Fact #92108
When:
Short story:
The Jimi Hendrix Experience begins a tour of the USA at The Fillmore, San Francisco, California, with Albert King, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Soft Machine.Full article:
Hugh Hopper (roadie, Soft Machine) : At the time of Jimi's second tour of the States, February 1968, I was road manager to Soft Machine, then a freaky trio. They were support band for the Jimi Hendrix Experience because the Anim Agency, run by Mike Jeffery and ex-Animals bassist Chas Chandler, managed both bands. (Source : Hugh Hopper, September 19, 1980, Melody Maker]
Hugh Hopper (roadie, Soft Machine) : It wasn't sixteen articulated lorries like you have now. It was me and Hendrix's roadie with one van, praying we would get to the venue on time. Hendrix was becoming really big during that period, so as soon as there was a gap in the schedule it got filled,and we ended up touring for months without a break.
Albert King : The first time I saw him after he left Tennessee was in San Francisco. He had this hot record out … I hadn't seen him in about five years. So I went back in the dressing room and saw him and we laughed and talked and hugged one another. I was glad to see him.
That night, I taught him a lesson about the blues. He had a row of buttons on the floor and a big pile of amplifiers stacked one on another. And he'd punch a button and get some smoke, and punch a button and get something else. Then, when he'd get through playing, he'd take his guitar aside and ram it through his amplifier or something, you know? But when you want to really come down and play the blues, well, I could've easily played his songs, but he sure couldn't play mine.
Noel Redding : After we started working more and more in America, to me, it was then that Hendrix gained an attitude. The band just started to fall apart.
Michael Lydon (reviewer, New York Times) : "Dig this, baby," he mumbled into the mike. His left hand swung high over his frizz-bouffant hair making a shadow on the exoploding sun lightshow, then down onto his guitar and the Jimi Hendrix Experience roared into 'Red House'. It was the first night of the group's second American tour. During the first tour, last summer, they were almost unknown. But this time two LP's and eight months of legend preceded them.
The crowds in San Francisco – Hendrix's three February nights there were the biggest in the Fillmore's history – were drooling for Hendrix in the flesh. They got him. This time he didn't burn his guitar ("I was feeling mild") but, with the blatantly erotic arrogance that is his trademark, he gave them what they wanted.
Mick Taylor (guitarist with John Mayall) : I was playing with John Mayall; Albert King was playing and Jimi Hendrix was at the top of the bill. At the end ... some guys from the Grateful Dead got together with us and jammed all night.
One time, he came to this little club in London called The Speakeasy. It was a little club that musicians came to ... Hendrix came there anyway... it was that kind of club that musicians used to go to in the evening. He wanted to play, but there was no spare guitar... I'm right handed ...and he's left-handed...and all he did was just turn it upside-down ... It was amazing to hear someone play so well...and with the guitar backwards! Jimi Hendrix could play both ways...which is quite phenomenal.
I've never met anyone else that could do that. It's like playing the piano backwards.... Because all the strings and notes are reversed. He seemed to be able to play equally well both ways ... which is quite phenomenal.
You can't learn to play one way...and I can't think of anyone that I've ever met who's left handed that can just turn a right handed guitar upside down... To turn it upside-down and play backwards. All the chords are reversed...and instead of bending a string.... You'd have to pull it.
(Source : http://www.rocksoff.org/jimi.htm)
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Hugh Hopper (roadie, Soft Machine) : It wasn't sixteen articulated lorries like you have now. It was me and Hendrix's roadie with one van, praying we would get to the venue on time. Hendrix was becoming really big during that period, so as soon as there was a gap in the schedule it got filled,and we ended up touring for months without a break.
Albert King : The first time I saw him after he left Tennessee was in San Francisco. He had this hot record out … I hadn't seen him in about five years. So I went back in the dressing room and saw him and we laughed and talked and hugged one another. I was glad to see him.
That night, I taught him a lesson about the blues. He had a row of buttons on the floor and a big pile of amplifiers stacked one on another. And he'd punch a button and get some smoke, and punch a button and get something else. Then, when he'd get through playing, he'd take his guitar aside and ram it through his amplifier or something, you know? But when you want to really come down and play the blues, well, I could've easily played his songs, but he sure couldn't play mine.
Noel Redding : After we started working more and more in America, to me, it was then that Hendrix gained an attitude. The band just started to fall apart.
Michael Lydon (reviewer, New York Times) : "Dig this, baby," he mumbled into the mike. His left hand swung high over his frizz-bouffant hair making a shadow on the exoploding sun lightshow, then down onto his guitar and the Jimi Hendrix Experience roared into 'Red House'. It was the first night of the group's second American tour. During the first tour, last summer, they were almost unknown. But this time two LP's and eight months of legend preceded them.
The crowds in San Francisco – Hendrix's three February nights there were the biggest in the Fillmore's history – were drooling for Hendrix in the flesh. They got him. This time he didn't burn his guitar ("I was feeling mild") but, with the blatantly erotic arrogance that is his trademark, he gave them what they wanted.
Mick Taylor (guitarist with John Mayall) : I was playing with John Mayall; Albert King was playing and Jimi Hendrix was at the top of the bill. At the end ... some guys from the Grateful Dead got together with us and jammed all night.
One time, he came to this little club in London called The Speakeasy. It was a little club that musicians came to ... Hendrix came there anyway... it was that kind of club that musicians used to go to in the evening. He wanted to play, but there was no spare guitar... I'm right handed ...and he's left-handed...and all he did was just turn it upside-down ... It was amazing to hear someone play so well...and with the guitar backwards! Jimi Hendrix could play both ways...which is quite phenomenal.
I've never met anyone else that could do that. It's like playing the piano backwards.... Because all the strings and notes are reversed. He seemed to be able to play equally well both ways ... which is quite phenomenal.
You can't learn to play one way...and I can't think of anyone that I've ever met who's left handed that can just turn a right handed guitar upside down... To turn it upside-down and play backwards. All the chords are reversed...and instead of bending a string.... You'd have to pull it.
(Source : http://www.rocksoff.org/jimi.htm)