of his set he does Wild Thing (a song he might easily have written about his guitar). First he tries to **** his Marshall amp, then he fellates his guitar, picks his teeth with its slinky strings, pours lighter fluid on his Strat and sets it on fire, making it into both a reverential sacrilege and sacrificial hardware – and causing the fire marshal standing in the wings to jump 10 feet in the air.

 

[Johnny-Too-Good]

Bethel, New York, August 18, 1969


Hendrix at Woodstock is a very different event from Monterey; almost a black light version of it. Like a lot of things – including Altamont – it hadn’t started out that way. In fact his appearance was almost an accident. After the breakup of the Experience the previous spring, he was up in Shokan, New York, putting together his second band and inventing a new extraplanetary sound. Shokan was only 50 miles from Bethel, where Woodstock was held, so it was a convenient – if risky – place to try out his new material and his new band, but then Hendrix was always a high-wire performer who fed on live current.


He was also a true believer in the hippie cloud-nine handbook. He’d named his new band Gypsy Sun And Rainbows, and thought of their sound as Electric Church Music. His opening number at Woodstock, Message To Love, is inspirational, almost a hippie gospel hymn, and he had intended to close his performance with the equally new and prophetic Valleys Of Neptune, switching to Hey Joe at the last minute. He intended his performance to be an optimistic message to his flock, with a few old favourites thrown in.


His so-called big band ensemble – really just the addition of a rhythm guitar player and two percussionists – don’t appreciably affect his sound, neither does his tuning down his guitar a half a step to E flat so he could bend the strings more pliably, but probably makes it a little harder on his new rhythm guitarist, Larry Lee, and bassist Billy Cox. Even breaking the high E string on Red House was barely noticeable – but then who are we talking about?

He jams, noodles, improvises, plays snippets of tunes he’s been rehearsing in Shokan, as well as his iconic songs: Red House, Purple Haze, Voodoo Child, Foxy Lady. But as leisurely as his approach at Woodstock is, he frequently sounds manic and shrill, and even on Spanish Castle Magic his guitar moans and screams as if trying to deliver some terrible message through that torrential rain of notes.


Psychedelic music had once symbolised a transcendent, cosmic vision, but by Woodstock it has become an expression of the national nervous breakdown manifested in Hendrix's manic,
erratic guitar playing. His virtuoso performances – Fire, for example, played at windtunnel speed – now verge on tonal schizophrenia, perhaps reflecting his own conflicted situation.

Of all Hendrix’s performances at Woodstock, The Star-Spangled Banner, a short interlude in a medley, has come to be seen as emblematic of his entire appearance there: a State of The Freak Nation address, with his guitar like some highly sensitive receiver tuning in to the jangled frequencies in the culture, and ventriloquising the truly terrifying voice of a psychotic Republic. Long shrill wails, crashing bombs, shrieking, screams, automatic weapons. Its precise hysterical outcry resembles Picasso’s Guernica in the sense of how much you can express on an electric guitar. The Vietnam War, burning ghettos, the Manson murders (which had taken place barely a week and a half earlier) are, by implication, invoked with devastating emotional impact, and the horror, despair and lethal irony isn’t lost on the crowd.

Hendrix’s music always had a foreboding quality to it, that spooky crossroads element inherent in the blues, and though he wanted to bring on the Age of Aquarius, Woodstock was the end of something rather than the beginning. His performance turned out to be more of a eulogy for what might have been than what was to come. But who better to sprinkle gris-gris dust on the utopian dream of the 60s than our own shaman of the blues.