It was a fire that burned briefly – too briefly – but its glow remains.
Jimi Hendrix’ career might’ve lasted only a few years, but his music still plays on, a couple generations since his passing. The new West Coast Seattle Boy box set from Experience Hendrix/Legacy Recordings offers an amazing retrospective of Hendrix’ career, starting with his sideman days with the Isley Brothers (1964) and ending with a road-weary Jimi seeking a little shelter from the storm in 1970, tucked away in his apartment with an acoustic guitar. In between there are wild sonic explorations with the Jimi Hendrix Experience – both live and in the studio – supplemented by helpings of the new musical directions Jimi was exploring in the final months of his life. The best part? This is 4 CDs’-worth of previously-unreleased material – plus a remarkable documentary DVD that’s just psychedelic icing on the cake (Relix.com “is now hosting an exclusive clip from the DVD”:http://www.relix.com/video/artist-exclusives/2010/11/16/exclusive-look-jimi-hendrix-film-voodoo-child, (Voodoo Child_ ).
To get a better feel for what this project represents, we offer a two-part interview with the frontline of Experience Hendrix, LLC. We’ll start with a conversation with president/CEO Janie Hendrix, Jimi’s half-sister. As we’ll see, Janie knew of her brother before she met him – he was a bigger-than-life character who then transformed himself into a size that was easy for her to be around and love during the short visits they had together.
Let’s all get small for a bit.
Chapter One: Little Sister
BR: Janie, how old were you when you met Jimi for the first time?
JH: I was six years old when Jimi came home in February of 1968. He’d gotten out of the service in 1962 and had decided not to come back here to Seattle at that point. He told my dad there was no way for him to make it as a musician unless he went to Nashville – or maybe New York. There just weren’t any opportunities for him musically here at home.
Al, my dad, told Jimi, “I completely understand – do your thing.” When you’re 20 years old and trying to find your way, there were no better places to be than where he was heading. It was completely understood why he wanted to stay out on the road and didn’t come home at that point. Jimi went to Tennessee first and ended up playing on the ‘Chitlin’ Circuit.” That was where he made his early connections.
BR: The first disc of the West Coast Seattle Boy collection contains some great tracks from Jimi’s early days as a sideman.
JH: You know, a lot people don’t get it … they’ll listen to music from that period and say, “That’s not Jimi” – but it is. It’s Jimi trying to figure things out and realizing that he doesn’t want to be a sideman his whole life. It was a way to eat, to gain notoriety, to gain stage experience, and to figure out what it’s like to be on the road … that whole way of life. And it all comes out in the music.
BR: It’s cool, because even in those settings, there’ll be a moment – an intro, a turnaround, or a little guitar break – and you can definitely hear it: “That’s Jimi!”
JH: Oh, yeah. (laughs) He’d be using his arm or his thumb or whatever he could to get those different sounds – a lot of the same techniques he’d use later in the Experience.
BR: During the years before he came home, did you have a sense that this big brother you had yet to meet was becoming famous?
JH: I remember reading things in the papers about Jimi and cutting them out to save. When he’d call home, I’d be so excited to hear his voice, you know? I’d tell him about collecting all that stuff. In fact, in one of the interviews Jimi did when he was in England, he mentioned, “I can’t wait to get home to meet my little sister; she’s following my career and cutting out all these articles.” (laughs)
Jimi would call home as much as he could to talk with all of us and let us know what was going on. We were hearing from him regularly, so we were able to follow his career. He would always send postcards, letters, and photos when he wasn’t calling.
BR: Now that’s a good son. (laughter) And we need to remember: there were no cell phones; there was no texting or e-mails. You had to go out and find a stamp.
JH: Exactly! And back then, a stamp and a candy bar probably cost about the same so it was like, “Hmm … a stamp or a candy bar for dinner?”, you know?
BR: Do you remember any of Jimi’s calls in particular?
JH: Oh, yeah. (laughs) He called us when he was competing in the talent show at the Apollo Theater in New York in 1964. Jimi didn’t want anyone to know how scared he was; he was actually scared that they’d be throwing stuff at him. And as a little girl, I didn’t know anything about the Apollo Theater, but I’m thinking, “Oh, no – what are they going to throw at you?” You know, I’m thinking chairs or whatever – big heavy things. And Jimi was like, “No – they throw food at you. I don’t want them throwing anything at me.” He was serious.
I told him, “Well, I’m going to pray that they don’t throw anything at you, Jimi.”
BR: Oh, man. And he won that night, right?
JH: That’s right; and when he called afterwards, he was happy that he’d won – but even happier that no one had thrown anything. (laughter) Jimi started playing with the Isley Brothers soon after that.
I remember he called from London when the Experience was coming together: “I’m onto the big time! This is it – I’m going to make it.”
BR: So you had a sense – long before you actually got to see Jimi face-to-face – that other people knew who your big brother was.
JH: Absolutely. The clincher, of course, was seeing him on TV. When you’re a kid … (laughs)
BR: Oh, that seals the deal, for sure. How about hearing his music – do you remember hearing the Experience for the first time?
JH: Oh, yeah. (laughs) We were living in a triplex at the time – pretty thin walls, you know? There were two young women who lived next door – we called them “the hippie girls.” (laughs) I remember hearing them come home and apparently they’d just come from the local record store, because suddenly there’s this really loud music coming through the wall. And my dad says, “Oh my God – that sounds so much like Jimi!”
BR: Come on – through the wall? (laughter)
JH: Honest to God – through the wall. So my mom goes next door and knocks: “I’m sorry to bother you, but what is that music you’re listening to? We think it’s our son.” And one of the girls holds up the record jacket, and sure enough – it’s the Jimi Hendrix Experience. When they figured out who we all were, they handed it to my mom: “Here – you take this record! It’d be our honor for you to have it; we can go get another one.”
BR: There – right there! The true hippie ethic summed up! (laughter) That is such a cool story.
JH: Isn’t it? Those sweet hippie girls … (laughs)
BR: So, when Jimi came home to visit, I’m guessing it was either one thing or the other: either you have a ton of memories of him sitting around the house, guitar in hand, and playing constantly – or he’d try to get away from that for a bit.
JH: When he’d come home to Seattle, he’d drop off his gear at a hotel and if he was playing in the area, there’d be guitars there, of course. But he’d gather up a few things and come to stay with us rather than at a hotel. You know: family, home cooking, and a nice bed – and he didn’t bring his guitar home.
Most people who think they knew Jimi really well don’t believe that. They always say, “Jimi didn’t go anywhere without his guitar.” But when he came to stay with us, it was like every minute was precious. We’d sit around and talk – sometimes for hours – not just about what he had going on, but what everyone else was doing, too … he wanted to know.
I remember us sitting around and playing games, too. Jimi loved playing Monopoly, with all the constant talking and kidding around that goes with it: “You come on this side of the board and you’re gonna get it.” (laughs) Sometimes those games would go all night long – until 7 or 8 the next morning. When he came home, he’d try to spend as many moments as he could with everyone. He didn’t want to go to sleep; he wanted to stay awake and spend every minute he could with the family until it was time to leave again.
BR: Ah – that’s great; it really is. Did you get to see him play much live? Do you remember any of the times you saw him perform?
JH: I got to see 5 concerts. He came to Seattle four times and then one other time we drove up to Canada. You know, thinking about it now and looking at his schedule, I wonder “Why didn’t we drive down to Oregon? ? Why didn’t we go here? Why didn’t we go there? It doesn’t make any sense to me now, but it’s the way it was.
Three months before the trip up to Canada, Jimi came home and gave my parents enough money to buy a car and a truck. My dad needed a truck – he was a landscape gardener – and my Mom needed a new car, so Jimi did that.
When we went to Canada, we didn’t ride in a limo or anything – we drove up in the family car that Jimi had bought. Behind us was a station wagon with Noel and Mitch [bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell] and [Hendrix managers] Michael Jeffery and Chas Chandler. In fact, on the _Voodoo Child _ DVD that’s included in the West Coast Seattle Boy box set, there are some pictures and video from that trip. There’s a little clip of the family video that Mitch took where we’re at a rest stop between Seattle and the Canadian border.
BR: And the Jimi you saw on stage was a lot different cat from the guy on the other side of the Monopoly board…
JH: (laughs) Completely different, yeah. But you know, before the first show he played at the Coliseum here in Seattle, Jimi said, “I’ve been around the world, but I’m so nervous tonight to be playing in front of my family. As much as I’ve been wanting to come home to play, I’m really, really nervous to be playing in front of you guys.”
But it didn’t take him long to let his hair down (laughs) and go into his “space mode.” Offstage, of course, he was this very quiet, shy – almost painfully shy – person who was very soft-spoken. There were really two different sides to Jimi: on-stage and off.
BR: There was no way for you all to know that the last time you saw Jimi would be the last time. Is there anything in particular you remember about his final visit home?
JH: It’s interesting you should say that. The last time Jimi was home was to play here at Sick’s Stadium. That was an outdoor stadium; the home of the Seattle Pilots at the time. I remember it was very windy that day, with a lot of rain, thunder, and lightning. My dad pulled his rain suit out – rain pants, raincoat – and he was pushing the tarp that was over the stage with a pole to dump the water out of it. I remember being so afraid that Jimi was going to get electrocuted or something.
The family was all sitting on one side of the stage. During “Purple Haze”, Jimi turned around when he sang, “that girl put a spell on me” – and pointed at me. My family was all like, “Did you see him? Did you see him?”
After that show, Jimi was really sick. He’d been traveling a lot and his immune system was just shot. The next day they were supposed to drive down to Portland, Oregon for a show the following night. Michael Jeffery came to pick up Jimi and my dad met him at the door.
Michael said, “We’re ready to roll out.” And my dad said, “Well you go ahead. Jimi will catch a plane tomorrow and join you.”
Michael was insistent that Jimi leave then: “We’re all leaving; we have soundcheck; we’re ready to roll out.”
And my dad said, “That’s right – you’re going to roll out; you’re going to go down to Portland; and Jimi will join you tomorrow. Period. He’s sick; he needs to get some rest; and he’s not leaving today.
Michael Jeffery tried to insist, but my dad stood his ground: “Jimi’s the artist – if he’s sick, the show’s not going to go on anyway. There’s no show tonight and there’s really no reason for him to be down there. He’s just going to stay here and recuperate and that’s that.”
Finally, Michael Jeffery left – and Jimi was able to stay home with us and sleep.
That was the sort of thing that shows why Jimi wanted the family to move out to New York and be on the road with him – he needed that family support.
When Jimi left that final time – that was on July 27th – he said, “Go look for a house on the water – like on Mercer Island.” My dad had a lot of gardening clients out there. Jimi said, “When I come back, I just want to take a sabbatical for like a year. I just want to have a refuge; some place to go. Find a place on the water.” And my parents started to search, as he had asked.
When we arrived at the airport for the flight to Portland, my dad and Jimi just stood there for a long while looking at each other. My dad said this many times afterwards: “Jimi started down the hallway to the plane – and he turned around and walked back to me.”
They just looked at each other. My dad said afterwards, “I had this feeling that that was going to be the last time I saw him.” And even though my dad had been having those gut feelings about losing Jimi, he’d never shared them with the rest of us. He was afraid it would be in a plane crash, like so many other musicians over the years.
It was all so tragic and unexpected. Just devastating.
So that was late July. In August, we received a weird call – a crank call – from someone saying that Jimi had died. My parents, of course, were frantic, but they were able to track Jimi down on the phone. He told them, “I don’t know what that was all about, but ignore it – I’m fine.”
When they got the call that he’d died on September 18, I’d already walked to school – I was in the 4th grade.
The teacher had heard that Jimi had died, but nobody was saying anything to me about it. My parents apparently figured I wasn’t going to find out during the day at elementary school, I guess – they were planning on talking to me about it when I got home. I understand why they were thinking that way; grief is something that most of us just don’t have the tools to deal with it – we don’t know how. So they were doing the best they could, you know?
I remember it was show and tell that morning, and some boy stood up and said, “Today Jimi Hendrix died.”
BR: Oh, Janie – just like that?
JH: I remember the teacher was trying to get him to stop, but it was too late; he blurted it out. Everyone kind of gasped and looked at me. I remember I said, “No he didn’t. That’s a rumor, just like a month ago. I don’t believe it.”
Later on that day, this girl who was in 6th grade came up to me and said, “Janie, I’m really, really sorry.” And I said, “Why? What did you do?” And, of course, she was talking about Jimi, but I told her the same thing: “That’s just a rumor – don’t believe it. People have said that before, but it’s not true.”
So after school, I’m walking home. One of my friends had invited me to a birthday party and that’s what I was thinking about: going home and asking my parents if I could go to this party, right? I simply refused to believe that anything had happened to Jimi.
I had it all figured out as I approached my street. I said to myself, “If this is true, the street is going to be full of cars. And if Jimi’s okay, there won’t be anybody.”
BR: Oh, man …
JH: Oh, yeah. I had my eyes closed as I walked up the hill towards home, thinking, “Let there be no cars … let there be no cars.” But as soon as I turned the corner, I could see: the whole street was full of cars.
But even then, I didn’t accept it. I said to myself, “They all believe it; it’s another rumor and it’s not true but they all think it is.”
This was the mind of a 9-year-old, you know? I said, “Everything’s okay. Jimi’s okay. I’m just going to walk into the house and ask if I can go to the birthday party.”
I walk in the house and my mom comes running to meet me. Everybody’s there: my siblings and my aunts and uncles and cousins – the house was full of people. And I just looked at my mom and blurted out, “Can I go to Ann’s birthday party?” Just as if there wasn’t anybody there, you know?
My mom started to speak, and that’s when my dad came out of nowhere and picked me up. We went in his room and sat on the bed. He was having a hard time getting the words out; he just held me for a while. Finally he said, “Jimi died today. Jimi has died and our lives will never be the same.”
And they weren’t.
Chapter Two: Aftermath; Taking Care of Business
BR: We’re here today to talk about Jimi and the new projects that are happening, of course. But it’s hard to get from 1970 to 2010 without some acknowledgment of what happened in between. There’s already been much written about the handling of Jimi’s estate through the years and I don’t feel like we have to go into great depth. Your father Al passed away in 2002, leaving you as president and CEO of the family-owned Experience Hendrix. Maybe we could talk just a little about how and why Experience Hendrix was formed.
JH: Well, Experience Hendrix is run by the family members that my father chose himself. It’s our mission – our goal – to maintain, protect and preserve Jimi’s music and his persona.
After Jimi died, the whole estate was in shambles. Jimi owed a lot of money for the Electric Lady studio; there were cars wrecked in different states; there was so much to get in order and my dad just didn’t have the skills, the resources, or the connections to get everything done. Jimi’s apartment in New York was full of things, along with the studio – clothes, instruments – and a lot of that just disappeared. My dad had arranged for all of Jimi’s stuff to be packed up and shipped home to us. Much of it never made it. In hindsight, he should have packed everything up himself, but he’d just lost a son … he was trying to deal with that while all these other things needed to be dealt with, as well.
In the meantime, there were all these questions put to my dad, like, “What are you going to do with all this stuff?” “Why do you want it?”
And my father couldn’t believe it. “Why do I want it? Because it was Jimi’s.” I mean, why would anyone even ask why? As far as my dad was concerned, those material things were Jimi at that point. That’s all that was left. And it began to disappear.
BR: So, before the family-owned Experience Hendrix was established, Jimi’s estate was being handled by …
JH: In the beginning, Jimi’s managers and another attorney. Actually, Chas Chandler was mostly out of the picture by then; it was mainly Michael Jeffery. [Note: Michael Jeffery was killed in a mid-air plane collision on 3/5/73.] From 1974 to 1992, we had an attorney who was handling everything. My dad and I founded Experience Hendrix in 1995 after three years of fighting the lawsuit to get the rights back.
BR: And how about you? What went on with you in the years leading up to the formation of Experience Hendrix?
JH: After high school, I went to college for a degree in education. I got married – since divorced – and have four children. I stayed at home with them while they were little, but was actually getting ready to start teaching about the time we got involved in the lawsuit.
BR: And the impetus for that?
JH: There was rumor on the street about this “10-million-dollar deal.” Basically, by signing over the control of everything, my dad was going to get 8 million and my brother and I were to receive a million each. I kept telling my dad, “Don’t sign anything.”
I took the agreements to another attorney. After about four months of research, we discovered that the lawyer who had been representing my dad for years was running these offshore corporations. He was trying to convince my dad to sign this “10-million-dollar deal” – that was the plan. But it wasn’t a 10-million-dollar deal – it was a 75-million-dollar deal. And my dad’s attorney was going to receive the remaining 65 million. That’s when we initiated the lawsuit.
At that point, I just put everything else on hold. I spent 10-hour days every single day reading documents. We have a legal law library now in our office that is three walls – ceiling-to-floor – of binders that had to be gone through.
My dad was always more of an audio learner; he had me read all the documents to him aloud. We’re not attorneys, you know, so we didn’t know a lot of legalese, but I feel like I earned an honorary law degree from everything we went through. (laughs) I’d have the big Webster’s dictionary sitting there and my dad would go, “What does that word mean?” and I’d look it up. Together we were learning what all the legalese meant. And that’s how we got through those years of the lawsuit. God bless [Microsoft co-founder] Paul Allen, as he lent us the money to be able to fight to get our rights back.
Chapter Three: Treasures In The Vault
BR: Let’s swing things back to the music. These days, all of the archives are kept where?
JH: In a temperature-controlled vault – which is a big improvement over where they used to be …
BR: Which was?
JH: In my dad’s basement. (laughter) You have to understand that my dad really didn’t know anything about the music business – why would he? We had all the tapes at our house for years. My dad kept them in a cool, dry closet in the basement. Now we have safety copies of everything – both digital and analog – and we’ve listened to it all. We’ve never had to bake a tape, which is great.
BR: I’ll be talking to your archivist, John McDermott, later. I see him as your version of the Dead’s Dick Latvala.
JH: You’ll have a good time talking to John. He won’t tell you this, but he has a photographic memory.
BR: Really?
JH: Absolutely – you can hold up any tape in our vault and say, “What’s on this at 24:38?” and he’ll tell you exactly what it is. (laughter)
BR: Well, that’s cool to know – thank you. If it seems appropriate, I’ll bring it up.
JH: He’d never tell you that, but I’ve figured it out over the years of working with him. He admitted it, finally. “It’s a blessing and a curse,” he said. (laughter)
BR: I can’t help but think about the library of live Grateful Dead recordings out there – and how, from early on, they had some pretty serious sound people working with them. And then I think about so many of the shows Jimi did where the sound systems just weren’t ready for what he was doing … there has to be a lot of his music that was played well, but was totally at the mercy of less-than-capable sound systems at the time.
JH: I really think that in some ways, the technology still hasn’t caught up to Jimi’s music, really … not to the level that he wanted it to be.
But there’s still a lot of live music in the vault that hasn’t been released that will amaze you; it really is in pristine condition. Plus, there is everything from studio sessions to apartment jams with friends. Basically, any opportunity there was to record, Jimi was recording. He had a little 4-track that he would carry around.
BR: We should probably mention the Dagger Records label, which is basically Experience Hendrix’ official bootleg label, correct?
JH: Exactly. The name, of course, comes from Jimi’s song “Dolly Dagger”. She’s a bad girl, you know, but she’s tough and that’s what we see Dagger Records as being. Before Experience Hendrix ever existed my father and I spent a lot of time and money buying bootlegs as the regular Joe consumers. And we didn’t know that many of those CDs either didn’t have Jimi on them at all or he was on them as a sideman – even though his name was on the cover. If we could be fooled, the average person wouldn’t have a chance knowing what was what.
We’ve really tried to clean that situation up with our Dagger Records releases, which are only available on our website. One of the things we want people to know is Dagger Records is not for the new fan – we don’t carry the core releases. If one of these albums was your first exposure to Jimi’s music, you might not appreciate the mono sound. The Dagger releases are really for the hardcore fans – bootlegs at an affordable price. We’ve gone in just like we have with the frontline releases and fixed and mastered them appropriately to give the fans good quality recordings.
BR: Do you feel you’re still building the archives?
JH: Oh, absolutely – and anytime we find anything on Jimi, we’re on it.
BR: Do you ever look at Jimi’s schedule for a given period and say, “Let’s see – on the 15th, Jimi did a gig at …” and then try to track down a recording?
JH: Yeah – and that’s something that John is really good at – that’s his forte. A lot of times, he’s already sought out the music and figured out where it is. Once we flew out to North Carolina to view some live concert footage from a show. The woman who had it didn’t even realize what was in her attic, but John walked her through it over the phone. “You’re going to see these tins, and this is what they’re going to say …” and he told her all about them without even seeing them.
BR: Cool …
JH: It was really an adventure, including a ride in a prop plane where I could literally see the sky beneath my feet. (laughter)
John and I have joked in the past that someday we should write a book about the adventures we’ve been on to track down Jimi’s music. There have been some really cloak-and-dagger sorts of situations – like getting in a car with someone and not knowing where they’re taking you, so you can listen to a recording that they claim to have of Jimi.
BR: (laughs) What, because they were afraid that you were going to steal it?
JH: Oh, absolutely – that we were going to somehow snatch their tape and run with it. (laughter) My poor dad sat and listened to tapes that had another drumbeat recorded over top of it – just in case he was trying to record it himself, I guess. It’s like, come on – we just want to listen and determine if it’s legit, you know? There have been a lot of quirky things that have gone on.
Chapter Four: New Music; Future Projects
BR: Let’s talk about some of the upcoming projects, starting with the new box set, West Coast Seattle Boy. Where did the name come from, by the way?
JH: West Coast Seattle Boy is a name Jimi called himself. The title on the cover is actually in his own handwriting. There are 4 CDs plus Voodoo Child, a 90-minute documentary DVD.
You’ll recognize the names of many of the songs, but these are all rare and previously-unreleased versions. The box set encompasses Jimi’s career and shows an evolution of his music from sideman to the Experience and beyond – writing and recording music that was in his heart and soul.
BR: The very last cut on the 4th CD – “Suddenly November Morning” – is one of my favorites; just Jimi and an acoustic guitar. How did you guys come by it?
JH: That was just Jimi and his little 4-track. That particular recording was actually in the archives … one of the things overlooked by the old administration. I love how he played acoustic – especially when he played the 12-string: just so beautiful and so warm. Jimi wrote over 110 songs in four years – which is kind of hard to wrap your mind around – and each one of them is a little piece of his soul and spirit.
BR: The Voodoo Child documentary is a neat mix of Jimi from old interviews and Bootsy Collins’ narration. How did you choose Bootsy?
JH: I’d listened to some of Bootsy’s older stuff and always thought he sounded a little like Jimi. The clincher was when we did a tribute album called Power of Soul and asked Bootsy to be on it.
After he did his track, he asked me what I thought of it and I told him, “Well, it’s good …” Bootsy asked me, “What’s wrong?” And I told him, “Nothing’s wrong, it’s just that we don’t sample Jimi.”
And he said, “Sample Jimi? I didn’t sample Jimi – that’s _me!_” He sounded so much like Jimi … Bootsy was delighted when I said that: “That’s the best compliment you could’ve given me!” (laughs)
I got the idea from the Tupac movie where he’s narrating and then his cousin picks it up seamlessly. When we talked about doing this, I asked Bootsy and he didn’t miss a beat: “Absolutely I would.”
BR: He does sound a lot like Jimi, but it’s not like somebody trying to do an impersonation – it’s more the vibe.
JH: That’s right, that’s right.
BR: What can we say at this point about future projects?
JH: Right now, we have about 8 years’ worth of releases planned. The Royal Albert Hall documentary is due to come out next year, which is kind of reality TV as we know it today. It was filmed in 1969 with about half a dozen cameras following Jimi, Noel, and Mitch around for a month in Europe.
Out of about 110 minutes of film, there’s 40 minutes of great concert footage shot at London’s Royal Albert Hall. From there, you have Jimi in his apartment playing guitar with friends; the usual mix of trains, planes, and automobiles; listening to the session from the day before to hear how the recording came out – it’s really just how Jimi was.
BR: Well, here’s probably the hardest question I could ask you: how would you sum up who Jimi was?
JH: Not to be sacrilegious or anything, but I really do think that Jimi was a prophet. He had a vision and he had a message to tell – a message of love. All he wanted from people was for them to hear his music – to experience and feel it.
If I could erase one thing that has been told about him, it would be that Jimi didn’t die of an overdose; he didn’t try to kill himself; he didn’t commit suicide. It was just an unfortunate situation that happened where he’d taken some sleeping pills wanting to get some rest after having drunk wine earlier that night. The mixture of the two caused Jimi to vomit, which led to his asphyxiation – and that’s what he died from.
But he loved life; he had great plans and he was excited about the new music he was working on. He told my dad, “You won’t believe this new sound – you’re going to be doubly proud when you hear it.” Jimi was excited about the new studio and bringing more instruments into the music – similar to what he did on stage at Woodstock … percussion, another guitarist, some horns.
Jimi was more than just a guitarist – he was an artist in every form of the word. He could draw; he had beautiful handwriting; he wrote beautiful lyrics; and made beautiful music.
Jimi never really felt appreciated by the world; he had his fans, but he wanted people of all colors, races, and creeds to hear his music and really embrace it.
BR: And at the same time, that was your brother – the same guy who played Monopoly with you all night.
JH: (laughs) I know, I know …
Jimi used to like to be the old beat-up shoe when we played Monopoly – that’s what he’d always be. You know that lyric in “Hear My Train A’Comin” that says, “One day I’ll come back and buy this town and put it all in my shoe?”
BR: I’ll never look at Monopoly the same way again. (laughter)
In Part Two, we’ll take a tour through the Experience Hendrix vault with archivist John McDermott.
