I’ll bet nobody had to ask these guys to get the burner going. What a sight: two of my favorite menfolk slaving over a hot stove, just the way god would want it. Are they barefoot, by any chance?
Ladies, come on! Who WOULDN’T want a shirtless Keith Richards in their kitchen, up bright and early, frying eggs (and maybe serving breakfast in bed, hee, hee)? And everyone used to say that Keef was only alive between 4 pm and 4 am and spent the daylight hours getting blood transfusions! You see the sun shining through that window in the top photo? Ha! Another Keith myth busted. Thanks to some morning coke and coffee he’s no doubt feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, composing riffs in his head.
It turns out these kitchen photos were taken at Andy Warhol’s Montauk, NY, home, where the Stones were rehearsing for their 1975 world tour. (I think Andy liked his eggs silver.)
Keith is known to make some mighty mean ‘bangers and mash’ (we Yanks call it sausage and mashed potatoes). He kindly shared the recipe in his memoir “Life.” Click here to see it.
As for Jimi, I’d love to think he was whipping up some voodoo chili, adding a pinch of his special herb for just the right smokey flavor, but he’s probably only posing. Pose away! I’d rather watch him walk around Chez Blogger modeling that BEE-U-tiful teal suit than have him cook for me.
Jimi may have fancied himself the lord of that manor, but he was actually subletting the ground-floor apartment at 34 Montagu Square in Marylebone, London, from Ringo Starr for £30 a month. The guitarist lived there with his paramour Kathy Etchingham, his manager Chas Chandler, and Chas’s girlfriend Lotta Null.
It was there in late 1966 or early 1967 that Jimi wrote his classic tune “The Wind Cries Mary.” Interestingly, kitchen duty – or lack thereof – purportedly inspired the song’s creation. Kathy (middle name Mary) had stormed out of the house after Jimi berated her for not cooking. The argument got his creative juices flowing. He sat right down and wrote a real beauty. (And not one word of the song has anything to do with culinary matters.) Alas, the apartment hijinks came to an end some time in ’67, when Ringo evicted Jimi for throwing whitewash all over the walls during an acid trip.
Okay, my musician friends: I shan’t cook for as long as I can get away with it. Who’s going to write a song inspired by ME?
And the wind cries….gravy.
© Dana Spiardi, Nov 6, 2015
Images of Jimi by Petera Niemeier.
Images of Keith by Ken Regan.
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Speaking to an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences panel on October 26, 2006, Mr. Lang said, “I had this inner dream. I grew up listening to Roy Rogers sing ‘Happy Trails’ on the radio and I thought, ‘What a perfect way to end the show.’ He was the only artist who turned us down. He didn’t get it at all.”
Actually, I think Roy did get it, and that’s why he had the good sense to decline Lang’s invitation. I can’t imagine the crowd’s reaction to the crooning cowboy, who was 59 at that time and probably not a fan of counter-culture. They might have thought they were hallucinating (well, they probably were) seeing him on stage, especially if horse Trigger was anywhere nearby. I guess some festival goers might have found his performance a bit quaint — the Cowboy as a symbol of America. Or, they could have seen it as a joke. Whatever the case, a Roy roundup at the end of the show would have been anti-climactic, to say the least.
So, the best was saved for last. Jimi performed 16 songs between 9:00 am – 11:10 am on August 17, 1969. The 13th was his legendary version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” played on a Fender Stratocaster. He wrapped up the 3 days of peace and love with “Hey Joe,” a song about a man heading out to shoot his old lady down. So much for happy trails! I’m glad Jimi chose to go out that way. It was a bold move. “Hey Joe” had been performed in different styles by all kinds of artists, including folk performers in Scotland, going back to the mid-1950s. But it’s his rendition that still haunts the mind.
When I think about all the photos and film footage I’ve seen of Woodstock through the years, the one image that burns brightest in my eye is that of Mr. Hendrix in that gorgeous white fringed shirt adorned with blue beads.
Oh, say can you hear?
© Dana Spiardi, August 17, 2015
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On April 21, 1967, he was on a bill in Newcastle, England, with several other up-and-coming acts: American pop trio The Walker Brothers, singer/songwriter Cat Stevens and “special guest star” Engelbert Humperdinck (born Gerry Dorsey and once sued by heirs of the German composer whose name he appropriated without permission). The suave Engelbert said that Jimi happily came to his rescue that night by offering to play backup for him in place of his original guitarist, who had left the tour. Jimi wasn’t allowed on stage with the crooner, so he stood behind the curtain. Said Humperdinck in a 2011 interview, “He played on every number; it was like hearing three guitarists behind me instead of just one. He put all his own little tricks in there and it sounded great. I only wish it had been a recorded show, knowing Hendrix was on it; what can you do, it’s too late.” [A personal tidbit: I once took my grandmother, a big Engelbert fan, to one of his concerts. It was an outdoor venue and the singer was miffed because passing trains kept drowning him out.]
Jimi returned to the U.S. in 1967 with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell (now called The Jimi Hendrix Experience) and ended up being the the toast of the Monterey Pop Festival. He was finally a sensation on his own turf. The Monkees were fans, and invited him on their first tour — as their opening act! The group’s teenybopper fans hated Jimi’s heavy sound, and he ended up leaving the tour after only six shows. Below is an interesting video of a radio announcement for a Monkees/Hendrix gig.
Perhaps more than any other musician in rock history, Jimi Hendrix loved to play. It didn’t matter what, where, when, or with whom. Had he lived, he might have rivaled James Brown as the hardest working man in show biz.
Happy 72nd birthday, Voodoo Child! Kiss the sky for me.
© Dana Spiardi, Nov 27, 2014
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Had you lived, you might have experimented with myriad musical genres and collaborated with all types of people – from country artists to rap stars. In time, you would have moved beyond the guitar-smashing, guitar-burning gimmicks, stopped using your teeth as guitar picks, and saved your body the agony of playing your Strat behind your back. Your music alone was always enough to hold anyone’s attention.
Still, it didn’t hurt that you looked so groovy. You were the original Space Cowboy, soaring through a purple haze. There is almost no image that best represents the 1960s psychedelic ethos than visions of you in velvet orange pants, paisley ruffled shirts, brocaded vests, feather boas, dress uniform jackets, beads, headbands, and hats. And that hair! We know you admired Bob Dylan’s music, but who would have imagined that you coveted his curly locks! Not to embarrass you, but I hear that one of the few possessions you traveled with was a set of hair curlers.
You had been honing your craft in the US for years, but it was London that first embraced you. You arrived there as “Jimmy” in 1966 after meeting Keith Richards’ then-girlfriend Linda Keith in New York City. She introduced you to record producer and manager Chas Chandler, who brought you to England, signed you to a contract and found you two bandmates, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. You would be known as Jimi Hendrix, and your power trio The Experience would release one of rock’s classic albums, “Are You Experienced?”
Eric Clapton, who only a few years earlier was declared “God” in graffiti all over London, admitted his jealousy upon seeing you perform live for the first time. And he wasn’t the only superstar who took notice. At a 1967 concert at London’s Saville Theater, those watching in awe included the rock royalty of the day: Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Brian Epstein, Spencer Davis, Jack Bruce, pop singer Lulu, and Clapton. That’s a pretty impressive draw for a guy who was relatively new on the scene. You opened the show with your own wild rendition of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the title track of the The Beatles’ album that had been released just four days earlier! In gratitude, Paul McCartney routinely includes a set of your songs during his concert performances.
The Who’s Pete Townsend may have been the first rocker to smash his guitar on stage, but nobody looked sexier than thou as you destroyed your fiesta red Stratocaster at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. The audience surely had a group orgasm as you straddled your Strat, made love to it, then turned it into a sacrificial pyre and split it to smithereens. An eerie omen of your own pending self-destruction, perhaps?
Like many rock stars who died early from misadventure, your death was not without controversy. Like your peers, you were a user of LSD, amphetamines and pot, but you weren’t known to be a degenerate, wasted drug fiend. While you did inherit alcoholic genes, it’s not clear that you were a booze addict. According to your girlfriend Monika Dannemann, on the night of your death you took increasing amounts of Vesparax because you couldn’t sleep. How and why you suffocated is a matter of debate. John Bannister, the doctor who attended to you, was criticized for not performing a tracheotomy, even though he detected a large amount of wine in your airways.
And then there are the murder rumors. According to a book by a former Animals roadie James “Tappy” Wright, your manager Mike Jeffery admitted to ramming pills and wine down your throat because you were worth more to him dead than alive. Supposedly, Jeffrey had taken out a $2 million life insurance policy on you, naming himself the beneficiary. As late as 1992 your biographer Tony Brown managed to convince Scotland Yard to investigate a possible murder case. But it led nowhere.
In the end, we are left to enjoy your music as a snapshot of an era that is long gone. During your lifetime you produced only a few albums, but in the years since your death you’ve been regarded by most rock critics as the most creative and daring guitarist of all time, as well as a mild-mannered, sensitive artist. It’s a shame that your music ended so soon. But death, as they say, can be a great career move.
Here’s our wild thing Jimi,at the Monterey Pop Festival:
© Dana Spiardi, Nov 27, 2011
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