1967.
👲 Jimi Hendrix is interviewed by Alan Jones for the February 3rd edition of The Hull Times.
👲 The Experience perform at the New Cellar Club in South Shields with support from The Bond. Set List: (partial) Rock Me Baby // Stone Free // Hey Joe // Wild Thing
👲 The following is by Debbie's research:
New Cellar Club, South Shields, County Durham, England
The first official gig of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in Tyneside took place on Wednesday 1st February 1967 at the New Cellar Club in South Shields supported by local band The Bond. Unusually the support band played after the Experience not beforehand as would have normally been the case. This was due to the Jimi Hendrix Experience being late arriving and the support band were not allowed to set up their equipment until after the main act had set up theirs.
James Fraser the bass player from The Bond remembers "The Man came up and shook our hands then we had to get out of the backstage area for them to set up. We didn't get any autographs. There just wasn't time. I don't remember what songs were played or much else about the night at all. I think we were a bit in shock at having to actually go on and do a set while everyone was there for the great man. A very daunting experience."
At the time of the show the first single Hey Joe was climbing up the charts. Jimi had just traveled up from London where he had recorded a session for the BBC on Monday (Hey Joe, Rock Me Baby, Foxy Lady) and appeared at the Saville Theatre on Tuesday to do a promotional film for Hey Joe (mimed). Before setting off for South Shields on the morning of 1st February he was interviewed for the Hull Times newspaper at the Anim office in London (Mike Jeffery's office).
Chas Chandler said: “Jimi and I were staying at my mother’s house in Newcastle, as the band had been booked to play at the New Cellar Club in South Shields. As we were sitting there talking, I decided to walk down to the phone, because my mother had not put one in yet, to ring London and see how things were going. ‘Hey Joe’ had leapt to number seven in the charts, and I knew we were really on our way.”
In an interview for Beat Instrumental (in April 1967) Noel Redding recalled “We arrived a little late and we were in a bit of a rush. We were on the back of a revolving stage just getting tuned, ready to be swung round any minute. We had got these new 200 watt units and just as we were tuning Jimi's amp blew up. He quickly plugged into mine and I looked round for something to borrow. In the end I had to make do with a tiny amp which the other group had been using, it must have been all of 5 watts. As we swung round we opened up and the sound was terrible. My bass was just buzzing like mad. Jerry came up, gave me the P.A. amp and put the vocals through this tiny thing. Of course from then on we couldn't hear a word except in the breaks where we were singing and not playing, even then we just heard a tiny whisper." The borrowed amp Noel refers to belonged to Les Gofton . guitarist and lead singer with the Bond.
Colin Hart was in the audience that night. Colin roadied for various local bands and owned a big old ambulance which he used to carry their gear around in. On the night of the Cellar Club show he turned up in his ambulance which was full of equipment belonging to the band "The Jazz Board". Colin remembers "One of the guys at the club asked me if I could help the band out. They needed some fuses for their Marshall amps and, of course, I was happy to oblige and nipped out to the "van" to get some. I offered the use of an amp as well as fuses and did bring one up, but not sure if it was used for the show. I was a bit flustered myself at the time, to say the least! They did keep the fuses, so it was most likely them that went at Darlington! I had to scramble the next day to replace all the fuses I'd nicked out of amps!"
The New Cellar Club had a revolving stage but it rarely worked. Bands would set up on the reverse side then when it was time to go on they would be spun around to face the audience. As the motor was broken the manager Alf Hobson would often have to push it. It was still broken the night Hendrix played.
Noel Redding said: “Yeh, I remember the place, they couldn’t get the stage round because the motor was knackered so we had to push it!”
Audience member Geoff Tate remembers Jimi's sense of humour:
"When the stage was rotating he was briefly playing the theme from Carousel, then settled into a few seconds of country picking (Clampett style) until the other two were ready. Awesome through two 4x12s and just 6 feet away, I couldn't hear anything but a high pitched whistle for a week after. I think he started with Foxy Lady after that, but I'm not really that sure."
Colin Hart remembers: "The Cellar Club was really jumping that night and seemed about as full as they used to allow back then. As far as their set, I can't remember what they played, other than it was an incredible show and they played for ages for a band in their league. It was over an hour, easily."
The band opened with Foxey Lady. Other songs known to have been played that night were Wild Thing , Catfish Blues , Hey Joe , Manic Depression, Fire , Mercy Mercy , Like A Rolling Stone and Stone Free. By the time of this show Jimi had also written Wind Cries Mary , Can You See Me ,Third Stone from the Sun , 51st Anniversary , Purple Haze and Red House so these are all possible songs. Other covers he may have done include Killing Floor and Rock Me Baby both of which are on a bootleg of the gig at the Flamingo Club in London recorded three days after the New Cellar Club gig, on Saturday 4th February.
Above the revolving stage there was a circular plasterboard false ceiling disc. You can see this in the photographs below. The whole thing moved round as a unit. During the show Jimi lifted his strat and put a hole in it. It had the crowd delighted. The hole stayed there, unprepared, for a very long time afterwards.
Sandie Brown of Saville Brothers Records, King Street was there and remembers: "He rammed his guitar upwards, not necessarily intending to do any damage, it was accidental, but it brought down some plaster from the ceiling, and he just laughed at the other guys in the band with that exact look in his eye that he had on the Lulu show when he started doing the "unrehearsed" stuff - i.e. "Boy, are we in trouble now, but we don't f??ing care!". More lessons learned by us kids...."
Jimi also put his guitar through the low ceiling at the Club A Go Go in Newcastle just over a month later and he is known to have performed this stunt earlier too in New York in the days before he came to England. Jimi said "I got a break playing guitar for John Hammond Jr at the Cafe Au Go Go. That was great because the ceiling was really low and dusty. I'd stick the guitar right up into the ceiling. It was like war." This was August 1966.
Noel Redding also said in his interview: “As if that wasn't enough at the end of the spot we were taken back round on the revolving stage and as we went the audience grabbed us. I was hanging on to Jimi and he was hanging on to Mitch and we very nearly got crushed against the wall as we went round. It's quite a life working with Jimi but I enjoy it.”
There is a rumour that the show at the Cellar Club was recorded by the drummer from the Bond (as mentioned in an article in the Evening Chronicle in 2007) but this has proved to be untrue.
1968.
👲 The Jimi Hendrix Experience are voted Best Group on Stage in the ‘1967 Gold Star Awards’ by magazine Beat Instrumental (England).
👲 Flying from John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, to San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California. The JHE embark on their first headlining US tour. Roadie Hugh Hopper called it “The ‘68 nightmare tour”.
👲 The Experience fly to San Francisco to play two shows at the Fillmore Auditorium. The supporting cast includes Albert King, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, and Soft Machine. The Experience’s first set includes “Red House,” “Purple Haze,” “Foxey Lady,” “Fire,” and “The Wind Cries Mary.”
Albert King: “The first time I saw him after he left Tennessee was in San Francisco. I hadn’t seen him in about five years, and he had this hot record out. So I went back in the dressing room and we laughed and talked and hugged one another. I was glad to see him. I think I shook him up a little bit because he didn’t expect me to be that close to him, playing-wise. Everybody said, ‘He’s a hell of a blues player.’ Now wait a minute! That night I taught him a lesson about the blues, playing your blues where they can understand it, instead of floor-showing. He had a row of buttons on the floor, and a big pile of amplifiers stacked on one another. And he’d punch a button with his foot and get some smoke. And punch a button and get something else.Then when he’d get through playing he’d take his guitar and ram it through his amplifier (laughs). Now, that record he put out, Foxy Lady, that wasn’t blues, but it was big. But when you want to really come down and play the blues, well, I could’ve very easily played his songs, but he couldn’t play mine.”
Mick Taylor: “In John Mayall’s band I was lucky enough to do some shows on the same bill as Hendrix at the Fillmore West [sic] - Albert King was playing as well. Seeing Albert King for the first time was unbelievable - someone who had developed completely his own style, left-handed with the guitar strung upside-down. I can remember me and Jimi Hendrix standing together listening to Albert playing. Both of us were in awe of him.”
1969.
👲 NYC, Jimi was elected Performer of the Year for 1968 by the magazine Rolling Stone (USA) .
👲 Here is the story from the February 1st, 1969 issue of Rolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jimi-hendrix-performer-of-the-year-1969-19690201
1970.
👲Record Plant, NYC, Recordings.
Throughout this month, both Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox joined Hendrix at his 59 West 12th Street apartment in Greenwich Village for exploratory jam sessions. Hendrix made a number of home recordings during this period. Hendrix alternated between acoustic and electric guitar as he routines such fare as “Stepping Stone,” “Send My Love To Linda”, “Last Thursday Morning,” “Freedom,” “Bolero”, and the fleeting, twelve-string “Acoustic Demo” featured as part of the Dagger Records release Morning Symphony Ideas.
