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Hey, Joe! (Mail to a friend).
Talking of Hendrix, I have a little story to tell you about that too. Yes, this is going to be another of steve's liturgies. Be seated.
This one starts in 1966. I was playing keyboards (organ) at the time, in a 'covers' band doing Tamla Motown material. I owned a Stratocaster at the time, too. In 1966 the Fender Stratocaster was the most unfashionable, uncool thing to be seen with. The Beatles and Stones used Rickenbacker and Gretsch guitars and they ruled the planet. Buddy Holly and The Shadows were ancient history. Hence I was able to buy a sunburst 1959 strat. (in the original case, complete with instruction booklet) for just £45 in the west end of London. Today at auction that item would fetch a reserve price of maybe £20,000. Things were different.The band took a combined holiday/tour of gigs down in Cornwall, playing in caravan sites' social club halls and the like. For a week we were double billed with a band called "The Concords". The lead guitarist was a guy called Noel Redding and we became firm buddies, jamming around and swapping lurid tales. It was a great week. The same week that England won the World Cup and I was on the beach digging sandcastles using my '59 stratocaster as a shovel...Returning to London and the day job, it used to be my habit to wander around the music shops in the West End in my lunch hour. A familiar face showed up in Charing Cross Road. It was Noel Redding. We decided to go for a pint (although my choice in those days was lemonade! - I was fiercely anti-alcohol). Noel told me that he'd just been for an audition to play bass "for a long haired coon who played the guitar with his teeth" - his exact words. I was surprised to hear that Noel was prepared to play bass for anybody; he was such a great guitar player anyway. Anyway he told me how Chas Chandler had brought Jimi Hendrix over from the States and was launching him with his own band, The Experience - and now Noel was a member; he'd got the gig.When the first tour gigs were booked and "Hey Joe" was recorded, but not yet released, Noel called me at home and told me to be at Chiselhurst Caves on the following Saturday night, but to get there early so he could get me in for free with the band. None of this really meant anything to me beyond the fact that it was great to see Noel again. The place was nearly empty! Jimi Hendrix was an unknown entity.What I witnessed that night forever changed my life. From a distance of maybe six feet I "experienced" the main man doing his thing, with all of what that entailed; the wild playing, the sitting on the guitar tremolo arm in gadget-boosted 200 watt Marshall stack full-blown feedback mode, the playing with the teeth. the whole awesome schemozzle. Mind blowing. I went home that night utterly blasted away and told my mum that I was going to take up playing guitar again. "Yes, dear", was all she said, with her hands in the dish washing.A couple of weeks later, Hey Joe had gone straight to No.1 and Noel called again to say that they were playing the Caves gig again and to be there was a must. I would say so... This time, you could not park anywhere near the caves; it was bumper to bumper all over Chiselhurst. Somehow (I don't know how) we got in early again and the crowd grew completely to the ceiling. They were passing people in over others' heads I think.I was right at the first row, bent forward over the low stage front, unable to stand up from the pressure of bodies behind me. Jimi did his stuff but this time six inches from the tip of my nose. Not many people can make that claim.
