winds of change and the scotch of st james

In spring 1965 a new club opened in what looked like a fairly typical West End public house. "The Scotch Of St James" was to become the centre of London for the next year or so, where rock stars and anyone who was anyone gravitated to the place as a matter of course.
Some of the northern groups had made the pilgrimage south to the city during the Beat Boom of 64 and like the other London bands, hanging out in between gigs in the West End (or Soho) where "The Scotch" was located (13 Masons Yard to be precise) was part of the off duty schedule. Just yards away from the unassuming exterior of "The Scotch" was the art gallery John Lennon first met Yoko. In very short time Masons Yard had become the bohemian hotspot of the West End. A couple of hundred yards away Soho begins proper where properties at the time were easy to get and affordable to rent. Hendrix on first arriving in the UK is said to have had his first flat near the market in Berwick St.
Jimi had first arrived in London at the beginning of September 1966 and took little time in making straight for the in-crowd and first played at "The Scotch" on 24 September. As someone once said the Swinging 60's was really just about 400 trendy people with everyone else looking on. It's a dead certainty that those 400 had ended up in "The Scotch" at one time or another during 1966.
Chris Welch, journalist with Melody Maker at the time -

"Many groups shared apartments and flats for a while, including The Animals. But not for long. You can imagine the fights and rows after a hard days' night revelling and jamming. But to make sure he didn't miss any of the action, Eric Burdon got his own flat above the Scotch of St James, one of the West End's trendiest night clubs, where he could literally drop in and catch Jimi Hendrix jamming and share a brandy or three with The Rolling Stones and The Beatles".

By December 1966 the original Animals had split, with now Burdon entranced by Hendrix and the ever evolving London scene he mixed with at the club, had changed his musical ideas away from driving r&b beat and by 1967 formed the New Animals and his version of the new psychedelia in California, moving there that year. By June 1967, Hendrix, Burdon and many of the musicians and bands that had hung out at the "The Scotch" less than 12 months earlier were now lining up at The Monterey Pop Festival along with the American bands of Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Mammas and Pappas etc and marking the first real sign of the Summer Of Love and that Love Generation.
Monterey was to be Hendrix's debut in America with the Experience, who along with The Who, had been recommended to the organisers by McCartney when the Beatles declined an offer to play the festival. Which was hardly surprising given The Beatles were by now a studio concept only.
That year Hendrix released - Are You Experienced and Axis Bold AS Love, The Beatles - Sgt Pepper, The Rolling Stones - Her Satanic Majesties Request, Eric Burdon and the New Animals - Winds Of Change.
Burdon's barmy take on psychedelia and probably the lesser known of the bunch had him reciting poems and beat like pros against sitars, guitars and all manner of stuff on one side with a heavier psyche blues rock on the other. The idea of it was crazy. The idea of it also being born in it's embryonic form in some small West End bar 10 months earlier was completely crazy.

Eric Burdon & the Animals - Winds of Change has just been re-released on 180 Gram Vinyl (and CD) as a mono edition. We're also reliably informed by the Audiophile LP Round-Up in Record Collector that hearing it on a record deck with a specialist mono cartridge makes all the difference.
Oh yeah and where the dickens do you get one of those from? Anyway the album is available from Sundazed

The photograph at the top of The Scotch Of St James was purloined from Kathy Etchingham's website who was Jimi Hendrix's girlfriend at the time and also has some rather fun stories taken from her book.

hendrix death 44 years ago

IT, counter culture newspaper of the 1960's. The issue came out 6 days after the official announcement on Friday 18 September 1970.
International Times. London. No. 88 Sep 24 - Oct 8, 1970:
Cover is a large photo of Hendrix with the caption "Jimi Hendrix, Born Seattle 1945, Died London 1970”;
Other news - Timothy Leary's Jailbreak; Charles Manson; Stan Lee centrespread; Adverts for Rod Stewart, Jimmy Campbell, Caravan and Black Sabbath.

And how it was reported in the States on the actual day. Along with the inaccuracies.

hendrix biopic "all is by my side"

The first clip of Jimi Hendrix's biopic appeared yesterday (5th March), and as you'd probably expect the 120,000 odd hits in 24 hrs says there is still much interest in the man's story.
The film had it's premiere last year at the Toronto Film Festival and according to 'Classic Rock' was greeted with a fair amount of optimism. This clip would tend to confirm that. Well certainly the acting anyway. Just in this brief extract Andre Benjamin playing Hendrix has completely nailed on all the mannerisms we're so familiar with, the shy glances, the gentle rise and fall to his speech. For Hendrix fans Benjamin's performance may well be an emotional reunion with the personality of the worlds greatest rock guitarist.
Lets hope so cuz you aint going to be getting too much of his original music.
Again a quote from 'Classic Rock, - "director John Ridley clashed with the Hendrix estate over rights issues and creative control, forcing production to advance without his music"
Yes, once again in their infinite wisdom the Hendrix estate put a spanner in the works. What a load of crock. Will there ever be a film made where the story of Hendrix and his music lands in the same editing suite.
Fortunately the estate doesn't own all of the man's music so there may well be some live stuff that makes it through. Apart from that we'll be listening to, as is described by the soundtrack session drummer Kenny Aronoff, "an all-star band laying down tracks like ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Killing Floor."
OK then, we'll see how the "all-stars" fare up against the master.
But one things for sure there are moments in this clip which seem uncanny. Almost ghost like in the interpretation.
‘All Is by My Side‘ is scheduled to be screened in U.K. during the summer, the US is still to be announced.
In this clip Jimi is chatting up Keith Richards' ex-girlfriend, Linda Keith (Imogen Poots).

it was 71 years ago today

It's not far off 3/4 of a century ago that Jimi Hendrix was born. Actually he'd have been 71 years old today.
Many have pondered on just how that life would have evolved? What music has been lost? It's certain his electric guitar playing has never been surpassed in rock and blues since. Other guitarists have taken the techniques to new areas in jazz but that blue print Jimi layed down in just 4 years still goes on to inspire and mystify in equal measure.
If you know the chords and the licks it's still nigh impossible to get the nuance. It was the touch that seems of another world that only great artists can achieve. It's not just the notes. It never is. It's the life in the playing. The very breath of their existence. It's the same when you hear Charlie Parker or Miles Davis. You can imitate but not embody.

This months release of The Experience at the 'The Miami Pop festival' is as good demonstration of the very presence of Jimi as you'll find. Coming between Monterey and Woodstock Festivals, Miami Pop in 1968 had always been less lorded by the media. Monterey being the first flamboyant demonstration and proper Ameriacn recognition. Woodstock being the crowned king and full attention by the rest of the world. But Miami Pop is special, because it has that irresistible moment when the artist is on a journey of discovery and with still miles ahead to travel. Not even he would know quite where it would go.
The songs are mostly taken from the first 1967 album but now the group are perfectly atuned with gigs a plenty in the bag. Redding and Mitchell in top form are molded as one. Hendrix is free to run.
How these newly discovered recordings of Miami Pop have surfaced is quite baffling but you think it can only be time that has been the factor. Either someone has died or someone has relinquished.
The presence of these recordings are not just a completist mission of out takes and bootleg cuts but the band in full flight with the 25 year old Jimi creating new ideas and expositions that would eventually lead to the next albums, particularly Electric Ladyland.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Miami Pop Festival is released on vinyl and CD. One search on Amazon will get you there.

This is the track 'Drifting' that was finished after his death and included on the 'Cry Of Love' album. The film clips are taken from the BBC documentary 'Hear My Train A Comin' which includes video of the Miami Pop festival. During which is some short footage of a helicopter in flight, which is not so oblique as it appears, it was carrying Jimi to the stage.
The words that animate at the very end are the final lines taken from Jimi's last poem 'The Story of Life', having been written the night before he died and found on his bed.

The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye
The story of love is hello and goodbye
Until we meet again

new hendrix documentary

Just when you think there can surely be no more Hendrix material left in the vaults of.. well who ever owns or has their sticky fingers on this stuff these days, along comes another part of the ever evolving story of James Marshall.
Given that his 'Experience/Band Of Gypsies' was to amount to just 3 years it's difficult to get the mind around just how much stuff this man created. It seems like every waking moment of the mans life was recorded over those tumultuous years.

The latest in the line of archive material is this weeks announcement of 'The Miami Pop Festival Documentary, 1968' with unseen footage.. and er... "home movies taken by Hendrix and drummer Mitch Mitchell, while sourcing an extensive archive of photographs, drawings, family letters and more to provide new insight into the musician's personality and genius".
This feature length docu-film will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on November 4. The same day also unveils a new album naturally, "Jimi Hendrix Experience: Miami Pop Festival", which includes songs "Hear My Train A Comin'" and "Tax Free", "Fire," "Hey Joe," "I Don't Live Today" and "Purple Haze" recorded at the Festival.

Regardless of whether the fascination with the worlds greatest rock guitarist turns out to be any sort of revelation remains to be seen and the DVD/CD/Vinyl's likely main destination will no doubt be in those Hendrix completest collections, numerous as they may well be.
What is interesting though is the festival was originally planned as a two-day event, organised by Michael Lang the man who brought you Woodstock by the way, and the second day Sunday concert was rained out leaving everyone all dressed up and nowhere to go which in turn inspired Jimi to write the superb and haunting "Rainy Day, Dream Away." which appeared on Electric Ladyland album 6 months later in October 68.

It also happens on that fine Saturday in May a 15 year old lad borrowed his Dad's home cine camera and captured a small part of the festival on 8mm movie film. After a few shots of some swans (?) we then see brief shots of Arthur Brown, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
So from a 15 year old vantage point, which is not that great, he was down the front fighting it out with a view between the audience heads and shots over and through stage construction of his heroes, most of which are now long gone.
What a defining moment this must have been for a 15 year old. There's no sound, just the edited clatter of the movie projector running, as it would have been very rare for someone outside of a professional to own a sound camera in 1968.
So here is Andy Seipos short home movie capturing a moment of history at the Miami Festival on that bright sunny Saturday afternoon, and like ghosts of another time they silently play on captured by the young Andy.
This won't be on the DVD.

hendrix's 'easy blues'

Taken from a series of instrumental jams and improvisations in 1969, 'Easy Blues' is a rare sight of Hendrix beginning to experiment and find some foothold with jazz.
It's well documented that he and Miles Davis had discussed music and even a possible recording session together before it's said, that notion dissolved into demands for "upfront cash" from Davis.
After 20 years of basically being ripped off by record companies Davis was cute to the industry by the time the Hendrix negotiations were taking place and he also new rock had one major difference to jazz by 1969. Money.
Miles Davis goes on to hire John McLaughlin for his innovative new era of fusing rock with jazz in the shape of the album Bitches Brew, but as you'll here in 'Easy Blues' there are more than enough glimpses of just what Hendrix would have sounded like if that liaison had succeeded. With a walking bass so often used in jazz laying the background to Hendrix's floating lead lines, sounding not unlike Davis's trumpet licks over a loping rhythm, he resolves them into a free formed chopped rhythm which sound at times uncannily like McLaughlin on Davis' Jack Johnson (preceded Bitches Brew), that too played over a walking bass line.
'Easy Blues' is included on the most recent Hendrix album of unissued sessions "People, Hell & Angels" (2013), and if the sum of that is one more release in the exploitation of the mans name at least the track 'Easy Blues' is an idea of how Jimi's music might have evolved from 1970 onward.
It is as always, a glimpse of a master at work.

gayageum style

S'cuse me while I kiss the sky but this may be the most uplifting thing you'll see all day.
Luna, the young wizard of the Gayageum simply nails Voodoo Chile.
Beyond awesome.

hendrix at the albert hall

On the week that would have been Jimi Hendrix's 70th birthday (27th November) here's a riveting performance of him with the Experience at the Albert Hall in 1969. Filmed on two occasions, the 18th and 24th February it's Hendrix just 6 months before his historic gig at Woodstock and also had him playing the Star Spangled Banner as his final encore.
"The Hendrix family filed a lawsuit over the Albert Hall recordings which is all part a 40 year legal battle laying claim to the original material
Court papers apparently claim that the late guitar legend signed an agreement with the people who recorded the music at the two shows way back in 1969.
The lawsuit added that the the agreement would have given them the right to use the music in a future movie about Hendrix which never saw the light of day.
The late guitarist's estate has been locked in a legal battle for over 40 years over who owns the rights to the original recordings.
It is calling for ownership of the recordings and pushing for more than $2 million (£1.2 million) in legal costs and other expenses."

Here's 40 minutes of the film which is about two thirds of the full set with a terrific intro from Jimi. Relaxed and in good humour. The sound is fantastic. Get it while you can.. it may be taken down sooner rather than later. The full set list was
1. Lover Man
2. Stone Free
3. Hear My Train a Comin'
4. I Don't Live Today
5. Red House
6. Foxy Lady
7. Sunshine of Your Love (Cream cover)
8. Bleeding Heart (Elmore James cover)
9. Fire
10. Little Wing
11. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
12. Room Full of Mirrors (Rocky Dzidzournou on Congas)
Encore:
13. Purple Haze (Rocky Dzidzournou on Congas)
14. Wild Thing (The Wild Ones cover)
15. Star Spangled Banner

in from the storm

"We just flew over the big storm down there, hope everyone's doing okay."
Source: NASA TV.
(via boing boing)

hendrix interview

Jimi died 42 years ago today, and it should be marked.
Here's an interview of him with Dick Cavett in 1969.
His music was wild. The man was gentle and honest.

mother earth blues

During 1969, Eric Burdon joined up with the Californian funk rock band War. It was just 12 months later the band were playing at Ronnie Scott's in Soho, London when Burdon's friend Jimi Hendrix was to join them on stage for the last two numbers of the night. Both songs were played more or less as loose blues jams for Hendrix and the group to work out.
This momentous night in Frith Street was also recorded by one of the audience, a 20 year old from Shepherds Bush, London who had quite unknowingly recorded a piece of music history. Bill Baker had just a Sony cassette recorder and a cassette to capture that night at Scott's and had to turn the tape over to record the last part of the gig when Hendrix was introduced as the guest and hence losing the first part of the War performance.
The two Hendrix tracks from this recording, "Mother Earth" and "Tobacco Road", were later included without permission from Bill Baker on a bootleg LP, although how the tape was passed to the bootlegger isn't clear. The recording quality of the end product was poor as were many bootlegs of the day.
The recording eventually entered general circulation in 2009 and then in December 2010 was remastered in California with the recording improved.
The end result is more like listening to an old blues recording from the 1920's rather than the bright new 70's age of stereo.
But that one night on September 16th 1970 is much more than the final audio result as it documents the last performance of Jimi Hendrix. Within little more than 24 hours he was gone.
Here is an extract from Memphis Slim's "Mother Earth Blues". The uploader has also improved the quality even over the last remastering and edited it to just Jimi's two solo's. The picture above is assumed to be taken on that night.

mitch mitchell

For all the full on kit playing Mitch Michell needed to produce with the Experience probably one of his greatest moments is on Electric Ladyland's "A Mermaid I Should Turn To Be" where his delicate cymbal playing sections counter the complex snare patterns to the full kit. It is one of the most adventurous and successful rock tracks anyone will hear.
Mitch Michell was born 9 July 1947 and died in his sleep 12 November 2008.
As Jimi's lyrics say in "A Mermaid.. "
"Well it's too bad that our friends... can't be with us today".

the great festivals 69-70

The most documented American music festival came of course in 1969 with Woodstock, but it was the months that preceded and followed that which defined the era of the great festivals. Woodstock was the show stealer simply by the media getting to notice what this new phenomena was or could be, until then music festivals were smaller and mainly attended by music fans who focused on a particular genre. Folk, Jazz etc. Now this new rise in attendance was a young audience who maybe had come from all parts of the country regardless of just one style of music but a shared sense of a place to demonstrate their united belief in what the music had now come to represent, whether it was political, social or artistic. It was clear this was an entirely different spectacle to anything gone before.

The Newport festival in 1969 really became the blueprint for what was to follow in just over a year. Indeed Newport has always been some what over looked. In 1968 it was the first music concert to have more than 100,000. The following year in June it ran to 150,000. The list of performers was impressive.
Friday June 20th : Albert King, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Joe Cocker, Spirit and Taj Mahal.
Saturday, June 21, 1969 : Albert Collins, Buffy St. Marie, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Eric Burdon, Jethro Tull, Love, Steppenwolf.
Sunday, June 22, 1969 : Booker T & the MG's, Chambers Brothers, the Flock, Johnny Winter, Marvin Gaye, Buddy Miles, Eric Burdon, the Byrds, the Rascals
There were more added on all days.
It was in someways a dress rehearsal for what was to come at Woodstock a month later.

By the following year such was the popularity of these massive festivals the Atlanta Festival held in Georgia had an estimated 350,000 to 500,000 people attend which was larger than Woodstock had recorded at the time (these figures have changed over the years, and always get larger).
The Atlanta lineup was similar to Newport and Woodstock, and just as impressive with the addtion of one or two more performers.
By now the hallmark of a 'great' festival was to have Jimi Hendrix appear, such was his relevance to the growth of these monster occasions and it was at Atlanta on the 4th July he was to play to the largest American audience of his career. A month later he was at the Isle Of Wight festival in the UK in the blistering heat and performing to half a million.
By 1971 these really huge festivals were finished as they became more controlled, more restricted venues, and Hendrix, the main attraction at such events was gone.
Present day festival numbers are much more restrained, commercial and costly.

So now have a trip back to a Newport audience in 1969. A time when skies were blue and sun shone, the stage had no roof, views were unrestricted except by someone dumb enough to stand up in front of you (usually dealt with by having stuff thrown at them), the entrance fees were low and most importantly of all.. Jimi would just let it go.

hendrix strat

Jimi Hendrix's 1965 Fender Stratocaster, which was famously set alight on stage during a performance at London's Finsbury Astoria in 1967, is going under the auctioneers hammer.
On the 31st March, 1967, Hendrix set fire to his Fender with lighter fuel for the first time when he was appearing at The Astoria in London, England.
It was the first night of a 24-date tour with unlikely headliners The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdink (yikes!). The Fender was last sold in 2008 for a cool £280,000.
This time it's expected to be half a million!

Video below is a different Stratocaster he set fire to. Wonder where that one went?

hendrix

OK, so there's nothing here that can be added to the tomes already written about James Marshall Hendrix.
But the 27th November 1942, is the date of his birth. And that's worth celebrating with a not often heard recording of him jamming with Johnny Winter, the Texas "white lightning". It is the sound of two unmistakable blues giants.