Fact #118104
When:
Short story:
Jimi Hendrix jams at The Cromwellian Club in London, England, UK, Europe, with Brian Auger, Lol Coxhill and others. This is, allegedly, the first gig at which Hendrix played through Marshall amplification.Full article:
Brian Auger : I have a mental picture of Jimi being introduced to me and looking out across the stage at the staircase that goes up from upstairs to the first level of The Cromwellian.
Anyway, he came down to The Cromwellian and Chas [manager Chas Chandler] introduced him to me in the break and he seemed like a very nice guy. He asked me if he could sit in and I said absolutely, yeah, what would you like to play? Jimi showed me a chord sequence and said, can you play this? And I said yeah, it’s pretty straight forward, and it turned out to be the chord sequence for “Hey Joe”!
(Source : interview in The Jimi Hendrix Record Guide)
John McCoy (guitarist, The Crawdaddies) : As well as playing in The Crawdaddies, I ran the Kirklevington Country Club, just outside Middlesborough, so I knew Chas Chandler well, because we were both part of the music scene up north.
We had a residency at The Cromwellian and, one night, Chas asked if we would stand down and let Jimi play the midnight set in our place. Chas had organised a band that included Brian Auger on keyboards, Mickey Waller on drums and the bass player from a band called The Gamblers.
Lol Coxhill : We all met prior to the gig in a convenient pub and I left to buy some cold-sore treatment from a nearby chemist. When I returned, I was asked what the bottle contained and explained that if mixed with beer, the liquid created a hallucinatory effect for anyone who might drink it. Then I tipped most of it into my beer, leaving enough for my lip, and drank it.
John McCoy : As soon as we heard Hendrix tuning up, we knew he was special, and we were more than happy to get out of his way. It started with the band Chas had organised, and they were brilliant, then Lol Coxhill and some others got on stage later.
Brian Auger : Everyone’s jaw dropped to the floor. The difference between him and a lot of the English guitar players like Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Alvin Lee was that you could still tell what the influences were in Clapton’s and Beck’s playing. There were a lot of B.B. King, Albert King, and Freddie King followers around in England. But Jimi wasn’t following anyone – he was playing something new.
Lol Coxhill : When I went onto the low stage, I imagined that it was about 15 feet high and the band were hovering above a crowd of people who were dancing in a pool of blood. Hendrix was transformed into a life-size hardboard replica of himself. I remember the occasion as something which I observed as if watching a film of myself. Apparently it was a very good gig.
John McCoy : When we got back to the hotel afterwards, I told Chas that he owed me one for having stepped down like that. Chas agreed and so he did a deal with me that when Hendrix's first single came out he would play a gig up at my club for £50.
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Anyway, he came down to The Cromwellian and Chas [manager Chas Chandler] introduced him to me in the break and he seemed like a very nice guy. He asked me if he could sit in and I said absolutely, yeah, what would you like to play? Jimi showed me a chord sequence and said, can you play this? And I said yeah, it’s pretty straight forward, and it turned out to be the chord sequence for “Hey Joe”!
(Source : interview in The Jimi Hendrix Record Guide)
John McCoy (guitarist, The Crawdaddies) : As well as playing in The Crawdaddies, I ran the Kirklevington Country Club, just outside Middlesborough, so I knew Chas Chandler well, because we were both part of the music scene up north.
We had a residency at The Cromwellian and, one night, Chas asked if we would stand down and let Jimi play the midnight set in our place. Chas had organised a band that included Brian Auger on keyboards, Mickey Waller on drums and the bass player from a band called The Gamblers.
Lol Coxhill : We all met prior to the gig in a convenient pub and I left to buy some cold-sore treatment from a nearby chemist. When I returned, I was asked what the bottle contained and explained that if mixed with beer, the liquid created a hallucinatory effect for anyone who might drink it. Then I tipped most of it into my beer, leaving enough for my lip, and drank it.
John McCoy : As soon as we heard Hendrix tuning up, we knew he was special, and we were more than happy to get out of his way. It started with the band Chas had organised, and they were brilliant, then Lol Coxhill and some others got on stage later.
Brian Auger : Everyone’s jaw dropped to the floor. The difference between him and a lot of the English guitar players like Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Alvin Lee was that you could still tell what the influences were in Clapton’s and Beck’s playing. There were a lot of B.B. King, Albert King, and Freddie King followers around in England. But Jimi wasn’t following anyone – he was playing something new.
Lol Coxhill : When I went onto the low stage, I imagined that it was about 15 feet high and the band were hovering above a crowd of people who were dancing in a pool of blood. Hendrix was transformed into a life-size hardboard replica of himself. I remember the occasion as something which I observed as if watching a film of myself. Apparently it was a very good gig.
John McCoy : When we got back to the hotel afterwards, I told Chas that he owed me one for having stepped down like that. Chas agreed and so he did a deal with me that when Hendrix's first single came out he would play a gig up at my club for £50.