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Jimi Hendrix REALLY HATED his album covers
11.21.2018
04:00 pm
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Linda McCartney’s image of the Jimi Hendrix Experience with some kids in Central Park was Jimi’s prefered image for the cover of ‘Electric Ladyland’

Although he was, during his brief and meteoric career, the highest paid live performer in the world, when it came to his album covers, Jimi Hendrix got no respect from his record labels.

First there was the dull UK cover for Are You Experienced designed by Chris Stamp, with a photo by Bruce Fleming and psychedelic lettering by Alan Aldridge. You’d think with a trio like that, and with a trio of such wild-looking subjects, for a stellar result, but no, the original UK album cover of Are You Experienced was a dud. Jimi didn’t like it at all, and for the US release, hired fashion photographer Karl Ferris (a close associate of The Fool) to shoot the band with a fisheye lens and infrared film for the iconic psychedelic cover most associated with the album.
 

UK vs. US art

And then there was the cover for Axis: Bold As Love. Roger Law made a painting of the band based on a photo-portrait from Karl Ferris and that image was superimposed over a mass-produced religious poster. Hendrix and the Experience were depicted as incarnations of Vishnu something many Hindus found insulting. Hendrix hated it, feeling that its appropriation of Hindu symbolism was “disrespectful” and questioning why his own Native American heritage did not supply the motif. An exasperated Jimi told the press that “the three of us have nothing to do with what’s on the Axis cover.” (It’s worth noting that this cover art is still banned in Malaysia.)
 

The ‘Axis’ cover Hendrix felt was “disrespectful.”

But the worst was yet to come. Around the time of his final masterpiece Electric Ladyland, Hendrix sent a very specific handwritten letter, with several drawings, to his American label Reprise Records describing EXACTLY what he wanted for its album cover. He requested a shot by his friend photographer Linda Eastman, who would marry Paul McCartney the following year. Eastman’s portrait was of the band with some children on José de Creeft’s famous Alice in Wonderland sculpture in New York’s Central Park.

Dear Sirs,

Here are the pictures we would like for you to use anywhere on the L.P. cover - preferably inside and back, without the white frames around some of the B/W ones, and with most of them next to each other in different sizes and mixing the color prints at different points, for instance.

[Sketch]

Please use cover picture with us and the kids on the statue for front or BACK COVER (OUTSIDE COVER) and the other back or front side, (outside cover) Please use three good pictures of us in B/W or color.

We would like to make an apology for taking so very long to send this but we have been working very hard indeed, doing shows AND recording.

And please send the pictures back to

Jimi Hendrix Personal & Private
c/o Jeffrey & Chandler
27 EAST 37th ST. N.Y. N.Y.

After you finish with them.

Please, if you can, find a nice place and lettering for the few words I wrote named… “Letter of the room full of mirrors.” on the L.P. cover.

The sketch on the other page is a rough idea of course…But please use ALL the pictures and the words - Any other drastic change from these directions would not be appropriate according to the music and our group’s present stage - And the music is most important. And we have enough personal problems without having to worry about this simple yet effective layout.

Thank you.

Jimi Hendrix

 

 
Reprise simply ignored these direct requests from the artist and used instead a solarized Karl Ferris photo taken in 1967. Track Records, Hendrix’s U.K. label, did even worse, using a David Montgomery photo depicting nineteen naked ladies!
 

The scandalous naked ladies UK cover image for ‘Electric Ladyland’ by David Montgomery

After expressing initial disgruntlement, Hendrix told Melody Maker in November 1968 that he hadn’t been informed about Track’s plans for the UK album cover:

“I didn’t know a thing about the English sleeve. Still, you know me, I dug it anyway. Except I think it’s sad the way the photographer made the girls look ugly. Some of them are nice looking chicks, but the photographer distorted the photograph with a fish-eye lens or something. That’s mean. It made the girls look bad. But it’s not my fault.”

Considering how very specific he had been, and the number of time that he’d seen his wishes brushed aside, that’s a pretty magnanimus reaction.

Which brings me to the brand new INSANE 5.1 remix of Electric Ladyland, which has Jimi’s preferred cover image restored to the cover. But first a slight digression…

Keep reading, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.21.2018
04:00 pm
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‘Ballad of Jimi’: The song that ‘predicted’ the death of Jimi Hendrix
10.26.2018
11:49 am
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Jimi Hendrix
 
As any self-respecting rock fan knows, Jimi Hendrix’s electrifying performance at the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival made him a star. During the years leading up to his fame, Hendrix was a sideman, playing live and recording in the studio with such acts as Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. An R&B singer named Curtis Knight was another performer Hendrix worked with, becoming a part of the singer’s backing band, the Squires, in 1965 (in 2015, we first told you about the Knight/Hendrix association). In October of ’65, Hendrix played his first recording session with Knight. That same month, Knight introduced Hendrix to Ed Chalpin, a producer who also owned an independent record company. Jimi then famously signed a three-year contract with Chalpin for $1—a decision that would later result in major legal battles for Hendrix, which went on for the rest of life, and continued for decades after his death.
 
Hendrix and Knight
Hendrix and Knight on stage at the Cheetah in New York City, circa May 1966.

Once Jimi hit it big, Chalpin licensed the Knight songs Hendrix played on to a myriad of record labels for singles and albums, which were subsequently issued in a number of countries. A tune called “Ballad of Jimi” was frequently amongst the track listings of these releases, including the widely distributed 1968 edition of Get That Feeling on London Records. The LP was credited to “Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight,” and featured a photo of Jimi shot at Monterey Pop. Knight received songwriting credit for “Ballad of Jimi,” also known as “Ballad of Jimmy” and “My Best Friend.” The lyrics concern a girl that the singer of the song (Knight) and his best friend both dig. The girl goes out with the buddy, who dies in a car wreck on their first date. The singer later marries the girl on the fifth anniversary of his best friend’s death.

For the track, Jimi used a wah-wah pedal, and his guitar playing can be heard throughout.
 

 
Hendrix overdubbed the part when he reunited with Knight and Chalpin for two session dates in July and August 1967. Inconceivable, considering Chalpin was, at the time, attempting to legally stop the release of more Jimi Hendrix Experience albums. Studio chatter captured on tape reveals Hendrix telling Chalpin “You can’t use my name,” in relation to the recordings they were making, to which the producer laughs and tells Jimi not to worry about it.
 
1968 single
Danish picture sleeve, 1968.

Hendrix died on September 18, 1970. By years’ end, “Ballad of Jimi” had been re-released as a single.
 
1971 single
Dutch picture sleeve, 1971. The photo of Knight and Hendrix was taken at the July 1967 recording session.

After Jimi’s death, Knight and Chalpin went back into the studio and re-cut’s Knight’s vocal (which isn’t particularly good on either version), and the lyrics were altered. The focus of the song was now the best friend, Jimi/Jimmy, a guitar player who foresees his own demise (“Five years, this he said.”). As evidence that the track was cut five years—to the day—prior to Hendrix’s passing, an alleged copy of the session log was included with a German pressing of the “Ballad of Jimi” 45.
 
Session log
 
Putting aside the distastefulness of the endeavor, there are quite a few holes in this fantastic story. First of all, Hendrix first went into the studio with Knight and Chalpin in October 1965, weeks after the September 18 date. Secondly, “Ballad of Jimi” had been already out a few years, with significantly different lyrics. Thirdly, the wah-wah pedal didn’t hit the marketplace until early 1967—well after the claimed 1965 date.

Experience Hendrix, the company owned and operated by the Hendrix family, now has the rights to not only the Curtis Knight recordings Jimi played on, but all of the tapes that had been controlled by Ed Chalpin.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Bart Bealmear
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10.26.2018
11:49 am
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Rockstars with balls: Bob Marley, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Pink Floyd & more playing soccer


Bob Marley playing football backstage in 1979.
 

I love soccer. That’s all I ever watch. I’ll watch it all day if I can. But I’m too bloody old to play now.

—Lifelong soccer devotee, Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath.

 
I’m posting theses images today because I, and perhaps many of your reading this require a bit of a “mind cleanse” every now and then to blow all the bad shit out of your brain. And what better way to clear your mind of all the gloom and doom currently running amok in the global brain than to lose ourselves for a while looking at pictures of pretty people playing around with soccer balls. Ah, I feel better already.

There’s Robert Plant cavorting around in tiny sports briefs on a soccer field looking not-so-pleased that he was being photographed while doing so. There’s also a shirtless Roger Daltrey, a spandex-clad Rod Stewart, and a straight-up amazing shot of Bob Marley backstage at a show in San Diego in 1979 kicking a soccer ball around. Many other bands like Iron Maiden and Def Leppard actually actively played in amateur football leagues of their own during their time away from their headbanging duties, so I’ve included a few choice images of both bands suited up for gameplay as well.
 

Robert Plant.
 

Roger Daltrey.
 
More rockin’ footballers after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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03.13.2017
09:24 am
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September 17, 1970: The last photographs of Jimi Hendrix
03.18.2016
10:16 am
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The day before Jimi Hendrix died on September 17, 1970, these serene photographs were taken during his stay at the Samarkand Hotel. Jimi can be seen enjoying his favorite Fender Stratocaster guitar, a spot of tea and some outdoor activities. Apparently Hendrix and his girlfriend, Monika Danneman, spent the majority of the sunny day strolling King’s Road, shopping for clothes at the Chelsea antiques market and visiting the Cumberland Hotel.

These are the last known photographs ever taken of the great rock guitarist, who tragically died at the age of 27 from a barbiturate overdose. Dannemann revealed years later that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescription Vesparax sleeping pills, many, many times the recommended dosage.


 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Tara McGinley
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03.18.2016
10:16 am
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Turn on, tune in and listen to Timothy Leary’s psychedelic jam with Jimi Hendrix on bass

The cover for You Can Be Anything This Time Around, 1970
 
If you just got a contact high after reading the title of this post, then congratulations. Take two tabs of acid and call me in the morning! But only after you’ve listened to the three tracks from Harvard psychologist and drug guru Timothy Leary’s album (which was recorded in 1968), You Can Be Anyone This Time Around.
 
Timothy Leary and Jimi Hendrix
Timothy Leary and his bass player

Leary recorded the album, in part as a way to raise cash to fund his ill-fated run for Governor of California against the then incumbent, GOP golden god, Ronald Reagan. His campaign slogan was “Come together, join the party” and his campaign song was supposed to be, “Come Together,” which was conceived specifically with Leary’s political aspirations in mind by John Lennon.
 

Learys and Lennons
 
Sadly, after Leary was arrested on December 26th, 1968 for the possession of two pot roaches (for which he was given a ten-year prison sentence, with another ten-year sentence tacked on to that due to a previous arrest in 1965, let that one sink in), his campaign went up in well, smoke.
 
Timothy Leary's prison mugshot, 1970
Leary’s prison mugshot
 
Lucky for us, the 45-minute long, three-track record (which was allegedly recorded in one session that went on until the early morning hours at the Record Plant in New York City) that includes musical contributions not only from Hendrix (on bass guitar no less) but also Stephen Stills, drummer Buddy Miles, and John Sebastian, founder of The Lovin’ Spoonful, did see the light of day. Unlike Leary’s political career. 

Historically speaking, it’s one of the very first records to use “samples.” Sonic snatches from the catalogs of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and sitar maestro, Ravi Shankar round out the album’s unique “sound.” As if all that isn’t cool enough when it comes to rock and roll mythology—the record is actually a great listen…
 

READ ON
Posted by Cherrybomb
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01.08.2016
10:25 am
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Jimi Hendrix’s Excalibur and the Secret Teachings of Heavy Metal
11.24.2015
08:48 am
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This coming Friday is Jimi Hendrix’s birthday. In honor of that event, guest blogger Adam Ganderson contributed this bit of heavy metal history to Dangerous Minds.

Jimi Hendrix gave his final performance on September 6, 1970 on the Isle of Fehmarn, Germany at an event called “The Love and Peace Festival.” By most accounts, the fest was a disaster. Heavy rain had delayed Hendrix’s performance and when he did play it was on the following day and at a much earlier time slot than expected. There were reports that the ticket office was robbed and the promoter’s trailer burned to the ground. In the audience at the show was a fourteen-year-old guitar player named Ulrich Roth. His father, a photojournalist for a German paper, had hooked the kid up with a free pass. Roth had a camera with him, and he took photos of the event, though none have ever been published. Eventually the kid found his way backstage to try and meet Hendrix, who was there in the middle of a chaotic scene surrounded by various hangers-on and bikers. Thinking there would probably be another opportunity to meet Hendrix at an upcoming show in Hanover, Ulrich held back on approaching the guitarist.

The Hanover show never happened, because thirteen days later, on September 18, Jimi Hendrix was dead. He had been in London at the apartment of his girlfriend, a young German artist and former professional figure skater named Monika Dannemann. She took photos of him on the afternoon of the 17th, drinking tea and holding the Fender Strat he had named “Black Beauty,” supposedly his favorite guitar, and the one he had played at most of his 1970 concerts, including Fehmarn. He spent that night at Dannemann’s flat, having dinner, talking. But on the morning of the 18th, something had gone terribly wrong. Hendrix exited the third rock from the sun.
 

Jimi with Black Beauty photographed by Monika Dannemenn on her patio.
 
Several years after Hendrix’s death, Ulrich Roth, soon to be called Uli Jon Roth, became fixated on a guitar style that combined classical music structures with the outer space blues transmissions pioneered by Hendrix. He also formed a band called Dawn Road which eventually took on the name Scorpions after merging with guitarist Rudolf Schenker and singer Klaus Meine. Scorpions made four albums with Uli Jon Roth including what many consider to be their best, 1977’s Taken By Force.

In 1976 Roth met Monika Dannemann in London and the two became close, bonded by a connection with Hendrix. For Uli the connection was purely musical, the beginning of a philosophy damn near impossible to pin down with words, but that was deeply influenced by Hendrix and classical music. Even though there is maybe no other guitarist as well versed in the sonic language of the Hendrix musical realm, Uli’s style is more a continuation of what Hendrix started, rather than an imitation. Dannemann, for her part, believed she had been imparted with a kind of mysterious spiritual message from Hendrix, a message that she wanted to share with Roth and which he, already a Jimi fanatic, embraced to such a degree that it eventually led to him leaving Scorpions to form Electric Sun, a band where this higher level classical/Hendrix vibe could be more fully expressed.

But before all that, in 1977, Scorpions went into the studio to record Taken By Force, a pivotal album for the band that marked a transition to the more direct tactics required for conquering the overseas (i.e. American) market. Simpler lyrics, more straightforward assault, more METAL. It was an approach initiated in part by drummer/lyricist Herman Rarebell and rapidly embraced by the other members, though the album still holds some of Roth’s most famous eclectic bizarro rock compositions, including the evil flamenco saga “Sails Of Charon.”

The second track on Taken By Force is a song called “Burn The Sky.” Most of the music was written by rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker, with leads by Roth, and lyrics by Monika Dannemann, who by this time had become inseparable from Uli. It’s a tune that weighs in at several different classes all at once. Lyrically, it is what Roth has described as “Monica mourning for Jimi” but at the same time it used phrases that act as a negation of the finality of death. More pathos than any typical flower power hippie jam. Not stoned, but H-E-A-V-Y. This song is the dark melodic hard rock at the heart of Scorpions’ central nervous system, the elemental stuff from where their sound circulated outward through the mid 70’s to their greatest commercial triple entendre sex anthems of the 1980s.

Roth and Dannemann lived together for around seventeen years during which time she continued writing and became an accomplished painter. Eventually they split and she became entangled in a court battle with a woman named Kathy Etchingham which basically consisted of the two trading accusations and casting aspersions about who was the “real” girlfriend of Jimi Hendrix. It was a mess that culminated with Dannemann being held in contempt of court. In 1996, two days after that verdict, she was found in her car, a victim of what was ruled suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning.

As for what happened at Monika Dannemann’s apartment on the September 17th and 18th of 1970, there is no way to know any more than what has already been said. Uli Jon Roth has always maintained Dannemann’s version of events as she told them to both him and Scotland Yard. Basically, that there had been a tragic accident. Unable to sleep, Hendrix had taken some pills called Vesparax, a very strong German barbiturate that had been prescribed to Dannemann. The recommended dose for that stuff is one pill. Unaware of the potency and apparently without her knowledge, he took nine.

Following the death of Jimi Hendrix, the Black Beauty Strat fell into the care of Monika Dannemann. Today, like a magic sword guarded by an acolyte, it’s in the stewardship of Uli Jon Roth. There has been occasional speculation by some whether Roth actually has the instrument, but roughly two years ago he confirmed to me in a phone interview that he was, in fact, “the guardian of the guitar” though it was in a vault because “too many people were after it.” He then said he is hoping to one day exhibit it as part of an event that would also incorporate Monika Dannemann’s paintings.
 

  
This year, Scorpions are celebrating their 50th anniversary and though Uli Jon Roth is no longer a member, he tours with his own band and has become an innovator in guitar design and instruction. Through seminars called Sky Academy he teaches guitar via a technique derived from the philosophy he began imagining years ago, a type of musical metaphysics. The rough explanation of it would be imagining how emotion is affected by vibrating frequencies, frequencies in an octave, with each octave represented by a color. Strange? Guitar players are weird people. But maybe it’s not so weird if one were to consider certain theories. Like a theory where the entire world, down to the movements of the smallest particle, is a form of music. A type of six string theory, if you will. It’s even less weird if one were to consider that a manifestation of these moving particles, these frequencies, is an instrument, a guitar, a device constructed to broadcast sounds through speakers, over crowds, through time, and onto the fields of an outdoor concert where trailers get burned down, and ticket offices robbed, and a guitar player walks backstage hoping to meet his idol. Now can you dig it?

After the jump, Scorpions perform “Burn The Sky” on German television in 1977…

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Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.24.2015
08:48 am
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Jimi Hendrix estate sues guitar shop for possession of a vintage Hendrix instrument
10.15.2015
09:22 am
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Tuscon, AZ music store Rainbow Guitars has come to possess a very special item: a Black Widow guitar, an example of the only guitar model ever offered by the Acoustic Control Corporation, a company far better known for amps. This one was a rare left-handed model, and to ice that cake, it was once owned by Jimi Hendrix.

The alleged provenance is this: the guitar was given by Hendrix to his adopted sister Janie, who married Earth, Wind and Fire/Commodores guitarist Sheldon Reynolds. Hendrix either gave Reynolds the instrument, or he obtained it in their divorce settlement (this is unclear and online sources differ). Reynolds sold the guitar to one Brian Patterson—named by some sources as a “business partner” of Reynolds’—who in turn sold the instrument to Rainbow’s Harvey Moltz.

There’s a missing piece to that provenance claim—before selling the instrument to Moltz, Patterson endeavored to sell the instrument through Julien’s Auctions of Beverly Hills, CA, which provoked a lawsuit last year by Experience Hendrix, the business entity run by Hendrix’s family in an endeavor to keep control of the guitarist’s legacy. Now it’s Moltz who finds himself being sued by Experience Hendrix. Via the Arizona Daily Star:

Rainbow Guitars owner Harvey Moltz says he paid $80,000 last year for the Black Widow guitar. But in an Oct. 2 complaint, the company that runs Hendrix’s estate claimed Moltz is not the rightful owner of the guitar and asked a Pima County Superior Court judge to direct him to return the guitar and pay damages.

Experience Hendrix said in its complaint that it first learned the guitar was missing in June 2014 when Julien’s Auctions — a Los Angeles firm that bills itself as “the auction house to the stars” — called to authenticate a claim made by Brian Patterson, who was trying to auction the Black Widow.

At the time of the sale, Patterson showed Moltz a letter stating Janie Hendrix had given the Black Widow to Reynolds during their marriage, Jackson wrote in a June 15 letter to the lawyers representing Experience Hendrix.

The Oct. 2 complaint follows a November 2014 lawsuit filed by Experience Hendrix against Patterson and Reynolds in Los Angeles. In June, the company learned Patterson no longer possessed the guitar.

It’s a thorny matter to sort out. For now, the guitar isn’t listed on Rainbow’s web site, and Motz isn’t listing it for sale until the courts sort the matter out, assuming the instrument can be authenticated as Hendrix’s, which is yet ANOTHER thorny matter. Different Black Widow models were made, some by a company called Bartell, and some by the Mosrite company, famous for the offset-body guitars played by surf champs the Ventures and by punk progenitor Johnny Ramone. Some models had 24 frets, some had 22. Some were solid bodied, and some, like the one in contention, were semi-hollow. For a guitar of which only about 1,000 were ever built, the Black Widow’s got some variations. Guitar geeks could probably argue for years about which one belonged to whom.
 

 
Experience Hendrix has done a lot of good by Hendrix’s legacy in rehabbing bootleg material to higher standards of audio fidelity, and by rather triumphantly getting Hendrix’s notorious exploiter Ed Chalpin out of the picture at long last. They’ve also been seen in some circles as a greedy entity trying to squeeze blood from a stone, and in some ways no less exploitative than Chalpin. While the latter characterization seems one dimensional and over-harsh to me, suing to force an independent shop to simply hand over an instrument for which it paid $80K in good faith and asking for damages on top of that (prompting the question, what damages were done to them by not possessing a guitar of disputed provenance that was so “priceless to them” that they didn’t even consider it missing until an auctioneer asked them to authenticate it?) is rather easy to interpret as the grabby move of a deep-pocketed Goliath that’s looking to control all it can. If their version of events is correct and the guitar was never actually Patterson’s to sell (an assertion arguably given some weight by the inconsistencies in Reynolds’ provenance stories), isn’t the guitar shop the victim of an opportunistic and illegitimate seller? Why not just reimburse Moltz the $80K he’s out if the guitar is so priceless, instead of racking up court costs, attorney fees, and huge bad vibes? It merits mentioning that Janie Hendrix, through whom the guitar passed into Reynolds’ possession, is now the CEO of Experience Hendrix. It also merits mentioning that I’m not a legal expert in Seattle or Tucson or anywhere for that matter, and that all of these foregoing are of course merely a layperson’s ruminations.

Read on after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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10.15.2015
09:22 am
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Iggy Pop and Steve Jones’ druggy, doomy remake of ‘Purple Haze’
08.13.2015
01:50 pm
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Steve Jones and Iggy Pop circa 1988
 
There exists a recording of the Stooges playing a straight-ahead cover of “Purple Haze” sometime in the 70s (see the dodgy-looking Anthology Box), but I’m in love with this weird, opiated bum-out version of the song Iggy recorded with Sex Pistol Steve Jones a decade later.

Along with several Pop/Jones compositions and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Family Affair,” “Purple Haze” was one of a number of songs the pair demoed in a home studio in L.A.‘s Hancock Park neighborhood in 1985. According to at least one crummy fan bio, Bowie was so impressed by the Hancock Park demos that upon hearing them he decided to reunite with Iggy for Blah-Blah-Blah.
 

 
Instead of the Day-Glo flash of acid, Iggy’s “Purple Haze” evokes the feeling of stumbling through a Ralphs supermarket at midnight on a handful of downers. (Despite the track’s druggy feel, Iggy biographer Paul Trynka says both men were clean and sober during these sessions.) It’s a radical rewrite of the song, with a new bridge, lyrics that mention The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and like none of the distinguishing features of the original. The vibe is more like the Stooges’ “Sick of You” than anything Hendrix ever played; Jones’ arpeggios remind me a bit of that gorgeous guitar break in the middle of Black Sabbath’s “Cornucopia,” and Iggy croons in his low register.

As on the previous Pop/Jones collaboration, the immortal “Repo Man,” Jones gets in a “Secret Agent Man”-style figure, though here it replaces one of the most famous rock guitar lines of all time. Unless I am merely going deaf, there is also a high-pitched drone throughout the song, reminiscent of the piano on “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Maybe this is what happens when you take the “brown acid”?
 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Before he was Jimi: Jimmy Hendrix with Curtis Knight and the Squires
Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and Paul McCartney: The supergroup that wasn’t
‘White Christmas’ sung by Iggy Pop

Posted by Oliver Hall
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08.13.2015
01:50 pm
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That time when Jimi Hendrix jammed with Jim Morrison. Too bad it sucked.
05.15.2015
11:24 am
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You’d think it would have been a dream pairing—two legends, both lost to us young, turning up on stage together, and by sheer stroke of fate, it was recorded. Had those two legends been Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, or hell, even Jimi Hendrix and Mama Cass, SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY. But no, it was Jimi Hendrix and the drunken clod Jim Morrison. The result was eventually dubbed “Morrison’s Lament,” an apt title if by “lament” one means “drunken, formless discharge of inane profanities.”

The story of how it went down is hazy, accounts are contradictory, and some of the people who could clarify things are dead. What’s certain is that Jimi Hendrix jammed with some folks at the Scene Club in NYC in March of 1968, and a recording—likely made by Hendrix himself—of that night has been widely bootlegged, usually under the title Woke Up this Morning and Found Myself Dead. Some bootleg liners credit Morrison with vocals and harmonica, while online sources say Lester Chambers played harmonica. Some of the drumming is credited to future Band of Gypsys drummer Buddy Miles, some to “Randy Z,” a nom de rock of the McCoys’ Randy Zehringer, who was accustomed to playing with sweet guitarists, as he’s the brother of Rick Derringer. Johnny Winter is credited as rhythm guitarist, which is not implausible, as Zehringer later served Winter as drummer on a couple of albums and the club was owned by Winter’s manager, but many sources hold that Winter not only denies having been present, he claims to never have even met Morrison. Some lore about the night holds that the second guitarist was Rick Derringer. What is certain is that Morrison was on the East Coast in advance of some Doors performances in New York later in the week, and drunkenly grabbed a mic and commenced howling. (You can hear Hendrix telling him to “use the recording mic” at about 0:30.)
 

 
The liner notes on a 1980 UK edition of the LP were written by Hendrix biographer Tony Brown (Jimi Hendrix: Concert Files, Jimi Hendrix: The Final Days), who offered no help as to who played, but DID shed some light on the provenance of the tapes.

This recording stems from 1968 in the Scene Club, owned incidentally by Steve Paul, Johnny Winter’s manager. Jimi was a frequent visitor here because he loved the atmosphere and also loved to jam and as he always had a tape machine on hand, that night was captured forever, giving an insight into Jimi’s blues side, which he always reverted to when playing without any commercial pressures.

The tapes of this jam became the property of Michael Cox, who was founder member of the Irish group Eire Apparent, a band Jimi managed and produced. Peter Shertser from Red Lightnin’ Records had been offered the tapes by Cox and as he liked what he heard, an agreement was made in December 1970. However, another record company famed for issuing country and western records had previously heard the tapes and had surreptitiously made a copy. The tapes soon hit the market as a bootleg under the name “Sky High,” action was taken and an injunction issued to the other record company, whereupon the album strangely disappeared from the market!

 

 
More hammered Jim and Jimi after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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05.15.2015
11:24 am
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NYC’s rock Apocalypse: ‘The Day The Music Died’ (with Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison)
05.04.2015
09:17 am
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Altamont wasn’t the only hippie rock festival that started with a groovy idea and ended up impacted in the poop chute of the Aquarian Age. 1970’s New York Pop Festival was intended to be three days of fun and music. The result was about as much fun as a weekend with Squeaky Fromme at the Spahn Ranch.

The producers of the festival, appropriately named Brave New World, had put together a truly impressive roster of bands with headliners like Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Ravi Shankar and Van Morrison. But they immediately ran into problems when The Black Panthers, White Panthers, Young Lords and a dozen-plus activist groups wanted in on the action. The feeling among many in the radical community was that rock festivals had made millions of dollars off the counter culture and it was now time for some payback. Among the demands being made was 10,000 free tickets and $100,000 in bail money for an incarcerated Black Panther. There were other causes, other concerns, other demands. Despite attempts by Brave New World to find some common ground the whole thing turned into a fiasco. But the festival did go on. Though there were some musical no shows that angered an already tense audience, including 30,000 who got in free when fences were kicked to the ground. The most notable absence was Sly and the Family Stone. Sly lived up to his name and was smart enough to pull out when no money was forthcoming.

Bert Tenzer’s Free is a film of the New York Pop Festival that combines documentary footage with scripted sequences. For instance, DJ Murray The K adds some goofy commentary even though he was nowhere near Randall’s Island at the time. The film was released in 1974 and made little impression. Tenzer even went so far as booking the film with unknown bands performing in the cinema. No one cared. Tenzer then re-edited Free and released it as The Day The Music Died in 1976. Doing what he could to try to recoup his investment, Tenzer added clips of Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, The Doors and more, none of whom were actually at the festival. Archival footage of Angela Davis, The Vietnam War, Richard Nixon and Malcolm X was also tossed in to the mix to give the film some political and sociological context. Still no hit.

Despite its boxoffice failure, The Day The Music Died has a lot going for it, capturing a period of time when doing the right thing often ended up a casualty of good intentions gone bad, a time when revolution often spun out of control because of a failure to see the bigger picture. By 1970 the idealism and hope of the Summer Of Love was replaced by cynicism, weariness and the realization that even the purest of Owsley’s acid wasn’t enough to flush the toxins out of the collective consciousness that had accrued over thousands of years of bad karma. The flower children had gone to seed and our heroes were dropping like flies. Mission aborted. We needed to re-group and think things out. We needed to get real.  “You say you got a real solution / Well, you know / We’d all love to see the plan.”

The Day The Music Died echoes the chaos that erupts when the mistrust between political groups, anarchists and street gangs grows unmanageable. The bottom line is capitalism and revolution is a volatile combination, both determined to destroy the other. The ideas that radical movements should get a free ride on the artistic and cultural products of others isn’t revolutionary, it’s parasitic.  As long as artists expect to be paid (as they should) it might be a good idea for political movements to throw their own fucking festivals. Power to the people means all the people, not just the ones that get the Panthers’ seal of approval. I remember when the movie Woodstock opened in Berkeley in 1970 and hippies were picketing outside of the theater where it was being screened.  Warner Brothers was banking millions off the counter culture and the longhairs were pissed. Even back then I thought the protest was silly… and I had hair down to the crack of my fucking ass. I didn’t go to the movie. Altamont had left a bad taste in my mouth and I had an Aquarian Age size hangover.

Towering over all the bullshit that happens in the The Day The Music Died is Jimi Hendrix who started a revolution without dogma, without arrogance and without rules. But he did have a plan and it was called music. There’s an argument to be made that rock and roll did more to positively change the world than any political movement, radical or otherwise. I may be wrong, but it’s an argument worth having. Whatever the case, I ain’t interested in any revolution that doesn’t include a sense of humor and monster guitar licks.

Watch in HD mode. It ain’t great but it looks a bit better.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.04.2015
09:17 am
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That time when Ringo Starr evicted Jimi Hendrix for being such a shitty tenant, 1967
04.29.2015
01:25 pm
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Ah, 34 Montagu Square, the infamous ground floor and basement apartment once leased by Beatle Ringo Starr during the mid-1960s. Many celebrities sub-leased the apartment from Starr then, but perhaps the worst of the worst celebrity tenant award goes to a Mr. Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix—along with his girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham—sub-leased the apartment back in December of 1966. They both lived on the lower-ground floor and paid £30 a month in rent. That’s a pretty rad bargain if you ask me even for back then. I’d consider it living situation that you’d probably not want to fuck up. But… Jimi Hendrix apparently did. One night while on an acid trip, Hendrix decided it would be a good idea to whitewash the entire place. He threw whitewash all over the walls because LSD. That, er, “mistake” led Ringo Starr to issue Hendrix an eviction. Bye-bye, Jimi!

Hendrix and Etchingham only lasted three months in the digs. Hendrix, did however, compose the song “The Wind Cries Mary”  while he lived there. The song was inspired after a fight he had with Etchingham over her lack of cooking skills.

The photographs you see here, by photojournalist Petra Niemeier, are of Hendrix while he lived at 34 Montagu Square. Judging by these photos, I’m surprised Hendrix didn’t burn down the damned place while smoking in bed. Methinks the Beatle probably made the right call.


 

 

 

 

 
via Mashable and Wikipedia

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.29.2015
01:25 pm
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Jimi Hendrix’s mescaline-fueled session with Arthur Lee and Love
04.03.2015
07:49 am
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Arthur Lee and Jimi Hendrix, 1969
 
Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee met in 1964 or 1965 at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, where singer Rosa Lee Brooks was recording Lee’s song “My Diary.” Lee claimed the session was Hendrix’s first time in a recording studio, though it seems likely Hendrix had already cut “Testify” with the Isley Brothers.
 

 
The two men remained friends, and on St. Patrick’s Day 1970, after Love finished a European tour, Hendrix joined the band in London’s Olympic Studios. There, Lee says Jimi and the band all ate mescaline (or “Huxley’s hooch,” as we used to call it in the San Fernando Valley). From Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book Of Love—The Authorized Biography of Arthur Lee, here are Lee’s recollections of the Olympic session:

Boy, did we have fun at the Olympic recording studio. The band and Jimi all took mescaline. Although they didn’t know it, I was as straight as Cochise’s arrow. Somebody had to steer the ship. [...]

One of the ways I got Jimi to do the session in the first place—or how I got his attention, anyway—happened one night at the Speakeasy. He and I arrived together. The guy at the front door told me I could come in but Jimi couldn’t. When I asked him why, he said that Jimi had been fighting in the club on an earlier occasion and they didn’t want that happening again. So I told him that Jimi was cool, the entourage that was with us was cool, and I didn’t think any fighting would be going on that night. He finally agreed. I said to Jimi, “Look, man, neither one of us is going to be around much longer, anyway; so while we’re here, we might as well do something together.” When I said that, whatever we were talking about, or he was thinking about, just seemed to stop and I had his full attention. He really went into some deep thought as he looked at me from across the table. He was looking into my eyes and I knew he could only be thinking about our early deaths.

The session went completely differently from the way I was used to recording. I thought it was to be a private session. I don’t remember telling anyone to come, except the band; but, to my surprise, there were people all over the place. There were girls I’d never seen before and faces popping out from where you would least expect a person to be. I was in a state of shock, but Jimi said, “It’s OK, let them stay.” More than once, Jimi thought we were done and went to pack everything up. Then he would come back into the studio while we were playing and say, “What key?” Once, when we were learning a song I wrote, called “Ride That Vibration,” Jimi came walking back in during the middle of it. He asked me, “What did you just say in that song?” I said, “Ride the vibration down like a six foot grave / Don’t let it get you down.” Then he said, “I gotta go; it’s getting too heavy.” He called a cab, took [drummer George Suranovich’s] girlfriend, and was out the door. George just looked at me as if to say, “That’s Jimi.” After a while, Jimi came back and suggested that everyone jam, and were my band members ever happy!

On that session in London, we managed to lay down a few tracks, among them “E-Z Rider,” “The Everlasting First,” and a jam that I would later add lyrics to. Jimi sang on “E-Z Rider.” I gave the master reel to [Blue Thumb Records president] Bob Krasnow. He never gave it back. At the time, I wondered if someone was filming us, although I never saw a camera. I found out, in the early 90s, they had been.

Back in the studio, it was almost daylight, so I signaled to H to start wrapping it up. I don’t think Jimi was ready to quit, but it had been a long night for me. The tour we were doing was over with; I just wanted to get back to Studio City in California. As we were walking out of the building, Jimi asked, “Where are you going?” I said, “Man, I gotta get back to LA; to my woman, dogs, and pigeons.” Jimi said, “Come here, I want to show you something.” We walked back inside the studio. He pointed to his guitar case on the floor. Then he opened it up. I thought he had a stash in there, but as he stood up, he pointed to it again and said, “This is all I have.” I couldn’t figure it out at first, but then it hit me. He was telling me that the white Stratocaster guitar in the case were his only possessions. I felt kind of sad for him.

 

 
Of the three songs Hendrix cut with Love at Olympic, only “The Everlasting First”—the single from Love’s False Start album—was officially released. The other two songs, Hendrix’s “Ezy Rider” and the jam “Loon,” surfaced on an acetate that turned up on eBay in 2009.

The music, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Oliver Hall
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04.03.2015
07:49 am
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Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’ revealed
03.23.2015
04:51 pm
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Detail from inside gatefold of Electric Ladyland record sleeve

Lithofayne Pridgon has led a truly extraordinary life. She was the lover and muse of some of the greatest musical icons of our time – Jimi Hendrix, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, “Fever” singer Little Willie John and Eddie Hazel, visionary guitarist of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic family tree; she was the best friend of Etta James, hung out with James Brown and Ike Turner and lived with Sly Stone in Bel Air at the height of his There’s a Riot Going On drugs-and-guns craziness. She was also signed on the spot to Atlantic Records by Ahmet Ertegun for an album that was recorded with Shuggie Otis, but never released. But it’s Hendrix with whom she is inextricably tied, becoming his lover in 1963 in his pre-fame Harlem years through till his death in 1970.

Dangerous Minds pal Chris Campion met Lithofayne Pridgon for a very rare interview and argues in the Guardian that, she was the inspiration for not only “Foxy Lady,” but a number of other of songs on Are You Experienced:

The profound influence she had on his life has been so sorely overlooked, it’s likely his love for Lithofayne inspired other songs, too. Certainly, a number of cuts on his debut album, Are You Experienced, seem to have been written with her in mind: the love he clearly felt was written in the stars, destined to last for eternity, of which he sings in “Love or Confusion”; the desperate plea for his devotion to be recognised in “Can You See Me” in which he wails, “Can you hear me cryin’ all over town?” (“If he couldn’t find me,” Lithofayne recalls, “everybody in Harlem knew he was looking for me.” She would visit her usual haunts and people would tell her, “Girl, Jimi, was by here, you better go.”) “And ‘Fire’, in which he determinedly edges every rival suitor for the subject of his affections out of the way.

 

Lithofayne and Jimi experience the food at Wells Chicken and Waffles in Harlem with Albert and Arthur Allen

The piece includes not only the revelation that she first met Hendrix at an orgy:

That day, she had gone out to run an errand for her mother and, on her way back home with the change, had stopped by one of Fat Jack’s apartments. She asked one of his men who was inside.“This little musician cat,” he told her. “I said, ‘Is he a virgin?’ He said, ‘No, but you’ll like him. He’s your type.’ He just knew what I liked.

“I liked skinny, raw-boned, over-fucked, underfed-looking guys,” she laughs. Hendrix, she says, was “my type.”

... but also that she may in fact be the great granddaughter of Henry Ford:

She was raised, for the most part, in a more well-to-do section of the city called Crosstown, by her paternal grandmother, said to be the illegitimate child of Henry Ford who kept a winter home in Georgia, several counties north. “Old man Henry Ford is supposed to have been my great granddaddy,” Lithofayne says. Although the Ford lineage was never definitely proven, her grandmother had a sizeable portfolio of land in Moultrie for reasons that couldn’t be explained — she earned money by taking in washing at a dollar a load.

 

With James Brown
 
Lithofayne Pridgon is said to be writing a memoir of her life in Harlem during the fifties and sixties. You can see her starting just before the one-minute mark in the trailer for the 1973 Jimi Hendrix documentary (look out for a pre-glam early 70s Lou Reed):
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.23.2015
04:51 pm
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Before he was Jimi: Jimmy Hendrix with Curtis Knight and the Squires
03.19.2015
09:10 am
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It’s pretty much impossible to fully tell the tale of Jimi Hendrix’s ascendance to the guitar-god pantheon without invoking the names of a Harlem R&B singer known professionally as Curtis Knight (née McNear) and a producer named Ed Chalpin. Knight was a veteran of R&B and Doo Wop groups like the Ink Spots and the Titans, who struck out on his own as a talented but only modestly successful bandleader. Knight happened to live in the same building as Hendrix, then still “Jimmy” Hendrix, a struggling journeyman, and after a fateful meeting in their building’s lobby, Knight brought Hendrix into his band the Squires, and introduced him to his manager, the aforesaid Ed Chalpin. It was around this time, October of 1965, that Chalpin signed Hendrix to an infamous exclusive three-year contract with a $1 advance and a promise of 1% royalties. Hendrix was already under contract with Sue Records (prophetic name, given what was to come), and maintained that he signed with Chalpin under the misapprehension that he was merely signing a session release for his work as a sideman. He remained under that belief for long enough that, when he was famously discovered by the Animals’ Chas Chandler, the Chalpin contract was the only one Chandler never bought out. That blunder haunted Hendrix’s career even beyond his death, and the legal knots surrounding those three years have only just been untangled last year.
 

 
Over the decades, Chalpin has released much Curtis Knight and the Squires material, misleadingly, under Hendrix’s name, but often in truncated form, or in crummy sounding editions meant to be passed off as “lost” Hendrix material to rake in quick bucks—one such opportunistic LP was even released in between Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love, tricking some fans into believing it was the second Jimi Hendrix Experience LP! All of which is a DRAG, as the Squires’ music deserves consideration on its own merits. Though they would likely have remained almost entirely unheralded were it not for the Hendrix connection, Curtis Knight and the Squires were a good band. Their original work was right in place with much of the energetic, guitar-based R&B of the time, and thrillingly, you can plainly hear Hendrix’s signature style throughout it all.

Hear some EARLY Jimi, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Ron Kretsch
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03.19.2015
09:10 am
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Grace Slick has two regrets: Never screwed Hendrix, never rode a horse
03.05.2015
08:25 am
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When Grace Slick talks, I listen. She’s nobody’s fool, she speaks her mind, and she can be hysterically funny. She is a good example for the young people of today.

She’s also got her priorities straight. Lately, I’ve been reading interviews with Slick from recent years, and when the interviewer gets to the inevitable question of regrets, the singer’s answers are remarkably clear-sighted and consistent. There are just two big ones:

The things I wish I did do that I did not do, were screw Jimi Hendrix, and ride a horse.

 

 
There are a few lesser regrets that orbit these two—never went to the Middle East, never screwed Peter O’Toole, never got drunk with Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Richard Burton, and Peter O’Toole—but Hendrix and horses pretty much constitute the whole of Grace Slick’s regrets in life.

But there aren’t too many regrets, because I did pretty much what I wanted to do. So now, as an old person, I don’t have these huge regrets. Mine are fairly minor. They have to do with drinking and screwing, so that’s not all that important (laughs).

Abso-fuckin’-A-lutely. This is the kind of peace of mind you get as the reward for living a decent, godly life. I am reminded of William S. Burroughs, who, contemplating his relatively good health at the age of 82, attributed his longevity to “living right.” Ignore Grace Slick’s example at your peril, young people.

Slick appeared on Tom Snyder’s show in 1998 to promote her memoir, Somebody to Love? She talks about the time the cops knocked on the door and she answered it wielding a shotgun, the time she tried to outrun police cars in her Aston Martin, the time she and Abbie Hoffman went to the White House to dose President Nixon’s tea, and a lot of other occasions when she grabbed life by the balls.
 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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03.05.2015
08:25 am
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