Fact #118212
When:
Short story:
Weekly pop newspaper Record Mirror publishes the first British newspaper interview with Jimi Hendrix.Full article:
Peter Jones (Record Mirror) : Now hear this – and kindly hear it good! Are you one of the fans who think there’s nothing much new happening on the pop scene? Right. Then we want to bring your attention to a new artist, a new star-in-the-making, who we predict is going to whirl round the business like a tornado. Name: Jimi Hendrix. Occupation: Guitarist-singer-composer – showman – dervish – original. His group, just three-strong: The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Bill Harry and I dropped in at the Bag O’ Nails club in Kingley Street recently to hear the trio working out for the benefit of press and bookers. An astonished Harry muttered: ‘Is that full, big blasting, swinging sound really being created by only three people?’ It was, with the aid of a mountain of amplification equipment. Jimi was in full flight. Whirling like a demon, swirling his guitar every which way, this 20-year-old (looking rather like James Brown) was quite amazing. Visually he grabs the eyeballs with his techniques of playing the guitar with his teeth, elbow, rubbing it across the stage. But he also pleasurably hammers the eardrums with his expert playing. An astonishing technique, specially considering he started playing only five or six years ago. Sweatily exhausted, Jimi said afterwards: ‘I’ve only been in London three months – but Britain is really groovy. Just been working in Paris and Munich.’
'We don’t want to be classed in any category,’ said Jimi. ‘If it must have a tag. I’d like it to be called ‘free feeling.’ It’s a mixture of rock, freakout, blues and rave music.’ . . . About that thing of playing the guitar with his teeth: he says it doesn’t worry him. He doesn’t feel anything. ‘But I do have to brush my teeth three times a day.’
(Source : Record Mirror, 1966 Dec 10)
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Bill Harry and I dropped in at the Bag O’ Nails club in Kingley Street recently to hear the trio working out for the benefit of press and bookers. An astonished Harry muttered: ‘Is that full, big blasting, swinging sound really being created by only three people?’ It was, with the aid of a mountain of amplification equipment. Jimi was in full flight. Whirling like a demon, swirling his guitar every which way, this 20-year-old (looking rather like James Brown) was quite amazing. Visually he grabs the eyeballs with his techniques of playing the guitar with his teeth, elbow, rubbing it across the stage. But he also pleasurably hammers the eardrums with his expert playing. An astonishing technique, specially considering he started playing only five or six years ago. Sweatily exhausted, Jimi said afterwards: ‘I’ve only been in London three months – but Britain is really groovy. Just been working in Paris and Munich.’
'We don’t want to be classed in any category,’ said Jimi. ‘If it must have a tag. I’d like it to be called ‘free feeling.’ It’s a mixture of rock, freakout, blues and rave music.’ . . . About that thing of playing the guitar with his teeth: he says it doesn’t worry him. He doesn’t feel anything. ‘But I do have to brush my teeth three times a day.’
(Source : Record Mirror, 1966 Dec 10)