Fact #118215
When:
Short story:
UK release of debut album, Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. During the day, Hendrix signs a music publishing contract. In the evening, the band plays a gig at the Bluesville 67 Club, Manor House, London, N4. Finally Hendrix jams at The Speakeasy with Procol Harum.Full article:
Jimi Hendrix : Our new LP was made in sixteen days, which I'm very sad about… It depends on so many things … the cutting of it … You can go in there and mix and mix and mix and get such a beautiful sound and, when it's time to cut it, they just screw it up so bad.
When you cut a record, because of the really deep sound, you must almost remix it right there, the cutting place. And ninety-nine per cent don't even do this. They just go 'Oh, yeah, turn it up there, make sure it doesn't go over there, make sure it doesn't go under' and there it is. It's nothing but one dimensional.
Stephen Dale Petit (contemporary blues guitarist/genre expect) : Love Or Confusion, for example, on Are You Experienced, takes a couple of British things, elements of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows and The Yardbirds’ Shapes Of Things, both of which use a home key, go down a step and then return to the home key.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, January 2015)
Peter Frampton (guitarist, Humble Pie) : Are You Experienced? just blew me away. Clapton’s blues style was very sophisticated and charming. Very ‘on the money.’ Hendrix comes over… (His playing) wasn’t ugly, but it was more ballsy. A little out-of-tune, but it was full of passion. I think it’s his passion that I love most of all. I’ve got everything that he’s done.
(Source : http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2012/11/26/hendrix-at-70-are-you-experienced-just-blew-me-away-peter-frampton/)
Rory Gallagher : Before Hendrix, Jeff Beck had distorted his guitar and so had Keith Richards, and there was distortion on the early 50s blues records. They didn’t use it as a technique but they had small amplifiers that were turned up very loud and it became part and parcel of the Chicago blues sound. In a way, Hendrix trimmed it and made it into an art form. He was fantastic but he wasn’t the first guy to use distortion.
(Source : interview with BBC Radio broadcaster Spencer Leigh, 1987)
Paul Rodgers (vocalist, Free, Bad Company) : I was 17 and it was my first summer in London as a professional singer. One hot, humid evening I heard that the Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing in a blues club above a pub in Finsbury Park.
I was flat broke and couldn't afford a ticket, so I went along just to stand outside and listen. It was a tiny venue that only fitted about 300 people, so tickets were at a premium. Hundreds of us were standing outside; others were leaning out of their windows along the street. Out of a black taxi appeared Hendrix, in kaftan and beads. He gave a quick wave and the crowd fell silent, in a sort of reverential awe.
In a few minutes, we heard Hey Joe coming out through the windows. It was a bit muffled, but you could hear that they had a very clean sound for a three-piece band. In fact, they had everything - blues, jazz, rock, pop and a special swamp-ridden voodoo magic unique to them.
I'd heard a couple of Hendrix records in the charts, but I hadn't expected this. I stood there for a couple of hours, out on the street, transfixed.
(Source : Gig Of A Lifetime interview by Laura Barnett, The Telegraph, Oct 5, 2006)
Max Anthony (fan) : After standing in line for about one and a half hours, we all paid 7/6d each to get in, only to be faced with a two hour wait. Eventually Hendrix and the Experience staggered on stage to face an impatient if not hostile audience.
David Toop (writer/musician) : That night was the first time I saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience play live. We queued on the stairs and rushed for the front row. Breathless, palpitating, we were close enough to touch when the group filed onto the narrow stage.
Max Anthony : After a couple of jeers and whistles, Hendrix mumbled a mock apology with the promise that he was going to 'break a guitar or two.' The set that followed was a blistering, fully-cranked assault on the senses.
David Toop : During the climax of the act, a roadie had to stand behind the amplifiers to prevent Hendrix from pushing them through a pub window into the streets below.
Max Anthony : The final number ended in a crescendo of feedback, the band leaving the stage after turning the amps up full, Hendrix pausing briefly to lob his still-plugged-in Strat out of one of the windows at the back of the stage.
The band didn't return for an encore and I didn't really care. I was listening to the guitar banging against the outside wall in the wind.
Gary Brooker : We played our first gig at The Speakeasy the day the record (A Whiter Shade Of Pale) came out. So nobody knew us.
We started playing through our music, which at that point, because we only had ten Brooker/Reid songs, we played those, then we played a few others that we liked. We played a Bob Dylan song, a Rascals song, and we played one called Morning Dew that Tim Rose had recorded, because it suited us. Hendrix was down at The Speakeasy watching us playing and he suddenly jumped up on stage when we started Morning Dew, grabbed the bass off our bass-player, turned it upside down, and joined in. He loved us. He thought we were lovely.
Bobby Harrison (drummer, Procol Harum] : I remember the night we played with Hendrix. Bloody nervous, I was, we all were, I can tell you. We'd just got to number one, I think it was ... all the heroes were there ... Paul McCartney was up in the balcony with his girlfriend. I don't think any of us thought we played that well.
Mike Vernon (British blues record producer) : At that time, I never really thought of him as being a blues guitarist...the blues hardly needed a 're-boot' as it was already on its way with the help of Clapton, Green etc. I never saw Hendrix play 'live' although I met him in a cafe on Bond Street once. Can’t say that I cared much for his general attitude based on that one meeting. He was, undeniably, a refreshing change from all that had gone before him … although to some degree his antics and so forth were only extensions of early performers like Gatemouth Brown...but a blues guitarist? Mmm...well, he certainly could play and sing the blues when he chose to...but that does not make a blues musician...he was an innovator in what was to become the Rock market place. To my way of thinking more guitarists were influenced by Eric Clapton and Peter Green and then Stevie Ray Vaughan than Jimi Hendrix.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Jan 2015)
Joe Satriani : Red House was a nod to his blues roots. I think is the most underrated part of his playing is his sense of melody in everything he played, his way-in-the-pocket rhythm playing, and his combining of both into memorable parts that defined each song as a unique piece of music.
(Source : Guitar Player, May 2012)
John Lee Hooker : I've always loved that song (Red House). I loved the way Jimi did it. I never did see him play. I know he was seen as somebody in the rock side of things, but underneath he was a blues man. He played a mean blues guitar.
Dave Gregory (guitarist, XTC) : For me, Hendrix raised the bar and made me realise I had so much work to do, even though I knew I would never ever be able to do what he was doing. Within a few weeks after Purple Haze, Are You Experienced came out and my mate, Joe Shurey, who played bass in my first band, had rushed into Swindon to buy it and he brought it round to me, shouting, 'Ere, mate, you’ve got to hear this.'
I asked him, 'Is there any guitar playing on it?' In those days, you see, an LP might have one track with some flash guitar on it, and the rest would be a bunch of ballads and b-sides. 'Every track!' he said. I said, 'Geroff!' It started off incredibly with Foxy Lady but when it got to I Don’t Live Today, it was just too amazing. How was he doing that? How could he hear that music in his head and then get it onto tape with just a fuzzbox and some tape delay and Eddie Kramer’s skill with a compressor?
For me, the version of Red House on the first album is the the definitive, most perfect take of a twelve-bar blues ever recorded. Everyone should listen to that before they can even think of playing blues guitar.
What was also obvious was that Hendrix was also a great writer of pop songs, brilliant three minute slices of pop, which became rock because of his amazing guitar playing. What a great poetic mind he had. There was some lyrically beautiful poetry on those first three albums.
Tragically, when he went back to the States and was surrounded by all these druggies he turned away from the revolutionary psychedelic blues and went much more traditional, back to his roots. Maybe he was just tired of being a performing monkey. He stopped trying. The thing with drugs is that they put you to sleep, basically, so your work ethic is the first thing to go.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, January 2015)
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When you cut a record, because of the really deep sound, you must almost remix it right there, the cutting place. And ninety-nine per cent don't even do this. They just go 'Oh, yeah, turn it up there, make sure it doesn't go over there, make sure it doesn't go under' and there it is. It's nothing but one dimensional.
Stephen Dale Petit (contemporary blues guitarist/genre expect) : Love Or Confusion, for example, on Are You Experienced, takes a couple of British things, elements of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows and The Yardbirds’ Shapes Of Things, both of which use a home key, go down a step and then return to the home key.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, January 2015)
Peter Frampton (guitarist, Humble Pie) : Are You Experienced? just blew me away. Clapton’s blues style was very sophisticated and charming. Very ‘on the money.’ Hendrix comes over… (His playing) wasn’t ugly, but it was more ballsy. A little out-of-tune, but it was full of passion. I think it’s his passion that I love most of all. I’ve got everything that he’s done.
(Source : http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2012/11/26/hendrix-at-70-are-you-experienced-just-blew-me-away-peter-frampton/)
Rory Gallagher : Before Hendrix, Jeff Beck had distorted his guitar and so had Keith Richards, and there was distortion on the early 50s blues records. They didn’t use it as a technique but they had small amplifiers that were turned up very loud and it became part and parcel of the Chicago blues sound. In a way, Hendrix trimmed it and made it into an art form. He was fantastic but he wasn’t the first guy to use distortion.
(Source : interview with BBC Radio broadcaster Spencer Leigh, 1987)
Paul Rodgers (vocalist, Free, Bad Company) : I was 17 and it was my first summer in London as a professional singer. One hot, humid evening I heard that the Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing in a blues club above a pub in Finsbury Park.
I was flat broke and couldn't afford a ticket, so I went along just to stand outside and listen. It was a tiny venue that only fitted about 300 people, so tickets were at a premium. Hundreds of us were standing outside; others were leaning out of their windows along the street. Out of a black taxi appeared Hendrix, in kaftan and beads. He gave a quick wave and the crowd fell silent, in a sort of reverential awe.
In a few minutes, we heard Hey Joe coming out through the windows. It was a bit muffled, but you could hear that they had a very clean sound for a three-piece band. In fact, they had everything - blues, jazz, rock, pop and a special swamp-ridden voodoo magic unique to them.
I'd heard a couple of Hendrix records in the charts, but I hadn't expected this. I stood there for a couple of hours, out on the street, transfixed.
(Source : Gig Of A Lifetime interview by Laura Barnett, The Telegraph, Oct 5, 2006)
Max Anthony (fan) : After standing in line for about one and a half hours, we all paid 7/6d each to get in, only to be faced with a two hour wait. Eventually Hendrix and the Experience staggered on stage to face an impatient if not hostile audience.
David Toop (writer/musician) : That night was the first time I saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience play live. We queued on the stairs and rushed for the front row. Breathless, palpitating, we were close enough to touch when the group filed onto the narrow stage.
Max Anthony : After a couple of jeers and whistles, Hendrix mumbled a mock apology with the promise that he was going to 'break a guitar or two.' The set that followed was a blistering, fully-cranked assault on the senses.
David Toop : During the climax of the act, a roadie had to stand behind the amplifiers to prevent Hendrix from pushing them through a pub window into the streets below.
Max Anthony : The final number ended in a crescendo of feedback, the band leaving the stage after turning the amps up full, Hendrix pausing briefly to lob his still-plugged-in Strat out of one of the windows at the back of the stage.
The band didn't return for an encore and I didn't really care. I was listening to the guitar banging against the outside wall in the wind.
Gary Brooker : We played our first gig at The Speakeasy the day the record (A Whiter Shade Of Pale) came out. So nobody knew us.
We started playing through our music, which at that point, because we only had ten Brooker/Reid songs, we played those, then we played a few others that we liked. We played a Bob Dylan song, a Rascals song, and we played one called Morning Dew that Tim Rose had recorded, because it suited us. Hendrix was down at The Speakeasy watching us playing and he suddenly jumped up on stage when we started Morning Dew, grabbed the bass off our bass-player, turned it upside down, and joined in. He loved us. He thought we were lovely.
Bobby Harrison (drummer, Procol Harum] : I remember the night we played with Hendrix. Bloody nervous, I was, we all were, I can tell you. We'd just got to number one, I think it was ... all the heroes were there ... Paul McCartney was up in the balcony with his girlfriend. I don't think any of us thought we played that well.
Mike Vernon (British blues record producer) : At that time, I never really thought of him as being a blues guitarist...the blues hardly needed a 're-boot' as it was already on its way with the help of Clapton, Green etc. I never saw Hendrix play 'live' although I met him in a cafe on Bond Street once. Can’t say that I cared much for his general attitude based on that one meeting. He was, undeniably, a refreshing change from all that had gone before him … although to some degree his antics and so forth were only extensions of early performers like Gatemouth Brown...but a blues guitarist? Mmm...well, he certainly could play and sing the blues when he chose to...but that does not make a blues musician...he was an innovator in what was to become the Rock market place. To my way of thinking more guitarists were influenced by Eric Clapton and Peter Green and then Stevie Ray Vaughan than Jimi Hendrix.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Jan 2015)
Joe Satriani : Red House was a nod to his blues roots. I think is the most underrated part of his playing is his sense of melody in everything he played, his way-in-the-pocket rhythm playing, and his combining of both into memorable parts that defined each song as a unique piece of music.
(Source : Guitar Player, May 2012)
John Lee Hooker : I've always loved that song (Red House). I loved the way Jimi did it. I never did see him play. I know he was seen as somebody in the rock side of things, but underneath he was a blues man. He played a mean blues guitar.
Dave Gregory (guitarist, XTC) : For me, Hendrix raised the bar and made me realise I had so much work to do, even though I knew I would never ever be able to do what he was doing. Within a few weeks after Purple Haze, Are You Experienced came out and my mate, Joe Shurey, who played bass in my first band, had rushed into Swindon to buy it and he brought it round to me, shouting, 'Ere, mate, you’ve got to hear this.'
I asked him, 'Is there any guitar playing on it?' In those days, you see, an LP might have one track with some flash guitar on it, and the rest would be a bunch of ballads and b-sides. 'Every track!' he said. I said, 'Geroff!' It started off incredibly with Foxy Lady but when it got to I Don’t Live Today, it was just too amazing. How was he doing that? How could he hear that music in his head and then get it onto tape with just a fuzzbox and some tape delay and Eddie Kramer’s skill with a compressor?
For me, the version of Red House on the first album is the the definitive, most perfect take of a twelve-bar blues ever recorded. Everyone should listen to that before they can even think of playing blues guitar.
What was also obvious was that Hendrix was also a great writer of pop songs, brilliant three minute slices of pop, which became rock because of his amazing guitar playing. What a great poetic mind he had. There was some lyrically beautiful poetry on those first three albums.
Tragically, when he went back to the States and was surrounded by all these druggies he turned away from the revolutionary psychedelic blues and went much more traditional, back to his roots. Maybe he was just tired of being a performing monkey. He stopped trying. The thing with drugs is that they put you to sleep, basically, so your work ethic is the first thing to go.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, January 2015)