Jimi
After all these years all you need to write is Jimi. Everyone knows who you mean. There is only one Jimi. He was not only the epitome of a guitarist, a showman and performer but an icon of an age, a symbol of all that a generation stood for and the idealism that changed the world.
When one thinks of Jimi standing there in his outrageous costumes you knew he was not dressing up for the show, he was expressing himself as an individual. He was blowing away the cobwebs from a dull and dreary post-war existence; he was drawing a line in the sand between the establishment (and the generation who chose routine, boredom, profit and war over fun, harmony, and meaning) and a new idea, a new approach, a new attitude – that we could live in peace, equality and freedom with purpose.
When I think of Jimi I think of helicopters in Vietnam, Agent Orange and machine guns, peace riots on the streets and phalanxes of State Troopers shooting at kids. I think of that young girl running down the street and enveloped by napalm. And I think of the friendship in the parks and gigs where everyone shared what they had and laughed, black with white, male with female and all together.
I only managed to see Jimi play three times for some ridiculous reason. I think we thought that it would go on forever and he would always be there. He wasn’t and nothing ever does – not even the bad stuff. But Jimi playing was a highlight of my life and will always be right up there with the best – and not just musically. He represented something greater than music.
We tried to change the world and I think we did. But the establishment fought back and wrested it back, tightening their control. We need another bout of sixties optimism, passion and rebellion. We need another Jimi, Bob and Roy.
So many years on and he is still Jimi.
Jimi
With the elbow, teeth and the back of the hand
As feedback wailed by design
Over the sound of the band;
With shades of Sci-fi
And the limits of the mind
Soaring free on the wind
As it cried Mary
And my thoughts drift back
To what might be.
Along watchtowers
Chewing gum to the cracking of a machine gun,
Outrageous in costume and style,
Psycedelically free
To test the limits
Of all that could be
And might be in that castle of magic
That left us all aghast
And has never been surpassed.
Opher – 1.8.2016
Maybe in another parallel universe, but most of the above is somewhat distant from the actual truth. I don’t intentionally want to have to contradict you here, but you force my hand.
Firstly, Jimi was in fact nothing of any kind of peace lover. His personal views on Vietnam were a world away from what you have indicated. Had he not succumbed to injury following his 29th parachute jump with the 101st Airborne, he would have been in Vietnam himself, as his army buddy Larry Lee was. It rankled him that he didn’t get to join his friends such as Larry Lee and a huge part of Jimi never left the US Army.
However, it remains somewhat unfortunate to harbour thoughts of scenes from Vietnam when thinking of Jimi, considering he had nothing to do with it. It should also be noted that Jimi actually only recorded just 1 song about war, “Machine Gun”, so it was hardly representative of his great canon of recordings.
Your take is probably manifested by the imagination at play of these documentary makers such as Tony Palmer’s “All My Loving / All You Need Is Love”. They have nothing to do with Jimi as an individual per say.
Your take on his clothing and personal attire is also incorrect. What he was seen in on-stage was what it was – stage clothes. The multitude of thousands of photographs of him off-stage portrays a guy who actually had pretty sober sartorial taste compared to the hippy scenesters. He liked to wear neatly pressed trousers and nice ironed shirts – albeit colourful, but proper shirts all the same.
He also carried his army discipline with him regards washing himself very regularly and his shoe wear, which he was quite fussy about keeping polished. He was the antithesis of your average stinking dirty scruffy hippy.
As for living in peace, equality and freedom with purpose (whatever that maybe) – No! A very big No. One only needs to read of the events of his many US tours all over America to gain an insight into that fact of life. He completely understood and was resigned to the fact that this would never happen. It was only because of his financial success that he could extricate himself from that daily drudgery.
By 1969 he was the No.1 earner in the world with his shows – in some cases he was commanding $100,000 per show in USA – that kind of money kept him completely separate from any kind of altruistic concerns. He most certainly got paid ever dollar/pound as contractually agreed due to him at all these festivals, including Woodstock and Isle of Wight.
He played just 1 benefit show during these 4 years for the Black Panther’s in New York and it backfired on him big time so he never did that again.
Perhaps the reason why you only got to see him 3 times – isn’t that just great anyway? – was simply due to the fact that after Olympia in December 1967, he hardly played in UK. 1 show in `68, 2 in `69 and 1 in `70; unless one was lucky to catch him jamming at the Speakeasy or Ronnie Scotts where only members would be admitted anyway.
I’m afraid that any possibility of a resurgence in demonstrative 60s anything is pretty far fetched.
Your own generation completely fucked things up for the rest of us and today’s retarded generation have their noses buried in silly Pokemon games. Forget it.
Well thanks for that perspective – a little different to the perspective I saw and heard but interesting. I guess Jimi means different things to different people.
I don’t shared your view of the 60s generation. I don’t remember them stinking though some of us were a bit scruffy. It laid the foundations for a great number of social freedoms, women’s lib, civil rights, environmental awareness, liberalisation of laws and political awareness. Not bad in my book.
The present generations obsession with celebrity, plastic music and pokemon is indeed lamentable. I still contend that we need an awakening and surge of involvement.
Right Andrew I’m back. Busy afternoon.
Now to return to your reply in more detail. I’m not sure there is too much contradiction. As I said in my article my images of Jimi conjure up those antiwar images for me. His music was the soundtrack to many of those feelings for me.
I never said that Jimi was a pacifist. I’ve read a lot about his paratrooper time. It was a bit mixed. He was proud of it and yet glad to get out. In the early years he was quite hawkish but by the end he was much more anti and considered that the Vietnam war was unjust and was sending far too many blacks to fight.
As you say he did not overtly write a lot of anti-war lyrics though he certainly identified with the ethos of the times and for me, and many others, epitomised the feelings of that era.
In terms of the Black Panthers and other black activists he again had mixed feelings. He was pressured by them to support black power. They criticised him for having white members in his band and wanted money. There is a bit of evidence to show that he was threatened and may have broken up the experience because of that. There is also some evidence that the mafia were muscling in on him too.
As for his clothing he tended to wear a range of very colourful and excessive garb most of the time, on stage or off. He enjoyed it and liked expressing himself. It was a statement. There was rarely anything sober about him.
He was a complex person. He could be gentle, mild and shy but he also had a reputation for abusing women.
I’m not idolising or setting him up as some paragon of virtue. But Jimi was larger than life, both as a performer and person, and for a lot of the freaks who lived through those times he symbolised the ethos of those times.
It’s a shame you weren’t able to be there because it was great – a time of all possibility, much adventure and experimentation, great outward looking optimism and a very happy, positive time. Don’t fall for the caricature of dirty hippies, stoned out of their heads, stinking and stupidly muttering bummer man. It was a time of great camaraderie and hope in which intelligent people spent a lot of time avidly talking, philosophising, exploring and sharing. A time of great growth.
I don’t know why you think that fucked it up for you and the generations that followed. I see it totally differently. It opened up a range of social possibility, questioning of authority and opposition to the stupidity of the establishment.
My poem and writing was a recognition of the brilliance of Jimi, the excitement and what he meant to me – not a piece about his life and attitudes.
You saw him on stage only, not as a private individual. I’m sure you must have at least heard an interview where it’s immediately apparent that what you see on stage is nothing like what you hear in person.
When you say “you heard”, what do you refer to exactly?
My info comes direct from the pen of Caesar Glebbeek, THE Hendrix world authority whom started out with the Hendrix Information Service in 69/70 and subsequently has produced the subscription only magazine “Univibes” for the last 25 years – I have every issue bound in his optional purchase binders – containing only nothing but first hand accounts from people that were involved with Hendrix. He also produced 3 excellent CDs (profits to children in need) until the miserably greedy Janie Hendrix stepped into power in 1995 and stopped any further such. Glebbeek’s research is unquestionable. His work is a world away from all the quasi political-science fiction BS contained within the multitudes of books written by people like Charles Shaar Murray, David Henderson etc.
Glebbeek also has the inimitable Douglas Noble on board as technical director on all things regarding recordings and his own web-pages (3 sections) are beyond belief with hundreds of pages of detail on every recording session and every record released anywhere in the world be it official or bootleg. Without access to these archives joe public would not have a single clue about Hendrix or his music and be completely reliant on “rock scribes” wankers from the music papers/magazines.
I remember the Hippys all right. Most were from middle-class homes living around me. Loads of money, no shoes and greasy hair clinging to their scalps. My mother knew all their mothers, so I’d get to hear about what was going on. We also had the Incredible String Band camp just 10 minutes walk across the other side of the fields and woods from my house. Real Hippys, not the pretend “weekenders” like most were. I know they stank as I could smell them when I stopped my bike for a chat. I was always interested to know what they did. I used to go messages for those that were too stoned to actually walk to the shop for a pint of milk.
I think you have forgotten that my generation grew up a hell of a lot faster than yours. The 60s was normal for me, not new and special. I might have been just a kid, but I wasn’t a mummy’s boy kid, I had a bike and could go places. I knew just about everybody by name in my neighbourhood. My parents best friends had 2 boys a lot older than me, the youngest being 8 years older. He took me to see the Natural Acoustic Band (his friends) in 1972 when I was 12. I could hardly see the stage for the dope smoke. When I got a record player shortly after, he would tell me what LPs to save up for. He liked the singles that I bought but encouraged me to get into the album scene that was indeed alien to me at first.
I never made much comment about the 60s generation, never mind “changing the world” – which is somewhat of an exaggeration to say the least.
But you have suddenly decided to list such as liberalisation, women’s lib etc – completely out of context with Hendrix himself! – much of which started many years before the 60s.
What you should have said is “before they became mainstream and popular cultural concerns”, but by no stretch was this stuff new. You’d be better served going back to the days of the Suffragettes for that as a matter of fact.
Quite how you can twist that fact to suit your own commentary is remarkable.
Who was it that said “if you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there!” ?
Well I was there and I remember it.
My views are based on the hundreds of hours of tapes of interviews, performances and recording studio – straight from the horses mouth – as well as all the written interviews. There’s a wealth of it.
I met the Incredibles, plus hundreds of others. None of the ones I met were shoeless, greasy haired or stinky. There were a number in the squats who probably were.
Yes – most were weekend hippys and a bunch of wankers but there were lots of highly creative intelligent people involved in doing very positive things.
No I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that the world was changed. I know what it was like before the sixties. It was drab, grey and boring. Society was very stilted. The sixties shook it up and altered the attitudes. It had a big impact world-wide and particularly behind the iron curtain. It opened the world up. It liberalised society. A huge impact.
Your 2nd reply arrived out of sequence to my reply above.
Anyway, yes, I know all about all of that.
I would disagree that the Panthers had anything to do with the breaking up of the Experience. Redding walked out if you remember, so he simply got his other old pal Billy Cox in. There was no “black” scene intended or commitment. That “Black consciousness” aspect originated from a much later round of commentary by Buddy Miles, years after the event and was not well received nor factual. The fact that Buddy Miles was involved with the Panther people bears no relation to that of Hendrix. And subsequently, Hendrix also got shot of Miles almost as fast as he had arrived and got Mitch back on board.
He wasn’t actually that concerned about the Panthers per say, more about the fact that it bothered him that the black community on the whole were ignoring him. But in real terms he was so far ahead from the general black music scene at the time, so that really wasn’t much of a surprise. It was Betty Davis (Miles’s wife) and Stella Douglas (Alan Douglas’s wife), (his friends and he only went along as a favour to them) who introduced him to the NYC Panther people and they sure pounced on him as fast as he could blink. I think he hated these Panthers for that but rode the distance for as short a stop as he could get away with and out of there.
The Mafia – gangster stories were in the main propagated by Eric Burdon, well known for his BS, plus the fact that he wasn’t ever there. So they remain forever more completely unfounded.
There was a lot of friction with Noel and Jimi – and racism too – and he did walk out but I do not think that would have been permanent. Mitch was sacked too. But Noel and Mitch, while nowhere near the best, were an ideal foil for Jimi to work around. They were incredible on stage and Jimi knew it. They generated an excitement that the Band of Gypsies couldn’t match. Miles was not up to it.
I guess we’ll never know how much the black panthers and mafia were involved. It seems quite probable to me. They were very active back then. I encountered that in New York. Jimi was in a strange position. Rock Music was white music. The black scene was soul and R&B. He got called all types of names and rejected by the black community. There was a lot of racial tension – particularly in the States.
Are you talking about Hendrix or your take on society at large – or at least the counter culture society.
I was talking about Hendrix and only Hendrix…
As for all these other interviews – how many do you really give any real credibility to?
There only was one real interview given by anybody that contained the truth and nothing but the truth. John Lennon’s interview with Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner. You can throw the rest in the bin.
Listening to Jimi talk was always interesting. He told the story.
But I was using Jimi as the exemplar of the counter-culture, what he represented to me. Not what Jimi was as a person. There’s a big difference. Jimi was an important icon of that era to me and many others and I have a great fondness for that time. It was a very happy time for me and a time of great growth and expansion.
Actually Mitch wasn’t sacked. Jimi simply told him that he wanted to do this project as a favour and that he would catch up later, which he did.
Miles’ was very much up to it – Band of Gypsies attests to that, or at least the recordings of the 4 shows it was edited from. The problem was Miles himself and his inability to shut t.f.u. during the numbers. He was on this completely unfounded star-trip (drugs related, obviously) that was at least embarrassing to all and sundry. But as a funky-gut-bucket jazz-fusion drummer, he was brilliant and I can’t agree with you that he wasn’t up to it.
The versions of Machine Gun from these concerts are incredible and also has something to do with Miles’ drumming.
According to Mitch he was sacked.
As for Miles he was a great drummer. But that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t the flamboyant foil for Jimi. Mitch was more exciting even if he wasn’t as good. Jimi was amazing all the time but more exciting when with Mitch and Noel. I liked both the more controlled and the more brash musically. But I know I preferred the Experience at a live concert.
I’m sorry but you are mistaken about Mitch ever being sacked. Read his first interview given following Jimi’s death for UK’s Sounds, published 11 December 1971. He explains exactly what he was doing during that 3 months period Nov `69-Jan`70. It’s available to read online. Then there’s all these books that you have where you will also never find any such reference to any such sacking either.
I think you have mixed Mitch up with Noel. Following Noel’s return in February `70 – where all 3 were interviewed in Michael Jeffrey’s NYC apartment and it all seemed fairly cordial as the original trio prepared to resume, Jimi changed his mind shortly after and fired him.
Interestingly despite your confusion over Mitch’s talents, be it more exciting but yet not as good, Rolling Stone magazine in 2016, have just voted him as the 8th best rock drummer of all time. I’ve no idea where Miles sits in these ranks.
Maybe I have confused what happened to Mitch. Memory can be iffy. There certainly wasn’t the animosity there that there was with Noel (probably jealousy there).
I liked Mitch’s drumming. It was quite wild and exciting. It fitted with Jimi very well. Buddy was more controlled and less exciting for me. Ginger Baker was totally scathing about him and regarded him as utterly useless. He said Jimi would have been even better with a decent drummer and bassist.
For me it isn’t about the talents of the people – it’s about the dynamics. I like some bands who are musically inept and hate some who are technically brilliant.
I wonder if I was able to see Jimi now whether I would appreciate the most controlled performances more or still go for the excitement of the more wilder Experience performances. I’d probably like them both for different reasons.
Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense to make somebody out to be what they are not just to satisfy a personal golden senior moment in time.
Hendrix never asked to be stuck on a pedestal and worshiped. He just happened to be around at the right time. He just happened to have more tricks up his sleeve than Clapton – who’d never seen much of any American players himself – whereas Hendrix had seen everybody and took a bit here and a bit there.
Even John Lennon said that The Beatles could have been much much better players had they continued with the club scene instead of spending 4 years making all these silly pop records.
No I think that’s being pedantic Andrew. I was by no means making Jimi out to be something he wasn’t. Read the post again. I clearly wrote a poem about his musical brilliance and showmanship. In my accompanyinf prose I said how he symbolised that time for me. Not what Jimi thought. I said that when I thought of him I remembered those things and related Jimi to them. It was you that went off onto a more pedestrian factual thing of what Jimi thought and did. Mine piece was much more whimsical than factual. And there is nothing wrong with that. It was a piece of poetry and nostalgia not a factual account of what Jimi thought. Not a senior moment. As for putting him on a pedestal – I certainly do that. He was amazing. I don’t worship him though. Jimi was just one of the most exciting and best acts I’ve ever seen live. He was like no other. He needs lauding. And he was much better than all the American dudes – Buddy Guy included.
What amused me was the definition of Jimi to represent Vietnam for you, that’s all. I simply found that somewhat peculiar. That would be the last thing that he would ever represent for me and the many other uber-fans that I converse with regularly with across the globe. He was sitting on the wrong kind of pedestal.
What about Buddy Guy? I always regarded him as extremely 2nd rate and anything I ever heard of him bored me to death.
I actually pretty much remain utterly unimpressed with the majority of these post-war American electric blues guitar players in general. I also hated BB King. There’s a few bits and pieces by Hubert Sumlim and Freddie King that were quite good, but Chuck Berry was by far the best and certainly not strictly blues orientated.
But nobody ever came close to Hendrix and still haven’t.
I’ve resigned myself that my collection (no horrible mp3’s in my camp) of 1,827 Hendrix cuts is all I’ll ever get to hear.
I have them all listed in chrono order with all the details of who, where etc plus the record/disc titles I’ll find them on as the archive is a shambles. There’s just 5 amateur recorded concerts believed to be in existence that haven’t left private collectors hands that I don’t have.
And here’s you trying to tell me Mitch got fired! LMAO!
Vietnam was a major part of what the 60s was about, a major backdrop, and Jimi was probably the person who most represents the sixties for me, so it is not strange that I should associate the two. Jimi’s music is a soundtrack for the sixties for me. While he was quite hawkish in 1967 by the end he had changed.
I saw a TV interview with Mitch where he talked about what happened to the Experience. There were a lot of pressures and people involved. Jimi was vacillating around. Whether he was sacked or eased out, or had other projects is a question of debate.
Jimi held Buddy in high esteem. I remember him talking about him and his act.
In terms of post-war electric guitarists my favourite is Elmore James and that hot slide!
But I’ve never seen or heard anyone who can eclipse Jimi. He still is in a different class and I love listening to him even when he’s doodling about in the studio.
I had meant to say that your introductory precise more or less obscured the poem. But you already know of my patience level for amateur poetry.
That is a danger of the way I do my poems. Given that I’ve fallen into a pattern of doing a lengthy intro it sometimes works to the detriment of the poem and sometimes augments it.
My poems are really opportunities to talk about things that I’m interested in.
Professional poetry please – I’ve sold copies!
But yes – I know that my intros often make the poem redundant. But that’s OK. It’s the subject matter that is of importance.
I can talk. I’m pretty sure if I attempted such I would be 100 times worse than McGonagall!
Have ever had the misfortune to have read his stuff?
Heard it a few times but never felt the need to read it.
That Mitch Mitchell interview was probably within the South Bank Show’s documentary, broadcast 1st Oct 1989, which was actually the first time the two of them had been interviewed together. But there are 15 other such documentaries (at least in my collection) where Mitchell and/or Redding make further commentary, too.
Jimi not only admired but actually played on some Buddy Miles Express sessions, namely Blue Window Jam rec 15 March 69 – but you should already have that recording?
I’d give anything Ginger Baker has to say about anybody else a complete body swerve.
Who cares what he thought – he was simply jealous that a much younger guy got the gig with the worlds best and he didn’t. He harboured severe grudge that the Experience stole the mantle from “his” band Cream. Cream was “his” band, remember. He also subsequently had arrogantly assumed Hendrix would somehow pick him up post-Cream/Experience, which he didn’t. As a personality he’d be the last person Hendrix would have chosen to play with.
An arrogant self-obsessed alcoholic heroin addict, does not make for a particularly enlightened individual.
He made some bloody awful records with that Airforce setup of his. I think most of the people that joined him for these sessions such as Winwood, did so out of pity more than any musical affiliation. The entire troupe were all heavy duty heroin addicts. A horrible mess.
Not forgetting that things got so bad for him that by 1980 he ended up drumming for Hawkwind as he desperately needed the drug money.
He’s now pretty much skint and back living in England, West Sussex, in a rented house having lost his shirt in Africa. He’s still bitterly obsessed and scathing towards Jack Bruce’s solo success – who made some brilliant solo/band albums and a hell of a lot more money than he ever did.
One reaps what one sows, eh?
Yes Ginger is one angry, bitter man – but a hell of a drummer.
It would have been interesting to see what direction Jimi would have gone in. I suspect a more jazzy style without the histrionics. Such a loss.
Jimi still stirring up controversy, I see … but he is a shining symbol of the times and our modern difficulties were caused by greedy people who probably hated the 60s and the communitarian spirit they have come to represent..
If only it had lasted and reached its potential. But then it was all probably a whimsical dream, a bubble destined to live an ephemeral life. Aaaah but I can still dream.
Without dreams there are only cold, random, disconnected facts …
Dream on Dave ……. Out of dreams new realities are born.
I’m beginning to think that I had only dreamt of the long overdue release of the Albert Hall show from `69. It must have been about 18 months ago now when the Experience people announced that they’d cleaned the film up and fixed the sound but for some reason there’s been a delay.
This will be the last major release from the Hendrix archive as there’s nothing left – unless they find the Hendrix management commissioned film from a concert in New York Nov `68 that’s been missing ever since.
I’d love to see that. I was there. I remember we came out thinking it was a lacklustre performance compared to what we had seen before. Having heard the performance in audio it didn’t sound anywhere near as bad as we thought at the time. Maybe our expectations were beyond the possible.
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Another year without Jimi