UPDATED VERSION AUGUST 1994, SLIGHTLY REVISED JULY 2001
All translations by
CLAUS RASMUSSEN AND KARSTEN LAYBOURN
Read more about what the Danish audience and reviewers thought of the four Jimi Hendrix visits from 1967 to 1970. Here are a few excerpts of what is included from these files. All translations are made from the sixties papers, and some are hazed out and difficult to interpret others are wonderful statements about Jimi Hendrix, his person, his concerts, and the sixties.
"It is always the others who give an artist an image. It is those who translate what he does or plays into words. So and so many words about those and those ideas, and so he is classified. I think the music speaks better for itself than what the label says."
"He just stands on the stage and is quiet, Jimi Hendrix, when the curtain goes up." "Concert of the year. This label is very used, but this time it is justified." "To hear the second part of the concert - which I think was named "Electric Church Music" was an almost indescribable tonal switchback with squeals, slips, and brakings - was to explore an unknown land of music. No wonder that Hendrix most of the time was completely wrapped up in his discoveries." "The thing one wonders about when writing these last lines, is something completely different: whether another year has to pass before we can see a concert with Jimi Hendrix again. After yesterday's concert, it would be hard to accept."
"I love reading fairy tales, H.C. Andersen and Winni the Poo. Fairy tales are full of fantasy and like music they appeal to your sense of imagination." "But when I die I want people to play my music, get wild, freak out, and do anything they want to. Enjoy themselves."
1967
67.05.03. BØ Knud Torbjørnsen og Anders Stefansen
Knud Torbjørnsen and Anders Stefansen, SBA, has pulled of a real coup. They have engaged England's new big Rhythm & Blues name Jimmy [sic] Hendrix Experience for a concert in Falkoner Centret on the 21st of May. Jimmy [sic] Hendrix is at the moment placed at the Danish charts with the song "Hey Joe".
>Jimmy [sic] Hendrix Experience. Concert in Falkoner Centret.
67.05.15. BT Kom til soul-møde med Jimi Hendrix, en troende oprører fra Mars via Cuba
Come to soul meeting with Jimi Hendrix, a believing rebel from Mars via Cuba.
I look the way I look, says Jimi Hendrix the concert attraction on next Sunday's soul meeting in Falkoner Centret, to correspond to my dream.
Hendrix's dream: - That I am sent out by Fidel Castro to infiltrate the Southern Confederations lines in 1864. I am a believer and a revolutionist.
The Soul-star's revolution has experienced an explosion on the pop scene. Breakthrough with the usual temperature curve pattern, now on the chart list with the Polydor singles "Stone Free" and "Purple Haze".
The Style: adapted soul, not quite black, often toward the white. As the European audience prefers. Black inspiration, white stars. The accompaniment, supplied by Jimi Hendrix' group with the name Miske [sic], on the deep zzzuuunnnnggg "Experience", [an editorial mistake or a sixties fog?]
The song texts, often by Hendrix himself, are psychedelic, man, what else. Even though one of them dealing with Jimi walking on the water, was changed to not offend.
It is also to be noted, that Jimi Hendrix occasionally through his loud and visual dynamic show plays the guitar with the teeth. Yes, teeth.
Jimi Hendrix is born on the 27th of November 1942 in Seattle, USA. White or black? - I'm Cuban, man, says Jimi, I'm from Mars.
>Jimi Hendrix - good reason to look like this
67.05.15. EB Eksplosive Jimi Hendrix til København
Explosive Jimi Hendrix to Copenhagen.
England has in the later years been very dominating, concerning the pop scene. The image has now begun to change. USA is soon back on its old power position, on this territory.
Last year a musician, unnoticed in America were brought to London where he got a serious breakthrough. This is all about Jimi Hendrix, who climbed high on the charts from his first record "Hey Joe". At the moment the follower "Purple Haze" is among the five most sold records in England.
On Sunday 21st of may SBA presents Jimi Hendrix at a concert held in the Falkoner Centret, where Harlem Kiddies, Defenders and Beefeaters will perform.
Jimi Hendrix is a very unique guitarist, at the level with Eric Clapton from the Cream. Not that he is a revolutionist in the usual way, but he just plays so much and seem so in touch with the blues, that nothing has been heard alike for long time.
Jimi Hendrix sometimes plays so temperamental, that his guitar and amplifier explodes [sic], as it happened at a concert in England, last month. But then, he played his guitar with his teeth. He will probably turn out to a wild and bloody (powerful) experience.
>Biting Jimi Hendrix looks in a mixture of aggressive and skepticism from behind his two accompanists
67.05.17. BE Rebelsk pop-weekend
Rebellious pop-weekend.
The Move is smashing television sets in the Brøndbyerne and Jimi Hendrix plays with his teeth on Frederiksbjerg.
It is going to be a pop-weekend for pop fans. On Saturday the British group Move comes for the first time, and Sunday the new big name in British pop Jimi Hendrix gives a concert in Falkoner Centret. [the rest of column 1 concerns The Move]
Jimi Hendrix also represents the rebellion, but I suspect also the more musically side of the pop. He is originally American, but claims he came to England from Cuba. He is a big name in England now, his guitar playing are better than most pop people, he has more blues feeling, it is more direct and artistic, and then, he play guitar with his teeth, not his hands, teeth. And he does it better than most people with their right hand.
His first hit record "Hey Joe" is also on the Danish charts, and the new "Purple Haze" is on its way. Like Cream, the group consists of three members, drums and bass besides Hendrix. At the moment they are on a short Scandinavian tour. Hendrix will get sharp competition from the Danish American group "Harlem Kiddies" with the soul singer King George, our best Danish soul group The Beefeaters, and the immortal and invincible Defenders.
>Jimi Hendrix with his two musicians
67.05.18. BØ Velkommen
Welcome
On Sunday the world's most sensational guitarist Jimi Hendrix and his group The Jimi Hendrix Experience will give their first concert in Denmark in Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen. Jimi Hendrix is known for a stage show, which is prohibited in several parts of England. He does not only play guitar with conventional methods, but use also his teeth and feet. Latest hit: "The Wind Cries Mary", his own composition.
67.05.20. BT Psychedelic Happening
Falkoner Centret Tomorrow Sunday at 8 p.m. SBA presents Psychedelic Happening.
67.05.21. AK Jimi Hendrix med løve-manken
Jimi Hendrix with the leonine mane is the main attraction at the concert this evening in Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen. But others will contribute, in amongst King George and Harlem Kiddies, Defenders and Beefeaters. The last will take part in a psychedelic happening, whatever that may turn out to be.
67.05.22. AK Hendrix er mester
Hendrix is a Master
With the most provoking performing ever seen on a Danish stage, Jimi Hendrix drew in a capacity crowd with his electrified sex, last night at the Falkoner. There was such a violent reaction, that his rape attempts on the amplifier and the guitar seemed to have worked organically on each individual present.
Hendrix plays with his teeth; he simply puts the guitar strings to his mouth and bites them. The elbows are used for rubbing the strings - and in every case it is the master who is playing.
Jimi Hendrix must be seen and experienced. It is true that his music is in a special class, but it is just as much his overall performing, behavior, and appearance, which makes him a phenomenon.
67.05.22. BE Elektronisk Akrobatik
"Electronic acrobatics, The New Independent pop music at Falkoner Centret"
The Meeting with Jimi Hendriks [sic] last evening in the sold out Falkoner Centret was the promised experience, and at the same times somewhat of a disappointment. His trio performed dressed like Saxan porcelain figures with a couple of Rousseau figures, and that was fun enough. It was also great to see how many different ways Hendriks [sic] was able to play his apparently despised guitar, and there was some music occasionally - but it was mostly electronic acrobatics at full speed. His rather skilled playing and screaming feedback drowned his singing completely, except in a single slow blues number, in which you almost could put him in the same class, as Lee Hooker. Hendriks [sic] is good - you know that from his records - but last night he ran amuck with his equipment. And he also performed a very old-fashioned sexual show with his guitar. Are these old rock super-foulnesses coming back now?
The experience was more of a meeting with the new kind of people, Hendriks [sic] and his group represent - the underground people, apparently hanging freely in the air. But maybe it was their striped clothes that reminded us of the troubadours of the middle Ages. It is what they are today, popular and without compromise, but still not free to make a fuss. ... Harlem Kiddies ... Beefeaters ... Defenders.
67.05.22. BT Spil med hænder og fødder
Play with hands and feet
Jimi Hendrix Experience is a group full of gimmicks and noise, but it is also three good musicians. It was a very entertaining sight to see Jimi Hendrix play guitar with his hands and feet. Fortunately he plays in an ordinary way most of the time, and here he showed his very original ideas about guitar playing and his great competence. There was a fantastic crack over his play, and with huge virtuosity he used the amplifiers' electronic sound. That he is also an eminent blues guitar player one could hear, in a number called "Roll Me Baby" [sic, Rock Me Baby]. It was a pleasure to experience half an hour of performance, where everything had this very intense character. The rest of the program was not that bad either, even though Harlem Kiddies disappointed a bit... Beefeaters... Defenders.
67.05.22. EB Hendrix - Stærk og bedøvende
Hendrix - strong and stunning
It is hard to say what is what with a Jimi Hendrix performance. The sound is mainly realized as sound and not particular as music. I do not even know whether it is music or an effective unity that Hendrix seeks. If it was not that wild it would be camp [?]. This, of course, also includes his stage act. From records one knows how much blues music Jimi Hendrix Experience can play. It is like, on a different level, fascinating to watch the activity, the group express on a stage.
Except from his instrumental skills, Hendrix himself is a wonder of ingenuity. I do not remember having seen an instrument been played so many different ways before, behind the neck, below the knees, with the teeth, scraped against an amplifier. All together with some wild charm, a catching spirit, and energy that remarkably do not led the thoughts to a clown.
Wild and mad is the bass player Noel Redding and the drummer Mitch Mitchell too, both by the way they look and play like that. The drummer almost looking like a Harpo Marx dressed up like a frantic rococo clown. By the way, one of the most wild and hard playing drummers I have ever heard.
The musical base is the blues; the forms are simple and not particular varied. The totality is strange and over steered peculiar blurred. The groups Beefeaters, Harlem Kiddies, and Defenders introduced the show in Falkoner Centret with changing luck and ingenuity. Defenders being the best. Jimi Hendrix Experience was of course the main attraction, and with real excitement awaited by the full house. The group seemed to be decorative, fresh, strong and stunning.
67.05.22. IN Falsk etikette
False label
Psychedelic happening was the advertisements name for the concert, which took place last night in the Falkoner Centret. The name was quite wrong.
Psychedelic means something like mind expanding. The expression is used about a LSD experience and furthermore about fx. the music, which brings the impressions like those you receive under a LSD trip. Usually this is done when the music is supplied with colorful kaleidoscopic lightshows - a modern form of son et lumière. We have recently experienced this in the students scenes performance, We.
The slides which were projected yesterday on a huge screen in the stage background, while Beefeaters performed was impressive, but had none rhythmic relation to the music, and the special hallucinating effect which can be reached when the colors move all over the place and overflows the room, did not happen at this arrangement.
The second part of this show was introduced with the playback of Who Are The Brain Police by the Mothers Of Invention, [?]
Defenders and Harlem Kiddies, showed no sense of psychedelic happening. What a happening is would be more known. There was just no happening at the concert yesterday. Oh yes, the American guest, Jimi Hendrix' attempt to knock over his own amplifier equipment (while a young lady, partly hidden for the audience, held against, so nothing would happen) was maybe a kind of happening, but in this case rather miserable. That act Who and Move do much better.
Hendrix and his two (English?) players served - with a hairy splendor, which beat even Bob Dylan' - this evenings most spellbinding music with a sharp drumming and a heavy rhythmic guitar play by Hendrix himself. He has so much feeling for the exploitation of the ultra amplified guitar in long glissandi, that it should not be necessary for him to use such old and ridiculous gimmicks, like playing with the guitar on the neck or back. Apart from a few simple rhythmic moments, before also this group became monotonous deafening, this evening was not some mind-expanding happening - neither in its form or quality.
67.05.26. BT Foruroligende Jimi Hendrix
Alarming Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix, who recently played in the Falkoner Centret, has finally released a follow up to "Hey Joe" in this country. It is named "Purple Haze" and is even more explosive than the first, and far more personal. The guitar cries and screams and carries the listener completely away. The B-side "51 Anniversary" [sic] is almost as exciting as the A-side, and the text is very original, even though the story is the usually romantic crap. (Polydor). Cat Stevens ...
67.06.01. BØ Farvel
Goodbye
One has heard it all. Jimi Hendrix is not only one of the world's best guitarists. He is also a showman of class. He can play with his teeth. He can play with his feet - and he can make it sound good. The guitar on the back. The guitar on the head. All with charm and superiority. Even with the Move and Small Faces still sounding in the ears he makes the impression of being a loner amongst idols.
67.06.15. BØ Wishful Hendrix
Wishful Thinking' drummer Brian Allen has been concentrating so much about the singing in the groups hit "Count to ten", that he could not drum at the same time. Mitch Mitchell from Jimi Hendrix Experience took over his seat under the recording.
67.06.15. BØ -picture only
Finally came the beat music, we have been waited for. Name: Jimi Hendrix ***His concert in Denmark showed it***
67.06.15. BØ Er Danmark også poptræt
Is Denmark also tired of pop music?
...I do not think the new groups like Cream and Jimi Hendrix will make it. Their music and performance is too noisy (says Karl Emil Knudsen)...
...Groups like Jimi Hendrix and Cream have renewed the beat music and made a greater quality confidence amongst Danish groups like the Defenders-. (Says Johnny Reimar)
67.07.31. VU For Jimi Hendrix var uniformen alvor
To Jimi Hendrix the uniform was not for fun.
Jimi Hendrix the madly looking, the madly performing, the madly talented Seattle-American, who with his group Experience (which means experience) put Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen on such fairly crazy and oblique manner earlier this year, likes to perform in a special veteran-uniform.
Many young people like this today. - We are all anti-war, says Jimi Hendrix. It is only the colors we like. We are walking pop arts.
But Jimi Hendrix who sometimes tells very crazy stories about himself, has a true story to tell about himself and his uniform:
- I used to wear a uniform in seriousness, the singer-guitarist tells. I did my military service in the famous American Screaming Eagles Airborne Division, and that was no joke, but I got through it early and voluntary.
- Then happened what happened to me, I was record-discovered through England and Decca and all that stuff, and listen carefully what happened to me, one night I was walking through the streets of London in my old silly uniform.
- One of the police cars pointed at me with their flashlight, says Jimi Hendrix, and the police officer started questioning me. What was this uniform? If I did not know that this uniform used to be serious for a man who exposed himself to death in that uniform etc. And what I beside this did for a living, and whom I worked for? The Experience? Who did I think I was, talking about "experience"?
- After a long time, tells Jimi, I showed them my passport and told them that the uniform was from 1898, and that it used to belong to an officer in the - veteran corpse. And that I used to wear a uniform that was bloody serious to me in the USA. And that I by experience meant that I had experienced quite a lot.
- A lot of what? One of the officers asked quiet.
- Harassment, said Jimi, and the partners split.
67.08.31. VU Fænomenet Jimi Hendrix
The Phenomenon Jimi Hendrix
Some people can, but others just cannot help it! Jimmi [sic] Hendrix is one of them. He is 22 years old and comes from Seattle in Washington (near Canada and the Pacific Ocean). As a boy he never learned to read music, but was gifted from nature and could sing and play on all instruments. He was known in Seattle as an "unwilling to work boy" - "The old gardeners lazy son" - who would prefer to sit and dream with his guitar or some mouth harp, rather than help his father gardening rich people's gardens. But the kids admired Jimi. He could not only play with his fingers, but also with his teeth and feet. He was a complete Seattle band when he played. Always happy and in good mood. Like this, young Jimi left home someday, 15 years old. He played at farms and on the markets and one day he met some young guys, who told Jimi how well they were doing in the army, he joined them. He told the sergeant he was 17 and was accepted.
SWEET GIRL
- But the army quickly turned out to be the wrong place for me, says Jimi to me. We sit and talk at his hotel somewhere in Europe. Jimi has arrived the same day by flight from somewhere else and will play two shows this evening with his two experience friends Mitch Miller and Noel Redding. Tomorrow he is in a third place in Europe.
- I did not do better in the army, so I had to sell my guitar, Jimi tells - fortunately to a nice guy, who would lend it to me when I needed it. I left the US-army some months after I had joined. Then I was left in Tennessee in Kentucky with 400 dollars left in my pocket. I would have left for Seattle but then there was this little girl, who kept me. And I stayed in Clarksville through the night and had some wonderful hours. I met a bunch of nice people who praised my vocal. I gave drinks to them all. When I woke up the next morning I had 13 dollars left in my pocket. Then I had to get back and borrow my guitar again, so that I could play my way to Seattle. But it was closer to Nashville. It was only 20 miles from Clarksville and Fort Campbell, from where I had started the tour home. In Nashville I stayed. There where jobs for me. Lots of jobs!
JIMI and the ANIMALS
The next years became rich in Jimi's musical development. He played rock with Little Richard, blues, folk songs, and beat all the time - together with other performers like Ike And Tina Turner, The Isley Brothers, Sam Cooke and B.B. King.
- But it was not me, but the others who got famous, says Jimi and shrugs his shoulders. It was the English group "Animals" which should be the actual reason to Jimi's breakthrough as solo and experience artist.
- I was ready to take the phone and call my old man to get him to send money, so that I could get away from New York and home to the Seattle gardens, Jimi remembers with a little smile, but then I met Chas Chandler from The Animals, and became friends with him and the rest of the group. They came night after night to the club where I made noise. They said that I exploded really great. And Chas told me that he would never forget me but someday try to get me up. I deserved that, he said. He said I just had to come to England. It was more easy to go to Mars, I thought. Or to Seattle. Or to Cuba! But Chas turned out to be a guy who would remember his promises. He told people about me everywhere and wrote for me. I got the money for a ticket - Chas helped me with this. Then I came to old London and Chas got me gigs immediately. In different small clubs. Chas came night after night with all his friends - Mick Jagger, Beatles, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck. Eric and Jeff are the two best guitarists, I think. Mick told me that I was the sexiest performer in the world, after him, whatever he could mean about that.
BIG JOE
And the big jobs came?
Hah, no, no, I discovered that it was hard to look for yourself in England, and that it was more expensive to call back to Seattle. I was almost ready to leave on the ship when Chas left the Animals and became a record producer. He took me into the studio immediately and after the audition he was allowed to give me a contract. And then the bomb exploded! "Big Joe" it was called, it is a 100 years old, and there is 1,000 versions of it, but I have made version 1,001 and it was this, which exploded. Chas introduced me to some guys just like me, the janissary Mitch Miller and the bass player Noel Redding. We became a trio - Jimi Hendrix and his Experience. Joe was followed up by "Foxy Lady" and "Red House". The last I was inspired to by listening to Eric Clapton!
Eric Clapton is as enthusiastic about Jimi as Jimi about him - Jimi is the most wonderful guitarist I have ever met, has Eric Clapton (from "Cream") told me. Other Jimi-fans amongst the stars are John Lennon, John Mayall and Graham Nash.
JIMI to the top
1967 will be remembered as a special year in pop history. It was the year Elvis finally married, where Beatles had to leave the 1st place on the British top-20-charts. First because of Engelbert Humpeldinck, who became famous because of this. Jimi Hendrix soon expelled "Hump". Sure 1967 has been a great year. Jimi meant something new to the pop music. A development away from the monotonous!
"Purple Haze", "The Wind Cries Mary", "Manic Depression" and "I Don't Live Today" has marked Jimi's way to the stars - or as Jimi himself express this: - On the way down as a bomb!
To many it sounds as a bomb explosion with "3rd Stone From The Sun" and "Are You Experienced!"
One is suddenly not the same person after one has heard Jimi speed up with gas and oil. Not at the entire first half an hour after. One cannot hear anything else, if one can hear at all!
- Imagine a year ago I walked around in New York and knew only my creditors, says Jimi, - now I just came from Hamburg, where the young Germans screamed "Heil Jimi" until they became blue in their heads! As long as they do not scream something else! Even though I was not happy about that they throw us out on the street in Frankfurt. By the way I was told that the Germans in Hamburg never screamed "Heil Hitler". He did not dare coming there. Hitler!
Why where you put on the street in Frankfurt?
They did not want us at the hotel! When they saw how we looked. It was a neat hotel.
You and Noel and Mitch are maybe not very neat? Not even for yourself?
- I dress the way I want!
And how about the hair?
- Yes, there is someone who thinks that it was me who invented it, but it was the wind. I have had that much backwind lately. By the way, there are others than me, who comb the hair backwards!
Backwards?
- Yes with the back of the comb from the neck and forward, right! Just look at Bob Dylan - as I admire. I originally combed my hair this way as a monument for Bob. Or look at Eric Clapton, Garry Leeds from Walker Brothers, Roy Wood from Move or our own Noel Redding.
Yes and I think there is a Pussycat from Norway!
- Hope I meet him someday! And when I put all these colors into my cloth, it is because of the many years I had to do what I was told by others, and different trends. Now I have found these things I like. A small belt, an old uniform, a blue shirt and like this...
Is it a special kind of beautiful art form to play with the feet?
- Not more beautiful than with the teeth - or the hands! I guess I don't sing that well, but I cannot help it. It comes from the inside. I feel good when I play and sing - or whatever you call it!
What will your next thing be?
- Right now there comes an LP, the first. And we are working on the next. The German beer was so strong that it inspired me to write an octopus thing. Octopus it is called. Well it was actually Mitch who got inspired. I do not drink that much beer....
Jimi stands up and starts combing his hair in his own way. He has to get ready for "Purple Haze", which will start his next concert. It starts in half an hour, no, 15 minutes, as times go...
[One of two things, either Jimi fooled the journalist, or the journalist made up this story. Court Helmer who made the interview was middle-aged in 1967, and I have not been able to track him down].
1968
67.12.12. SBA Pressemeddelse
Press release
JIMI HENDRIX in TIVOLIS KONCERTSAL
Sunday 7th of January 1968, at 19.30
On the concert front, the New Year will start with nothing less than the JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE, who at the moment is considered as the most interesting of their style.
Particular topical is JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE at the moment with their new fantastic LP- record: "AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE".
Ticket sale has started from the ticket office in Tivoli.
68.01.02. EB Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
68.01.03. PO Ekstra Hendrix på søndag
More Hendrix on Sunday
SBA has succeeded to arrange one extra concert with the Jimmy [sic] Hendrix Experience on Sunday the 7th of January. Tickets to the first show were sold out in three days.
The guitar-dynamo, Hendrix, became one of the beat world's biggest names in 1967, both because of his untraditional treatment of the guitar (he often uses his teeth instead of his hands) and because of those space-sounds he gets from it. The group's latest LP "Axis Bold As Love" is one of the most exciting advanced beat records, one has heard for a long time. Besides Jimmy [sic] Hendrix "Experience" the Swedish organ duo Hansson And Karlsson and the Danish Defenders will play at the two concerts in Tivolis Koncertsal.
>Jimmy [sic] Hendrix Experience: from left Noel Redding, Jim [sic] Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell
68.01.04. BE Poppen ind i Tivoli
The pop into Tivoli
The concert hall opens again for Jimi Hendrix and Hansson & Karlsson
There is set for two great pop concerts on Sunday in Tivolis Koncertsal that, for the first time since the troubles with The Rolling Stones for more than a year ago, will open the doors for pop music.
The music will without doubt be wilder than when the police and audience meddled in the concert back then, but experience from fx. Falkoner Centret shows that the audience, long ago stopped from the hysteria about musicians and the singers. One sit and listens now.
And there will be enough to listen for. Jimi Hendrix is the big name and his music demands complete attention, if one will try to understand only half of what is going on. Since his first visit and his first LP, he has developed considerably - this, his new record "Axis: Bold As Love", shows - his texts has become more distant, more lyrical, and even though you immediately recognizes his music, his tricks, it has also gone some steps farther. Where he kept very strictly to the old blues-form before, he now breaks up the rhythm more, changes the beat more aggressive, and is not directly swinging.
...Hansson & Karlsson...Hansson & Karlsson's first record was on the week before Christmas sold in 5,000 copies in Sweden. So many single records Defenders also sold in December, and it is not bad by SBA to put them all at the same concert as Hendrix and the Swedes. There has been sold-out to the first show for quite a while, and the extra show sells very well.
>Jimi Hendrix - development
68.01.04. BT Kritikerne kalder Jimi Hendrix for en genial komponist, selv vil han ..
The critics calls Jimi Hendrix for a genius composer, he himself, besides, would rather have a break to learn to write music.
The English critics call Jimi Hendrix, vocalist and guitarist, for a genius. The man who has added a new dimension to the beat music. The man who takes the audience into a three-dimensional universal sound-orgy. He himself says:
- I think, that I would like to run away from it all in half a year and just study music. I am tired of trying to write music only to find out that I cannot.
His audience is of another opinion. In September, he gathered a record large audience in Sweden. More than 100,000 young people experienced him within a couple of days in Stockholm's Gröna Lund and Gothenburg's Liseberg. Already the following week he will once again make a Scandinavian tour.
With sold-out concerts, it will be more than 10,000 people. In Tivolis Koncertsal Sunday evening, there is room for 3,500 people. Most of the tickets are sold by now.
It is Jimi Hendrix' biggest wish to write the first blues music on Venus. That his thoughts often moves in stratospheric air, can one notably hear on his two albums "Are You Experienced?" and "Axis: Bold As Love".
He has an out-of-breath catch on the earth blues, as well as in his guitar playing and vocal, one gets fascinated by his inventiveness. A Vulcan bubbling mixing of the sound picture, which is being painted with a wide guitar-brush. Jimi Hendrix was born in Seattle in 1945 [sic]. When he got out of the army, he played with for example B.B. King, Sam Cook and Jackie Wilson. He was guitarist for Little Richard for a while, who fired him because his appearance was too provocative. He almost stole the attention. In New York the ex-Animal bass player Chas Chandler heard him and convinced him to go with Chas to London, where he chained him together with bass player Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. The Jimi Hendrix Experience became a reality.
In the next few weeks, The Beatles and all of the best guitarists sat in London's Speakeasy Club and listened to Hendrix. Without loosing the blues feeling, he played the guitar with every part of his body - by rubbing the strings against arms, legs, feet, and speaker cabinets. He even bite the strings so that the toothenamel moans.
Jimi Hendrix is not very tall. He has graceful movements and a backcombed coiffure, which looks like thousands of bended antennas. His cloth is a chapter of its own: shirts with lots of ruffles and shirt frills, waistcoats with tortuous gold trimmings and close-fitting velour trousers and an old British army coat.
- People think that I am a sulky guy. That is because I think about music all the time. If I suddenly get very quiet and serious, then it is because I have just got an idea for a song, he says about his music.
Other compares it with the sound signals that they catch on Jodrell Bank or other measure stations,
Jimi Hendrix should be the man who draws the strangest picture paintings, with the most colorful colors, within the beat music of the youth in 1968.
The audience also appears to have taken him to their hearts. Since he appeared in the spring of 1967, he has sold about 15,000 singles in Denmark, 5,000 copies of "Are You Experienced?" and 3,000 copies of "Axis: Bold As Love", which was released on December 19th.
68.01.04. IN Jimi Hendrix og hans gruppe hertil på søndag
Jimi Hendrix and his group arriving on Sunday.
The British singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix and his "Experience" visits Copenhagen on Sunday, they are going to play in Tivolis koncertsal. Jimi Hendrix' group belongs to one of the most discussed, amongst several reasons because of the release of their new album "Axis: Bold As Love". Hendrix gets abnormal sounds out of his electric guitar - and his treatment of his instrument, which he plays with his mouth and feet as well as with his fingers, has placed him among last year's most sensational stage-acts.
68.01.06. BT Jimi Hendrix gik amok i fuldskab og måtte overnatte i detentionen
Jimi Hendrix ran amuck in drunkenness and had to sleepover in detention.
According to the manager Chas Chandler the pop singer and guitarist Jimi Hendrix and his two band members are true angels. The manager of Hotel Opalen in Gothenburg is not quite of same opinion. On the night before Thursday he had to call the police because the 22-year old [sic] musician ran amuck in drunkenness in his room.
Under a heavy drinking, where nobody was aware of anything, several glasses, bottles and furniture's got smashed. The tapestry was torn apart a couple of places. It all ended with Jimi Hendrix smashing a window with his right hand, so that blood dripped on the carpet.
The police took him under heavy protests to the detention, where he spent the night. Thursday afternoon he was still drunk, but could perform in Gothenburg in the evening. The police have kept his passport, and he has got a special permission to go to Copenhagen today. In the afternoon he will be interviewed for the TV-show "Peberkværnen". Tomorrow he will perform two concerts in Tivolis Koncertsal. Both are sold-out.
- I do not really remember what happened. I think that we were quite drunk, but it was not as wild as described in the press, says bass player Noel Redding to BT.
Jimi Hendrix stated yesterday, that he is in a profession, which treat its people rough. He added that he loves Sweden very much, and would spend a vacation there next week if he could.
He will perform on Monday in Stockholm, while he on Tuesday shall make a statement on the events the night of Wednesday. He will not have any debts with the hotel. He has deposited 8,000 Swedish crowns that one expects will cover the expenses.
Jimi Hendrix, however, will sue a Swedish newspaper, which published a photo of him between two policemen, with a text saying that he was being taken to the police station. The picture however, was taken on the way to the concert hall Thursday evening. The policemen were protecting him from fans.
68.01.08. AK Troldmanden uden gnist
Sorceress without spark.
Hendrix-concert was a bit of a disappointment.
Sgt. Hendrix' Lonely Club's Band opened the last part of the show in Tivolis Koncertsal last night with the Beatles' opening theme from the record with almost the same name. Hendrix had a plaster on his right hand, but had no further marks after the berserk fury in Gothenburg the other day. He had got out of Sweden, and that was the most important thing for us.
What one must put up with at a Hendrix concert is that it is impossible to understand a word of what is being sung. Only some languishing and sexy voices from the master carry through the thunder, like a kind of a 4th instrument. The dangerous deadly volume from the amplifiers, which by the way buzzed all too much, drowns everything. Furthermore, it was clearly that the group was not in a good shape, at least at the first show, and played uninspired and on well-known routine. Only in slight moments did one suspect the hook of the lion: A sudden unexpected guitar-chord, that cuts sharp as a razor through the otherwise muddy theme, a playing cat-like movement, which makes the beat go quicker, or the well known playing-on-the-guitar with the teeth, which last night only lasted a short while. - There were too long between the explosions, where one could recognize the genius magician. - However, a Hendrix out of shape is a concert worth. The Hendrix-routine is more than well. - The group demonstrated again vitality and a sense of getting the music swinging. The nervous fits and starts, which is the "image" of the group, did not appear in Copenhagen. The sudden outbursts of feeling from a Hendrix, who must be on the border of getting a nervous breakdown, did only appear in glimpses. - Instead, the group did pump out a sound to the audience, which was almost unbearable, a sound, that physically hurt and is associated to the music. But the sound itself does not do it!
The applause after the concert was deafening. One wonders if part of it was not a thank you for the last outstanding record from the group? In the first half, the new Defenders, the Swedish duo Hansson and Karlsson plus Page One performed, who had first-night. - Most exciting were the Swedes, who with only two instruments, organ and drums, were capable to whip through an atmosphere, which put up well to Hendrix.
>Jimi Hendrix - bit of disappointment
68.01.08. BE Den grimme amerikaner
The ugly American.
Sold-out to both Hendrix-concerts.
After weak concerts in December in Tivolis Koncertsal with Move and Electric Prunes - regarding audience attention - it was nice to see that the pop-audience came out to see the exciting American guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who gave concert last night in Tivoli with his Experience-group.
As a solid support for the main event SBA offered two of their most solid groups - Defenders and Page One. Defenders made one happy with a brilliant blues, where it is obviously that they had picked up inspiration from last years Cream concert and the recent release "Disrali Gears". Rudolf Hansen is freer in his improvisations, and he picked up an excellent backing from his brother Flob and the drummer Niels Kjær. Yet, even better were the Swedish instrumental duo Karlsson and Hansson [sic], who jammed with jazz background on organ and drums, so that almost the entire hall were swinging their feet and clapping their hands. The drummer knew how to use every sound of the drums - it was not just the usual noise on the drums. Maybe the organ in some passages was too sweet and liquid, but the organ has never been any brilliant instrument in the avantgarde pop, so it is forgiven.
Page One with Flemming Sørensen in the front, who has promised to keep away from the progressive beat music, started paradoxically with their performance with the Mothers Of Invention song "Motherly Love". It is a little hard to judge the group on the basis of a 3 songs performance, but the concert debut was promising. One is able to hear that Ulrik Hansen, former member of Matadorene, has developed. A song like "Pretty Woman" was played with nerves and clerical.
But it was of course the ugly American with the wooly hair, Jimi Hendrix, people had come to see. His guitar space trips were exactly as wild and rough, as his several hit singles and two full albums have told. Even as we - fortunately - did not experience a furniture smashing as the one Jimi Hendrix left in a Swedish hotel, there were lots of well-played pop blues with a massive close sound barrier against the audience. Not for a second he hesitated to fling around him with equilibristic sounds. There was playing with hands and teeth. And the crushes of the toothenamel were another beautiful effect in the entirety. Noel Redding on the bass - with a fluffy hair like Eric Clapton - and Mitch Mitchell' brilliant playing followed those sound experiments. It was a successful concert.
>Jimi Hendrix - ugly American
>Jimi Hendrix with group - lot of well played pop blues
68.01.08. BE Hendrix raserer værelse
Jimi Hendrix smashes room.
Mixed pills and alcohol and ran amuck in Gothenburg.
The pop singer Jimi Hendrix, who yesterday played in Tivolis Koncertsal, ran amuck in his hotel room in Gothenburg, on the night before yesterday [sic]. He started to throw with the furniture's in the room in company with some friends, and the hotel personnel called the police. Hendrix was transported to the detention, where he slept off his intoxication. He later explained, that his appearance was due to a mix of strong pills and alcohol. Hendrix had to deposit 8,000 Swedish crowns at the hotel until the damages in the room has been estimated.
68.01.08. BT Hendrix er som født i en elektrisk guitar
Hendrix is like born in an electric guitar.
Jimi Hendrix, dark guitarist and singer, knows his instrument so well, that one gets the feeling that he is born in an electric guitar. Brilliantly, he strikes the strings, which vibrate in the speaker-cabinets so that one drop both hat and glasses. The appearance last night in Tivolis Koncertsal, was so shacking, that one could not walk straight. During the whole show the music sounded like a pot of soup at the boiling point. Constantly bubbling, gurgling. So powerful, that the ears swung and extended to make room for the compact sound mass which comes from the stage.
The guitar continuously becomes a more and more important part of him. His play contains fewer gimmicks than earlier, and he has reduced it to just biting the strings a couple of times, like we eat Shrovetide-buns. Besides this, the slow songs were the best. In the way that he puts more feeling and blues into his instrument. He appears to become one with his guitar.
In his singing, he spits the words out through his teeth. He has more blues in his fingertips than hair on his head - and that does say quite a lot!
His unruly locks bristles, so that he reminds of the Bushman, who lives around the corner.
The other main attraction of the evening was Hansson And Karlsson, respectively electric organ and drums. Eminent swinging jazz-rhythms. Absolutely music on a higher level, which besides the less simple arrangements was well received by the audience. The duo, which is known as playing jazz non-stop in four hours, will come in February for a 14 days visit to Denmark, mainly in jazz clubs.
Besides this we heard the new group Page One. Nice playing. Nice. Not exciting. Appeared after all as a capable copy-group, who should have good opportunities to reach a broad audience, because they have taken the newest things on their repertoire, for example Mother Of Invention and Free Spirits.
Finally The Defenders. They appear to be still growing. But also with bigger audience appeal.
>Jimi Hendrix - bubbling
68.01.08. EB Jeg var bare fuld
I Was Just Drunk.
Says Jimi Hendrix about the vandalism-episode in Sweden.
Jimi Hendrix has a reputation of being a violent, impulsive man, who burn the guitars on stage, sleeps with them, and at last steps on them. Now, he has got the reputation of being an ungovernable man off-stage, after the just mentioned furniture smashing episode at a Swedish hotel the other day.
But in reality Jimi Hendrix is a gentle, friendly, and chatty guy, who would not harm a cat, but just wants to sit and dream his Technicolor- and stereo-dreams, from where he gets his inspiration.
One can sit with him in several hours, as I did last Saturday, and talk nicely. Then suddenly, his face disappears, and he is gone into a dream, just to return and tell a fabulous story about two little white-dressed dancers, that possible is going to be a new track on the next Jimi Hendrix Experience' album.
When asked about the furniture smashing he says:
- Man, I was just drunk. That can happen to anybody. But because one throws a couple of things through a window in a sudden madness, it does not hit the front-pages. That is the hard side of being a public person. One cannot rock one's ears without somebody making a story out of it.
With the exception of a gash of six snitches and a row of missing buttons, Hendrix had forgotten the episode due to his stereo-dreams, which are all about writing modern mythology about the Earth, space, foreverness and closeness in an LP-form.
- I have also thought about changing our stage-act completely, he said. In the future, I will present a stage play with colors, which is going to play one part, dancers, and other groups, who are going to play different parts. And we will play different parts, either with or without instruments. I would like to have Procol Harum with me. They appear like a troop of Shakespeare-actors when they get on stage. Then we have this to look forward too.
>Jimi Hendrix: - was just drunk...!
68.01.08. EB Sgt. Hendrix' Pepperband
Sgt. Hendrix' Pepperband
The audience appeared at once. The same audience, who in two days bought all tickets and convinced everybody that the beat music is far from dead at all. They were there as a hurricane with rounds of applauses, with expectations, with roar of enthusiasm, that ran like the wind of the North sea through the hall, even before the carpet went up.
Jimi, Mitch, and Noel were there with disroar, which at least was the wind of the Atlantic ocean. A soul-tearing current of tones, movements, sounds, which makes one completely forget time and place, who one is and why one is, and on what planet one is. One even forgets to listen, because this music, this enormous tension, as it can be called, does not hit the ears. It hits the whole body and cleans every inch. Right after, when the last heavenly trips, the last somersaults on the guitar, bass and drum are past, one goes down completely exhausted with a little blessed smile.
It was indeed Sgt. Hendrix Pepperband, who got all of us singing along, though it was impossible to follow. And then the Beatles-melody has never been heard in a more hypnotizing version.
With a bang from what seemed to be hundred of amps into Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire, Hey Joe, the slowly blues Catfish, which got turned upside down for every possible fantastic wince, gentle, hard, and aggressive color explosion from Jimi's futuristic guitar, and a wild drum solo from Mitch. Wind Cries Mary, Purple Haze, which really was purple, and the desperate beautiful Spanish Castle Magic, and then Wild Thing, which really was wild, and where Jimi made his guitar say "Thank You, Thank You" to the audience.
Indescribable it is, though the breaks between the songs last night, at the first show were too long and brought down the intensity. That inexplicable intensity, that Hendrix closely weaved Experience can make stand visible in the air and also in breaks, when none of the instruments make any noises. And then the secret of Hendrix's bending of the guitar, supposedly more those notes he does not play, than those many he in one or the other way plays at the same time.
Page One had amplifier-troubles, but appeared nicely. Defenders were better than ever again. And the Swedish duo, Hansson on organ without shoes and Karlsson on drums, were an experience, which would be nice to re-experience. Hansson painted as the organist of Nice, big sound-pictures on his organ, which looked like a lab and showed, that the organ is on its way into the new free-form beat, because it is able to do almost everything in the right hands.
68.01.08. IN Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix.
In one or another way is it, at the moment at least, a recommendable experience to go to beat concerts, even though much may not happen musically. The ambiance, the brimful, expectant concert halls, and the enormous live of young people, who in the breaks promenade in the most fantastic costumes and haircuts - where could you see this elsewhere. As a social phenomenon it is very interesting.
Also musically it could be, when one thinks of the many records which has been released lately, especially with American groups, but in a big view, I do not think that the latest concerts have been very good, even Cream, Electric Prunes, or even if it is as in Tivoli yesterday - Jimi Hendrix, who has been on the concert poster.
Hendrix is somewhat exceptional in the almost shut out white beat- and rock music. As one could expect, he has an exceptional familiar relation to blues, what he also showed yesterday, but his person is not insistent, and it appeared quiet characteristic, that the two most original numbers he played at the first show, was not his own: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Wild Thing.
As a guitarist, he has a considerable technique and can especially make use of the long, infinite floating notes, that get brought by very powerful amplifying, but the artistic effects are after all the same as one knows from Cream's Eric Clapton apart from the effect-hunting (playing with the teeth, god-help-me), which Hendrix has an disastrous partiality for. His stage appearance was less exhibitionistic though than the last concert last spring, but that might be due to the fact that he (and the audience) all the time got bothered by heavy buzz from the amplifiers. It is ok with excuses and regrets, but when one plays beat music, it ought to be a part of the deal to keep control of the power.
Another reason is that it was less giving to hear the concert's main attraction than the Swedish organ-and-drum duo, which under the first, short part of the concert performed something that for a weaning really could stand for support. Those two I would like to see again.
68.01.14. PO Jimi's drømme - Jimi's hat
Jimi's dreams - Jimi's hat
Jimi Hendrix is the one who can sell out twice in Tivolis Koncertsal. He is the one who in his own opinion plays silent, because he cares for our ears. "Shall we turn it up?" he asks after he has blown our brains into space. Jimi Hendrix is the one who razes a hotel room in drunkenness. But is also the one with the good eyes, who dreams and thinks. I met him during his visit to Copenhagen, where he said a lot of things. Fx. these:
- It is easy for me to write songs today, in contrast to the beginning, where I was afraid that the things I wrote were not what I really felt. Or that they said what I felt, but were in danger of being censored. But even now I wish from time to time that I could correct a verse in a song when I hear it on record and know that it is not what I feel. Or if I suddenly discover that people have misunderstood the text. Or simply just do not understand the song.
- I dream a lot, always in colors, of course. Do you really think that some people dream in black and white like a film? Peculiar! I dream all the colors. Sometimes only pastel, light blue, gold. Sometimes I write about my dreams in the songs. I can remember everything when I woke up...I do not read that much anymore, I do not have the time. But when I do I read science fiction. I have read this kind since I was at the hospital when I was young and the nurse took me to the window and showed me the fire workers. It must have been the 4th of July. I think there are creatures on the other planets, not humans. On our planet there are other creatures than human. But I always wanted (big smile) to visit Venus.
*- I do not like ballads, like fx. those of Engelbert Humperdinck. Ballads are like clothe which *hide and warm people. But sometimes it is nice to be naked. If I should mention someone who *inspired me and my music it would be people like Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters, Elemor [sic] James. *I like free-form beat like the Swedish Hansson & Karlsson. They are truly fantastic, we - Noel, *Mich [sic] and me - played for five hours with them in Sweden. I also like the new album from *Traffic. I think that the music of the future is a mixture of rock and blues. Modern rock and *blues.
- The title "Axis Bold As Love" refers to the fact that the earth turns once a day and shows another face. It is the same with love. There is not a single codeword to the record, I do not think so. I do not know... let your body drift maybe! We do not plan a LP with a theme; the songs are made without any connection.
- Happiness... I do not know. Maybe I am happy when I play. Then I forget some of the things that worry me. And what can worry Jimi Hendrix - apart from private problems that does not concern anybody but Jimi? It is primarily the fact that he cannot sit in a club or a restaurant without being bothered constantly. Friendly people who ask for his autograph and say that they think he is wonderful. That is okay and makes him happy. But there is someone who will not be satisfied with this. Someone who not only says hello, but will get close, touch him and his clothes, someone who wants to get close to him and get mad when he does not want to be involved. There are actually people who think that musicians are made for them, their possession, their privacy, and soul are for free.
When Hendrix was in Copenhagen, he was exposed to several unpleasant episodes, where the persons involved always were guys - never girls! Climax was when his hat was stolen from his head in Star Club (yes, you think this must be a lie!). Two very smart guys took it of his head and ran out of the door. So if anyone sees Jimi's big hat with various brooches they know where it comes from.
- Do you understand now what I mean, when I say that people always threat us badly, says Jimi afterwards? This is the attitude he must have toward most people, who claims they like him. And this cannot be the intention?
Stars cannot enjoy a completely private life. They have chosen their way of life (even though they did not know what the life would be like when they chose). But impoliteness - not to mention actual criminal acts as thievishness - is unavoidable. Jimi's hat was not irreplaceable, but what it symbolizes is. This is the thing about personal inviolable, if this word means anything to the two guys, who have the hat by now.
+Jimi Hendrix sits in the restaurant in "Tre Falke Hotel" in Copenhagen, when two guests +(longhaired) comes toward him and gives Jimi a chillum of some special camouflage look. Jimi +takes it, but asks drawling superior: Can I make love to it.
[*only included in the original article, +not included in the original article, but added in the reprint: Bengtsson, Laus. 1970. Der gror aldrig mos på en rullesten. Borgen]
[The stolen hat was later sold at Sotheby's Auction, London, on 22 August 1990]
68.03.01. SL HENDRIX INTERVIEW
Los Angeles (UPS)
UP: For how long have you played, and how long time did it take you, to develop your playing technique and stage act?
JH: I have played for six or seven years [sic], and I develop all the time. It all began when a guy asked me to play something that was not my style. Because I never wanted to be flexible, I said, "Who wants to play that crap".
UP: You played around Nashville down South for a while, how was it?
JH: In those bars I used to play, we walked on stage where we performed, and the fans stood down in front. It was in this kind of warm, dingy clubs. We played there and it was really fun, fans got in love with you. One really had to do something special because the audience was really critical. It is the most critical audience... They are with you all the time. Everybody knows how to play the guitar. You can walk down the street and everyone sit and plays the guitar on the doorsteps. It was there I really learned to play the guitar...in Nashville.
UP: You played on the Monkees tour, how was that?
JH: We did seven concerts on that tour. Mutual everything was nice, they were some nice guys, but there was no one who did any PR for us. People did not even know we were on the tour, until they saw us. Monkees and us? Different audience, but it was not the audiences fault, they came to see the Monkees.
UP: Are you under any influence from The Yardbirds, especially by all the electronic stuff Jeff Beck makes?
JH: I am not influenced by Jeff Beck, I have only heard a couple of his records, "Shapes Of Things" and it was something. I just listened to it and liked it. I try to understand everything and then get my own ideas. Too much listening and to little on your own would make you confused. I mean...other musicians make so many things in their own way. There is a guy that I still try to make people listen to. His name is Albert Collins. He plays in a tour band somewhere. He is good, really good. But he prefers to be at home, and do not get far from there. Is it not always like that?
UP: Which American groups do you like of those you have heard?
JH: Well, I really like Bloomfield's "Electric Flag" and on the east coast there are groups like "Mushroom", "Big Brother", "Moby Grape": Vanilla Fudge has made a really great album, but I have never seen them live, so I cannot say more. The east cost group "Clear Light" will get really great. I collected a lot of records over here once, but it turned out to be crap. Now I am nervous to buy anymore, before I have heard them.
UP: What do you think of the direction in pop music, especially in England, with small stage plays, and total shows with light and more?
JH: In one way it is good, but in the other way it is bad, because groups like "Procol Harum" get disregarded, because they do not do it. Then people read a review and say, oh, here is the proof they bore people. But "Procol Harum" has something to say, and they just do not jump around. It is not their fault. It is the young, who only want the fashion things. The lightshow has to work for you and not reverse. "Jefferson Airplane" is only shadows, not more than voices in front of a light show. There is not much about them now; they just show any light behind themselves. Like in "Roundhouse". Which runs for four hours. It does not appeal to me...it is just tomfoolery. But the thing with stage acts is a completely different thing. Could you imagine taking "Othello" and do your own version of it? You write some really nice songs, not exactly text lines...Great. "The Who" use stage acts, like "A Quick One While He's Away", but they just stand there while they sing. They should jump into it...like we will do it from now on. More I cannot say. We have some plans; I just hope that it will not drop away from us. Haha.
UP: Have you ever played with "The Beatles"?
JH: Yes, we have been together with them. Not musically. Ha-ha. They are some nice guys. "Beatles" and "Stones" are some nice guys, apart from their records, but that is a private thing. Meant like I feel their music sounds unvaried. In one way that is ok, but what would happen if you are doing you own thing?
UP: How is the "Underground" in England?
JH: They are not well organized over there; they are just some strange looking guys. It is a small thing, not like here. I think the policemen are really nice over there. They do not meddle into you things. One day I was walking down a street in London, stoned, and a police car drove up beside me, and they said: "Hi, Jimi, what are you doing?" and I answered "Is it tomorrow...or just the end of time?"
68.03.01. SL HENDRIX:
HENDRIX:
The film is not finished yet. On the black screen you hear some indistinct voices, and suddenly Jimi says: "There's no life anywhere". Then you were thrown into "Purple Haze". Four minutes later Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding interviews Jimi, asking the usual questions. "Do you believe in Good?", "Do you smoke?", "Why do you play the guitar with your mouth?", "Do you use gimmicks?".
WILD THING
Later Jimi improvises on an old blues theme on an old twelve-string guitar. When he sings and plays he is in his own thoughts - very far away. When he stops he says, "I bet you thought I could not do it". After that we are back in black where Wild Thing literally drops the curtain. Then we again hear voices from the white screen. More indistinct voices, which disappears.
FOXY LADY
EXPERIENCE is a film produced by John Marshal and Peter Neil. In 30 minutes it tries to get into Hendrix and it contains exciting cuts from concerts, interviews and a dream sequence of Foxy Lady..."I'm going to take you home...I won't do you no harm.... Foxy Lady". The film is best when it gets into a documentary. Jimi sits down and sings and plays, like he is himself. And like no one has ever heard or seen Jimi & Experience before. The music speaks for itself.
68.07.07. BE Super Blues
Super Blues
- A year after the first storm full meeting.
The omnivorous guitar-equilibrist Jimi Hendrix, prominent figure in the electric orientated super blues religion, will visit us a year after the first time where he spread blood, sweat, and tears all over the beat-stage, tore the air apart with a new kind of music, that were more up, down, inside, and outside than any other thing.
And he comes with his hands full of old hits placed on an album, where he himself on the cover appears as a three-headed monster. Two of the heads are Noel Redding, bass, and Mitch Mitchell, drums, but with Jimi' skin color, electric curls, vanity moustache, and broad-brimmed hat. Jimi Hendrix Experience is a group so well playing and grown together, that one does not take out passages and read them on any single person, it is the general which counts and surprises, it is it, which is the group. The one, which we for the sake of convenience call Jimi Hendrix.
It is, as said before, a collection of hits, that it is all about. And then everybody knows, that those for the publisher cheap LP's (which in the stores costs full price!) usually are rubbish, because in the interval between the release of the singles and the economy packet, has happened so much that most of the tracks has an ugly patinated color at the re-release. Especially when it is light hits, which have been played 18 weeks in row Sunday afternoon, and have been played every second day on the radios musically regards to Charles Borge and 7th class on the local school as thrown in. It is almost unbearable. But it is exactly here, that Jimi Hendrix sorts out. His "Smash Hits" has a whole sound, which hits better than ever. The cuddling, highly potent and playing is filled with the engaged engineer's massive ability and exciting visions. Jimi Hendrix oxidizes his music. Just when the picture is almost overturning, when we think Hendrix looses the control over his instrument, which he make best possible use of, he falls down on the stage and glides back to the starting point. On "Smash Hits" it is hard to pick a favorite, because all of the tracks appear essential and physically strong, but if one should try, it must be songs like Fire, The Wind Cries Mary, Can You See Me, and 51st Anniversary, three of them has an enormous brute strength, and The Wind Cries Mary is gentle and well set-out, which is the top. Also Highway Child with the strange double exposed guitar takes a part of making the whole impression of Jimi Hendrix as an explosion in the total use of sound.
After the Hendrix-popularity, one has found commercial basis for releasing an older LP that forms itself as a dialog between Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight. Hendrix does not approve of this release, as he does not think that it expresses his present strength and playing. It is by no means a bad record, except for the fact that Hendrix is right. There are attempts of a lot of well playing, but only in the wild growing "Hornets Nest" can one feel the powerful beat. The name of the album is "Get That Feeling" (London)...Blue Cheer...
68.10.01. SL HENDRIX INTERVIEW
S: When you write your songs, especially on the new album, do you have the music in your head, or do you have the lyrics on a piece of paper and gets the music to fit into it, or do things both happen?
HENDRIX: Well, most of the time it depends on different things. Some songs I make to the music. Most of those I make for the music; I get fitted into that kind of music that I thought of. Other times you have put some nice words together and then one has to wonder what music would fit to that. It depends on the circumstance when I work, it is not particular patterns it is not sudden patterns, because I actually do not consider myself as...I do not consider myself a writer. At least not at the moment.
S: What do you want to do with your songs in the future? You seem to have some kind of an idea...
HENDRIX: Well as I said, I want to explore everything, what will happen to them is enough. That is the only way I can express myself, mainly through the songs.
S: Can you tell us anything about how you get your lyrics? How does it get out?
HENDRIX: Well, for most songs you get an idea from something you see...you know. Then you write it down in the way, it really happened, or the way you wished it happened or the way it could have happened, you know. Fx. like ... I cannot think about any songs I have written (laughs).
S: I thought about a song like if six was nine.
HENDRIX: It is just straight. How you did feel at a sudden moment.
S: Everything flies out; it is not cut in clichés or like that?
HENDRIX: No, we had a 100 % jam session and we put the words on. We would do it one more time, but [...]
S: A song like Little Wing is short, soft and very beautiful.
HENDRIX: I do not have anything to say about that. Just keep that impression.
S: Are there sometimes you feel that it will not work out? Like when you for instance have had a bad day or night?
HENDRIX: It is like sometimes when you play bad and some from the audience gets up and pats your shoulder saying, "man, it was really great!". If one really feels it was a bad show, it makes one feel worse. No one is going to change me in that direction, because it is the way I think about music.
S: Do you feel when you play that someone in the group leads you into the classical theme in Third Stone From The Sun or Bold As Love? Or does it suddenly come to your mind, and you lead the others into it?
HENDRIX: You mean like I for instance take a solo in a song?
S: Yeah
HENDRIX: It is more a thing that happens jointly, you know. Most of the time everybody plays the way they feel like. What the other guys are doing inspires them, follow the tones. You know, from Mitch and Noel...or me.
S: Do you like when other people listen to you when they know what you are doing?
HENDRIX: Oh yes, I really care about that, of course.
S: Did you have any ideas of a trio, before you left to England?
HENDRIX: No, I thought of the smallest possibly group, which had the largest power. Even if there had to be two, twenty or ten, you know. But it actually became a trio, which is fantastic.
S: Did you have any troubles with no rhythm or single, the missing sound?
HENDRIX: You see if you wish to make anything, it is best to do it yourself, right? So I figured out that if you had a rhythm or even a single there would be things that would slow down the speed, because you have to show him exactly what you want him to do all the time.
68.11.01. SL Hendrix
As expected Jimi Hendrix's new double album is one of the really big events in our music world. With a loose constructed album Hendrix gives in a relaxed, simpler, and straight-forwarded philosophy of life, than one has experienced before. The at times very down-to-earth, dangerous, aggressive, provoking, and at other moments soft and lyrical Hendrix has lost some of his tough edges and made himself free of attitudes and those affected, big, provoking, and lyrical fluctuations. Not saying that Hendrix' music has become boring, but that Hendrix' musical dimension seems to be more motile and differentiated, because it more than ever is directly connected to the musical expressions and in this way it avoids to be a combination of a statement and a music form.
Instead of being a medium, through which Hendrix' opinions of and messages to his surroundings should be pushed out, the music on this record has become much more the very position of Hendrix's life, which enthusiastically and unreserved should be passed on to the listeners. In harmony with this is aggressions and lyrics etc. not verbal but musical.
Unlike "Axis: Bold As Love" there are remarkably few big or emotional words. The compositions are also simpler on "Electric Ladyland", simple in order to be effective fundamental themes. And even though Hendrix (even considering songs like "Little Wing") hardly can be considered one of the big time melody creators (he uses to much of the same musically), it does succeed for him to make an acceptable fundament or starting point for his music. Hendrix's greatness is best viewed from the fact that his music in style and expressions is alone. Apparently no one can create and contain a universe like Hendrix'.
The reason is probably that Hendrix without problems spans over the entire specter, from body expressions to visions of a holy love empire (a true mind situation). In Hendrix's music body and intellect is connected and makes it possibly to engulf the listener, so one can experience on all levels. Hendrix is with his magic-divine unity of sexual act and love visions of power. With "Electric Ladyland" Hendrix places himself as one of the most important love- and freedom pioneers. Hendrix has of course no solutions to offer or any advises to give, but in him one can experience what it means to make love, to be free.
JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE:
ELECTRIC LADYLAND.
REPRISE 6307 (S).
68.11.29. BT Jimi Hendrix giver to koncerter i København i januar
Jimi Hendrix will perform two concerts in Copenhagen in January.
The Jimi Hendrix experience, which is among the best paid artists in USA after Simon & Garfunkel, will perform two concerts in Falkoner Centret, Copenhagen on Friday 10th of January in the New Year. Exactly one year after the group's last visit, where both shows got sold-out in record time.
Since then Jimi Hendrix has reached the top in USA, where he gets a minimum-guarantee of 25,000 dollar per concert. That is amongst other things due to his success with the new double album "Electric Ladyland", today number 1 on the American LP-charts. It has like the two previous LP's "Are You Experienced?" and "Axis: Bold As Love" brought in a gold-record.
The single "All Along The Watchtower" (also on the new LP) reached last Sunday number 15 on the [Danish] radio charts. The promoters of the concerts, Knud Thorbjørnsen and Anders Stefansen, SBA, will not tell how much Jimi Hendrix, vocal and guitar, Noel Redding bass, and Mitch Mitchell, drums, gets paid for appearing on the stage in Copenhagen.
- It is a considerable bigger amount than last January, says Knud Thorbjørnsen. It is the largest amount we have paid a beat group with the exception of Beatles and Rolling Stones.
>Jimi Hendrix - guaranteed 25,000 dollar for a concert in the USA
68.11.30. BE Guitarist på toppen
Guitarist on the top.
Jimi Hendrix expects after two years of success to start on an European tour.
Two years is a long time on the top, if one is an ordinary confused teeny-bopper-musician with propensity to cold attitudes and fresh stage-acts. But all of this is Jimi Hendrix excepted from. His success depends on honesty, zest, good workmanship, combined with the artists' intentions, and - in Jimi's case most important - visions.
Two years on the top - the breakthrough came with a very sensual version of Wild Thing and a three dimensional Hey Joe - because Jimi Hendrix is not commercially-extended, critic-overestimated May Fly case, but the beginning of a career, which in many ways will place deep traces in the opinion of the guitar playing electric possibilities and hopefully also continued experience favor from others than the instruments' own authorities.
The latest conquest from Jimi Hendrix is the double album Electric Ladyland, this week - in spite of its price of almost hundred Danish crowns - the best selling LP - and the single "Au [sic] Along The Watchtower" is number 15 on the single charts. After a half year of constantly success in USA (the price for a single concert is about 80,000 Danish crowns), will Jimi Hendrix with his English Experience in January take on tour to Europe to amuse his big audience here with his music, which people have tried to copy often, but never with success. It was the European audience who first learned to appreciate the dynamic guitarist, and Jimi Hendrix stands therefore in a kind of debt of gratitude to both them and the ex-Animals bassist Chas Chandler, who gave him a warm hand in a time where he was drowning in the Greenwich Village's cafe-society.
But a beat group with such distinct individuals likes Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding, and Mitch cannot exist forever.
Sometime in 1969 - the date has not been set - the two Englishmen will quit the band. They will concentrate more on the background-accentuated - make records, produce records, find new talents, and sell them for highest bid. That does not mean the final break-up. In the original form, they will make records together and perform casual concerts. Preferably the jam session inspired part, where the audience is not expecting "Fire", "Wild Thing" and "All Along The Watchtower" at full throttle, but comes to hear what can happen when Jimi gets combined with Stevie Windwood, like in the Electric Ladyland Woodoo [sic] Child.
Jimi Hendrix Experience performs two concerts at Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen the 10th of January.
>Jimi Hendrix - from his guitar pulses warmth, love and passion
1969
69.01.03. IN Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix's former concert in this country, I think, has not been particularly good PR for his records. Similar things applies to most other concerts with beat music (and jazz) I have attended through the years: it can be interesting to meet the musicians face to face but musically they rarely keep the standard from the records, the eye get more than the ears. In the case of Hendrix the sight expressions have in addition been very poor, the one who is so puritanical that he thinks that guitar playing with the teeth, distinct masturbation symbolism, clumsy arranged attempts to overturn the amplifiers without overturning is not the thing. This kind of monkey trick does not say anything about the man's capacity as musician. But the records show this. There have been released five LP-records with The Jimi Hendrix Experience through the two years this American-English group has existed, and they are all recommendable. In particular the recently published "Electric Ladyland" and the predecessor "Axis: Bold As Love", which both have a 3D dimension, through the use of stereo effects, which is missed in the earliest recordings. But already the debut record, "Are You Experienced" shows Hendrix's talent so displayed that this is indispensable. Only one of the records are a bit problematic, "Smash Hits", which collects twelve single-recordings, it is not due to the technically quality, but to the fact that there are many repetitions from the other records: four recordings are found on "Are You Experienced" and one on "Electric Ladyland". Those four are not the best on the record, so the seven independent tracks, fx. "The Wind Cries Mary", "51st Anniversary" and "Stone Free" could motivate a purchase, if one first has got hooked on Hendrix.
And how could one possibly avoid this, when one has taken these record's 47 songs and found a few less interesting but no indifferent and a lot of songs which could stand - or more accurate demands - to be heard over and over again. Except for five songs all material is written by Hendrix himself (two by bass-player Noel Redding and one of Bob Dylan), without that it gets monotonous, and though many things influence it, it seems to be homogenous. A couple of examples on the all-roundness. From "Are You Experienced" Red House, a regular blues, and May This Be Love kind of ballad thing, a bit like Country Joe. From "Smash Hits" the soul felt Stone Free with Otis Redding as inspiration. From "Axis: Bold As Love" the jazz rhythmic Up From The Skies and If 6 Was 9, both with an excellent drumming by Mitch Mitchell, the satirical science-fiction dialogue after Burroughs' pattern in EXP and the self-ironical Wait Until Tomorrow, which contrasts charity against some sexual serenades (unfortunately this is the only album with printed text). At last from "Electric Ladyland" (with nineteen naked ladies on the cover!) the wide between the John Lee Hooker fashioned conjuration in the first Voodoo Chile, a long "live"-recording, and the electronically roundabout in Moon, Turn The Tides. Notably is also the consistent use of the element-metaphor (air, fire, and water, not earth), which is used for some of the texts: third record side could be heard as one long water music-suite. Also a few words on Hendrix' guitar playing, which is the most varied I know at the moment. It can sound like Wes Montgomery in 3rd Stone From The Sun (1) and like John Lee Hooker in Voodoo Chile (4), and it can sound like so many other instruments sound, that one get in question if there actually is other musicians playing: piano in Are You Experienced (1), cembalo in Burning Of the Midnight Lamp (2 and 4), mouth harp in Up From The Skies (2) and saxophone in One Rainy Wish (both 3).
Even with Hendrix's former concerts in mind, one cannot avoid to expect the concert in Falkoner Centret Friday 10th (at 18.30 and 21) with some expectations.
69.01.06. BE Opvarmningsgruppe på vej mod berømmelse
Support band on the way to fame
...This is only about Jethro Tull...
69.01.06. EB Hendrix for sidste gang?
Hendrix for the last time?
There is a big chance that this will be the last time the Danish audience will see The Jimi Hendrix Experience in its present form, when the English-American super group January 10th will open the concert season 69 with two shows in Falkoner Centret, which already before the ticket sale got started was almost sold out.
After a busy year in the USA, where Hendrix and The Experience has earned more than 25 millions crowns on concerts, and has placed themselves as one of the most creative and important blues bands with the double LP "Electric Ladyland", where blues, acid-music and Dylan-inspired poetry is aired by Hendrix' science fiction guitar, the group seems to suffer the same faith as The Cream. The two English members Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell are having individual solo projects. While Hendrix is involved in the new super group drop outs Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton's plan of a more informal session LP.
Rumors about the spilt has long circulated in the English musician circles, but is denied by Hendrix - with the addition: - We will in the coming years take more time to individual projects and only gather for a few special concerts. ...Jethro Tull...
69.01.08. BE Alt udsolgt til Hendrix
All sold out for Hendrix
4,000 has bought ticket the super guitarist's concert
When Jimi Hendrix Experience introduces the beat season 1969 with two concerts in Falkoner Centret on Friday, is it exactly a year ago since he was on a Danish stage. In January last year he attracted enough people - only being known for a couple of single records - to get two sold out concerts in Tivolis Koncertsal. This year the interest has been even bigger. The first 3,000 tickets were sold in advance and the remaining 1,000 were sold in the first days of the ticket sale.
Jimi Hendrix Experience is one of the world's best playing and paid concert names of today. In USA where the group has toured for the last six months, they get paid as much as Diana Ross & The Supremes and Simon & Garfunkel - the worlds most expensive in this category.
Jimi Hendrix himself was a session musician in Seattle (where he is born) and in the neighborhood, before he went to New York to play all over the place with many of the soul artists from the Atlantic company. He has accompanied Wilson Pickett several times and supported Ike and Tina Turner for months on tour. It was only when he was engaged in a coffee house in Greenwich Village and had the chance to play for the old Animals bass player Chas Chandler that he was discovered because of his guitar playing. His greatest hit single with the Englishmen Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums, is "Hey Joe", which has been on the charts in several European countries. Later his LP's have shown the best proof of Hendrix as a scientist and the renewer of the guitar playing. His first LP, "Experience" [sic] has for more than a year been among the five most sold records in the USA, and the double album "Electric Ladyland" has been awarded with an gold record.
Rumors tell that Jimi Hendrix intends to break up his group in 1969. Same reasons as with The Cream: musically stagnation in all ways after a few years of playing together. The solution could be the free form, jam session, which Hendrix started with his "Electric Ladyland". On this several musicians perform on some of the songs. Stewie Winwood, Al Kooper, Dave Mason and Jack Cassidy were some of them.
The visit to Copenhagen will in all circumstances be the only stage performance, we get from this super guitarist and his men for a while. Despite of the cost, people ask for him from San Francisco to Toronto and from Glasgow to Rome.
69.01.09. EB Hendrix kommer med brækket ben
Hendrix comes with a broken leg
No one should wonder if Jimi Hendrix looks a bit freaked out, when he and The Experience give two concerts in Falkoner Centret on Friday. After a year of success, where the former café musician has conquered his own country, plus the rest of the world there has been some decline. Last week Jimi broke his leg, and at the same time half of the newly bought, special made equipment was stolen. One of the incidents happened in New York, where the space man Hendrix in all his humaneness slipped on the snow and broke a leg. He was brought to the hospital in all hurry, but had to cancel a show in Utrecht last week. His leg will be ok on Friday though.
The other tragically event happened in London, where the equipment was locked up in a van. The amplifier was special made for Hendrix and cannot be replaced. It is possible that he has to play on a rented, and it is also possible that the audience will hear some of the technical problems, which characterized Hendrix's previous concerts.
69.01.10. AK Jethro Tull varmer op for Jimi Hendrix
Jethro Tull supports Jimi Hendrix
This is the second [sic] time Jimi Hendrix is in Copenhagen. And it is the second time everything is sold-out for both shows. 4,000 people will in two turns see and hear Jimi Hendrix Experience in Falkoner Centret tonight. There has been run for the tickets, as in January 68 when Hendrix performed in Tivolis Koncertsal.
Jethro Tull - the English beat group with the chart album "These Was" [sic] - is one of the new big groups of 1969. They will warm up half an hour before Mr. Hendrix himself will come on stage. Jimi Hendrd [sic] Experience got their breakthrough with "Hey Joe". The group is on the absolute top charts in the USA. Also regarding payment they are high class. For comparison - Diana Ross & The Supremes and Simon & Garfunkel get the same pay when they perform. And this is several thousand dollars. Jimi Hendrix will come from Sweden, where he has been touring. Yesterday the group was in Stockholm, where two concerts were sold out. There is request for the beat group in many countries, so therefore some time will pass before we get a chance to see Jimi Hendrix Experience in Denmark again.
>Jimi Hendrix Experience - ticket sellers in class with Diana Ross & The Supremes
69.01.11. BE Bluestroldmanden Jimi Hendrix
More than 4,000 attended two sold out concerts with The Jimi Hendrix Experience in Falkoner Centret. It turned out to be a tremendous meeting with the experimenting blues-witchcraft, which is expected from the world's best beat-musician.
69.01.11. BE Guitargiganten Hendrix
Guitar giant Hendrix
Four thousand people heard Hendrix in Falkoner Centret. Even though Jethro Tull did not play on their own equipment they got a lot of their own songs out, Sunday Feeling and A Sound [sic] For Jeffery. The new guitarist Martin Barre has amazingly quickly found his place in the group. Together with the humor bomb Ian Andersson he got the blues drums to fly in a true rhythm and blues song, with metallic mouth harp and all what reminds of the old Rolling Stones. Effectively and good it was.
Right after the concert Jethro Tull went back to London where they had some engagements, before a two-month USA tour. This tour will include the recording of a new LP record.
The headline was of course the guitar-playing Jimi Hendrix. With an amazing virtuoso treatment of his instrument he got hold of his audience whom in return gaped by admiration and applauded like wild, when he went from one great improvisation and into the next. It does look very affectionate and easy. But do not mistake Hendrix. Behind the self-satisfied power show on the guitars highest effect, it is a lot of good technique and an important education. And also there is the two experiences Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on electric bass that follows Jimi. They strike up very well to the curly headed wonder child. That is why the sound is so compact and gives a brilliant picture of the group, and one could have feared that the abilities of these three musicians would have been in the way for a united force. The 4,000 people, who got tickets in time for the first Hendrix concert in a year, got an experience to take home with them. Even though the time was not unlimited, because Jethro Tull and Jimi Hendrix had to play twice to handle the large Copenhagen beat-audience, the concerts gave a full picture of the two groups today, and why their respective records are on the Danish charts. Hendrix played songs like "Fire", "Foxy Lady", "Purple Haze", "Taxfree" (from the Swedish Hansson & Karlsson and improvised into heavy movements). The next couple of songs included "Sunshine Of Your Love" in an instrumental version, and it was made in such a spontaneous manner that Hendrix today must be considered the most important creator of electric music. When he takes a ride, the hall gets wings.
69.01.11. BT Jimi Hendrix, beat'ens største begavelse
Jimi Hendrix, the greatest talent of beat
Happy and rested out (he used a broken leg to drop a Dutch show) Jimi Hendrix stood last night in Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen and gave what everyone of the new music's trophies has aspired to in this very place - the total sound in the total music: The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Hendrix is 23 years old now [sic] and is probably the largest solo talent in beat music. As a singer he is of the solid American city black's tradition (he is from Seattle up North). As a guitarist he is on the level of a genius, all alone, not even his two "Experience" partners seem to make any more than the most monotonous rhythm, behind him.
Old gimmicks.
Interesting when Jimi Hendrix some day will drop the usual beat-claim and meet up with a rhythm section which can follow him in his solo trips. But everything is interesting under all circumstances, when just Jimi Hendrix is Jimi Hendrix, a flaming artist, a light to look into the future.
His old gimmicks with burning of the guitar he has fortunately dropped. He still takes the guitar to the mouth and plays a passage with his teeth, but this seems to be all natural, when the effect is part of the super sound Hendrix want to, and can, make.
The guitar gets new dimensions in the hands of Hendrix - and under his teeth. He uses the flow in all drifting as a part of the melody. He knocks the rhythm behind the fingerboard with three of his five fingerings. He steps stop-go rhythms out with the break on the foot pedal. He uses jet screams, so that they sound connected and sounds like natures sound, and finally he gets the purest parts, by treating the guitar in a way which old master Segovia would appreciate.
No breaks.
The repertoire at the concert yesterday was old and new, fx. a couple of songs from Electric Ladyland, but as Hendrix himself said, they mainly did some jamming, improvisations, and experiments to get new standards. With this in mind there were no breaks. The frequently demanded revolution with definite rules and meanings became usable future by Hendrix last night. Usable? Not possible to miss.
Shame for those cozy English blues men, Jethro Tull, who where supposed to warm up. After the concert, one only remembers that they never found the switch. They did some scratching on their stomach while playing some loveable music. Today they can scratch their head and try to sort out what it was, which came and blew them off the stage and out of the memory. It was The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
>Jimi Hendrix makes a couple of lines of an explosive melody with teeth (or tongue) against the strings. It does look weird, but there was musically sense in this also
69.01.11. EB Jeg elsker dig mens du sover
I love you while you sleep
Jimi Hendrix and Jethro Tull in Falkoner Centret
It is always the others who give an artist an image. It is those who translate what he does or plays into words. So and so many words about those and those ideas, and so he is classified. I think the music speaks better for itself than what the label says. That is why the short and value-laden portraits are both wrong and dangerous. In this way some reviewer characterized the stage act of Jimi Hendrix the other day, as immature sexuality gimmicks. This would demand that the reviewer is very sure, that the gimmick of the artist is not purely liberal, but liberality with connection to the content of the show. The reviewer accuses the artist of being dishonest. I think Jimi Hendrix is honest. I think he is one of the most honest people in the world. To be honest you have to see things from many sides, as many as possible. And in the music of Jimi the things are seen from as many sides as possible. In Jimi's music there is an endlessness of thoughts and feelings, but no loose ends.
Another label connected to Hendrix is aggressiveness and violence. If he should classify himself he would more likely use words like soft, romantic, and dreaming. Here we are with he honesty again. Being more honest, one will explore more new thing. There can easily be so many, and they can be so beautiful, that people who have seen less would fall back for the strength and intensity.
Actually I think that Jimi Hendrix's only problem is that he has to fight against these two very hard and confounded thoughts. Everything else he has experienced. He has tried the total expulsion; he has fused together two completely different cultures, the white brain culture and the colored heart culture into a future synthesis. He has been on the stage hundreds of times and he has made love to hundred thousands of girls through his guitar, so that they at last will open up and have the sound waves tickle wildly. He knows he can. We know he can. But can he also show us his big soft heart? Can his audience follow him, can anybody follow him, or should he be left alone?
There was obvious a difference on the audiences pleasure to follow out and see the purple haze at the two concerts yesterday in Falkoner Centret. The audience of the concert seemed frightened and self-protective, while the more freaked out part did recognize the major part and said ohh! so loud that one could hear it... Jethro Tull review...
>Jimi Hendrix: - When you have given it all it can take
69.01.11. IN Elektrisk Hendrixland
Electric Hendrixland
The other day I said that Jimi Hendrix's two previous concerts in Denmark, were not the best publicity for his records. It is also my impression that most Hendrix fans until now have preferred to hear him on vinyl, where one has not been disturbed from gimmicks, which disfigured his first concerts.
But in Falkoner Centret yesterday evening it was different (at least the first show, which I write about). Maybe Hendrix has realized that when he can get sold out concerts without any advertising, it is not necessary with that sort of gimmicks to attract people. Maybe he has realized that those people, who buy his records, attend the concerts to hear his music. Maybe he just have been to busy playing, that he cannot find the time for those gimmicks, which compared to his music, seem to be out of place.
In any case there were only a very few attempts to fuss an sexual show-off, and each time it was like he thought better of it, and concentrated even more on his music. With good reason. Because it is really important what he was doing: a both very traditional (like the blues "Red House") and also independent exploration of the electronic as a medium for rhythmic music.
There is a fundamental difference on this kind of electronic amplifying of guitar music, which was introduced into jazz thirty years ago, and which was thought to bring the guitar at the same level as the horn instruments - and Hendrix's use of the instrument more or less makes it a combination of a sound generator and an amplifier, where it is the electric amplification with tone that it depends on. He is not the only person who works in that direction (fx. Eric Clapton and Larry Coryell), but he is without comparison the one who does it with most consistency, fantasy, and virtuosity. To hear the second part of the concert - which I think was named "Electric Church Music" was an almost indescribable tonal switchback with squeals, slips, and brakings - was to explore an unknown land of music. No wonder that Hendrix most of the time was completely wrapped up in his discoveries.
Still it is probably an assumption for the utilization of the noise effects, that the loudspeakers are turned so loud, that Hendrix's two very good partners, the bass player Noel Redding and the drummer Mitch Mitchell, almost drown, and the audience almost get their ear drums blown out (how can the musicians themselves stand the noise?). Not only in consideration to ones future ability to hear, but also of musical reasons, one can look forward to the day when Hendrix get his volume turned down.
Already now his music seems to be the most interesting instrumentally going on on the beat scene, and maybe not only there. That is why it felt right, that his vocal only had a minor role, and so inferior that one hardly could hear it.
With Hendrix ringing in the head it is almost impossible to turn back to the first section of the concert, with Jethro Tull...Jethro Tull...The thing one wonders about when writing these last lines, is something completely different: whether another year has to pass before we can see a concert with Jimi Hendrix again. After yesterday's concert, it would be hard to accept.
69.01.11. PO Beat med brækket ben
Beat with a broken leg
A broken leg did not keep the American beat musician Jimi Hendrix from showing up and making the audience wild in the crowded Falkoner Center yesterday evening. His guitar play and advanced blues feeling has influenced many beat groups, and the concert yesterday evening indicated that he still will be a pioneer. A very nice start on the beat year 1969.
69.01.11. PO Ro og vildskab
Peace and wildness
He just stands on the stage and is quiet, Jimi Hendrix, when the curtain goes up. With the ringing of his amplifiers behind him and in the next second he is out in his electric universe. From peace to wildness, when he touches his guitar and sends a stream of feedback and transistor noise out against his body. But it is no shock to see, because Hendrix moves tenderly and relaxed from one dimension to another.
- I do not know if this is loud enough, he says and turns up the volume on the amplifier and disappears in his supersonic world, where his emotions are registered at top speed in all shades. Not as much the melody or the text because he often plays the same chord, the same theme, for a long time, where variations are decided by which buttons he turns up and down. A dimension of vibrations, as if electrodes were connected directly to his nerves. He cries with his guitar, he hits it, he treats it tender against the microphone stand. He lets the guitar play by itself, press his feedback buttons and let the sound be itself, thrown around by the drums.
His peace and wildness is that he controls this sound chaos. He turns the sound waves around him, in certain directions, in different movements. He directs them after his immediate emotions, after the moment and is ready, almost classical in every movement. His clothes (colors, colors) his ornaments, his hair and his head movements is synchronized with his hands in a similar visual experience.
His music can hardly be compared with any other beat music, all right there are melodies and songs, and some of it is heard on records, but Jimi Hendrix is completely himself in the land of technique. "Electric Churchmusic" he called a song, where no similarities could be found with known Church Music. It became the Hall, which was the Church for a moment. The room changed in the blast of another world.
A superior figure, Jimi Hendrix, who gets the music and the picture fuse together in one big connection, where time is infinite.
69.01.12. JP Elektriske følelsesudladninger
Electric feelings
An audience full of expectations met Jimi Hendrix Experience with an enormous applause, which immediately was returned with an ear-splitting roar from scores of loudspeakers - it was Jimi who started with the rock 'n' roll classic "Johnny Be Good". It was a direct rape attempt, which unfortunately lost some of its impression due to technical problems during the next two songs. The one a Cream product and the next "Red House" from their first album. The problems were solved and Jimi Hendrix seemed immediately relaxed when he said that they would turn up the volume - so that people with weak ears would have to leave. No one did, but several lifted their hands to their ears when "Fire" was played at a volume, being close to the pain tolerance level.
Body cleaning
The intensity you had missed earlier was now established and when the very powerful song "Woo Doo Chile" [sic] was played, everything was perfect. Bass, drum, single, were combined in some massive wall of sound, which entered your body, and cleaned out every inch completely. After to this was "Foxy Lady", which should push one into the chair, and one was sure this was a successful trip, which would let one far into the other world. It was the sophisticated song "Spanish Castle Magic" which let you off. One forgot completely time and place, to glide into Jimi Hendrix Experience's pleasant world of sounds. The concert ended with another edition of "Woo Doo Chile" [sic], and with a blessed smile on the lips, you could leave the Falkoner Centret, half dancing, half flying, and with a feeling that you have meet one of the beat generation's super groups for sure.
Aggressive group
Before this climax of the night, one had been witness to the English blues-group Jethro Tull keeping the audience spell bound, with a mixture of modern blues music and a wild and freaked stage performance, which made their music very aggressive. It is a shame that the blues purists will not accept this splendid music. The force in the group is absolutely Ian Anderson... Jethro Tull review ...
69.03.01. SL Hendrix
Hendrix
S: Why did you decide to enlarge the group on "Electric Ladyland"?
JH: They only played on a couple of songs.
S: Do you mean that they showed up at a session, and you thought that they wanted to play on a certain song?
JH: Yeah something like that. Al Kooper plays on a song. Steve Winwood on another. There were also four guys from Kansas, who hung around when we recorded, so I used them as well.
S: Do you feel that the trio format is too small?
JH: No, not directly. You have to work harder. Maybe I will enlarge the group some time in the future, but it will only be for a short period of time. I will only add them, when I think I need it.
S: Are you considering stopping playing concerts?
JH: No, first of all I love to play. Second there are a lot of people who do not understand what we want, and if we gave up playing concerts, no one would ever understand. No one would listen to us.
S: You produced "Electric Ladyland" yourself, and did the mixing, did you not?
JH: Yes, we did the whole.
S: Do you think it is hard to do records all by yourself?
JH: No, it is easier. It is not very hard because I know exactly what I want to do. I know exactly, what I want to hear.
S: You have done a live album at Winterland. Did it work out well?
JH: Well, we did play, but I was out of tune most of the time. I mean, maybe you cannot hear it. Fx., we began to play, but I play my guitar in a way that it is slightly out of tune, and then I am forced to drop my playing, maybe 30 % for three or four seconds, to tune the guitar, so that I can play properly. But it is quite natural, you know.
S: If you would add any musicians to your group, who would that be?
JH: Roland Kirk, Lee Michaels, There would only be jams. I do not want to play for anyone for a lengthy period of time. We have jam session wherever we go. It is not to show them that we can play, it is for the communication between the musicians. It is so nice to play with other persons. We are not trying to go into a certain direction. We are not on an ego trip. That is why we play with others, that is why we play at all. Because it is nice, you know.
S: How did you get into electronic music?
JH: I do not know (smiles). With the feedback amp and the wah-wah pedal.
S: Will you go forward in that direction?
JH: I do not know. I will do whatever the song demands.
S: Are you interested in computerized music?
JH: Not necessarily, no. I only know instrumental music.
S: Will you use more Dylan material?
JH: Yes, if I feel like it. There are two of his songs, which I really want to do. It feels like I wrote them myself a long time ago.
S: What songs do you have in mind?
JH: "Like A Rolling Stone" is one of them. I cannot remember the name of the other one. It is on this tape, which has not been released yet.
S: Where was the song with Jack Cassady and Steve Winwood recorded? "Voodoo Chile"?
JH: Apart from "All Along The Watchtower" and "Burning Of the Midnight Lamp", everything was recorded at the Plant Studios in New York.
69.05.01. SL Nyt
News
JIMI HENDRIX says to an American beat magazine, that he is writing on a song dedicated to The Black Panthers.
69.05.05. BE Narkotika-anholdelse
Drug arrest
Jimi Hendrix in court today
Beat singer Jimi Hendrix was arrested Saturday, when he came on plane from New York to Toronto Airport. He is charged for illegal possession of narcotic drugs. The police inform that they found some white drugs on him. Against a 10,000 $ caution (70,000 crowns) he was set free and could drive to the concert hall Maple Leaf Garden in Toronto, where he should perform. Jimi Hendrix will be charged in court today.
1970
70.07.oo? BM JIMI HENDRIX til Danmark
JIMI HENDRIX to Denmark
The guitar player Jimi Hendrix, one of the biggest names in beat music, will play in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen, Århus, Wednesday September 2nd at 19.00. With him, he brings the bass player Billy Cox and the drummer Mitch Mitchell. The last was with him in the first Experience.
Hendrix is one of best guarantees to draw people today, so there will be run for tickets. He has twice played for sold-out halls in Copenhagen.
At the moment Jimi Hendrix is at the charts with the LP "Band Of Gypsies" with Billy Cox and Byddy [sic] Miles.
The new Experience's - Hendrix, Cox, and Mitchell - first performance, will be on the "Isle Of Wight" Festival [sic], where they will be the main attraction on Saturday 29th of August - last year it was as known for Bob Dylan.
The concerts, in Copenhagen and Århus, Bendix Music pays about 200,000 crowns for.
For further information, please contact Jerry Ritz.
70.07.10. EB Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
70.08.17. EB Jimi Hendrix kommer alligevel
Contacted himself SBA, and asked them to take over the cancelled concert in K.B. Hallen on September 3rd.
Jimi Hendrix comes nevertheless to Denmark. The cancelled beat concert in K.B. Hallen September 3rd goes through, to the pleasure for the many Jimi Hendrix fans. The music agency SBA has now taken over the arrangement after Bendix Music, who would not pay the beat stars expenses.
Jimi Hendrix's manager actually called Knud Thorbjørnsen (SBA) yesterday, and asked him to take over the arrangement, which Bendix Music cancelled the day before yesterday, due to some financial controversies.
This means that the cancelled concert in K.B. Hallen is completed, and already sold tickets are valid, even though there is written Bendix Music on them. Whether the concert in Århus September 2nd is also completed, SBA did not knew yesterday, this should be sorted out today.
Dispute about money
Hendrix and Bendix Music could not agree about the share of transportation expenses. Besides a fee of 160,000 crowns Hendrix wanted 50% of the travel expenses paid. This Worsøe could not accept, he had a verbal agreement of 25%, and the increase would mean an additional expense of 40,000 crowns. Hendrix comes with about 5 tons of equipment when he plays. SBA has made the usual agreement. You "play together" and an eventual profit is shared.
On the way to Fehmaren
That fact that Hendrix will perform at least one of his Danish concert, is maybe due to that fact that he is headline at the big open air "love & peace"-festival on Fehmaren on September 4th, 5th, and 6th, where 30 bands will play non-stop 14 hours every day. When you play in this part, you might as well play in some cash in Denmark.
70.08.19. BT Lyves der om aflyst Hendrix-koncert ?
- Is their being lied about the cancelled Hendrix concert?
Erik Thomsen's reason for canceling the Jimi Hendrix concert on September 2nd and 3rd in Århus and Copenhagen (K.B. Hallen), does not agree with what Hendrix's English agency says.
- This is pure fiction, says Dick Katz from Harold Davidson Limited, England's largest music agency, with fx. Jimi Hendrix in their staff. Thomsen [Bendix Music] claims that the British agency suddenly wanted an extra transportation fee on 40,000 [crowns] - and that Cat Mother, who supports Hendrix on the Scandinavian tour, could not get a work permission, he adds. We got a signed contract from Bendix Music on July 2nd, says Dick Katz, besides this the entire Hendrix payment was put on a blocked account in London as usually. 14 days ago we got a new contract from Bendix Music with a considerable smaller amount, which we of course could not accept. And we cancelled the cooperation with Bendix Music immediately.
- Will you continue working with Bendix Music?
- I cannot say no to that, but it is obvious that we will be aware of everything, next time it eventually will happen again.
One believes that the new contract was sent, because the agency, even with sold out, would get deficit on the concerts due to a miscalculation. The ticket sale has been on for a long time [since July 10th], so the Danish audience would have missed the concert if it were not for Hendrix who asked the agency SBA to take over.
...More embarrassing things about the Bendix agency...
70.08.23. AS Jeg er elektrisk religion
I am electric religion
Jimi Hendrix: - I am what I feel. I play what I feel. I behave like I feel to.
Full name: James Marshall Hendrix
Occupation: Guitarist
Age: 25
Residence: Some other place
Jimi Hendrix - half Mexican, half Negro - had as colored soul brother with ambitions three ways to go: army, sport, and music. He became guitarist.
For his first performance when he was 15 years old in Seattle, Washington, he got 75 cents and three hamburgers. When he will be on the stage in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen, September 2nd, his fee is not below 100,000 crowns.
Jimi Hendrix plays guitar with his teeth, on his back and between his legs. Depending on the mood he smashes the guitar or sets it on fire.
He did cost his record company 100,000 crowns before he played a single tone: he should be promoted as grotesque, witch doctor, and the personified evil. Whether it is true?
When I was small, he tells, I thought that if you put a tooth under the pillow, a fairy would come in the night and replace it with money.
- Now I believe more in myself than I believe in anything else. And I somehow think that this is to believe in God. If there is a God and he created you, and you believe in yourself you believe in him.
Everyone should believe in himself or herself. This does not mean that you believe in Heaven and Hell and that kind of things. But it means that what you are and what you do - is your religion.
I can rarely express myself in a normal conversation, the words do not come out. But when on stage - it is all my life.
It is my religion; my music is electric church music; and if you by church understand religion, I am electric religion.
Jimi Hendrix left home as 15 year old and came to New York - so poor that a girlfriend gave him his first guitar. He performed in Greenwich Village and was discovered by Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Rolling Stone Keith Richards.
In the USA he was accused by the Daughters of the American Revolution of being obscene. In England he was close to being sent home on the first flight.
He is the all times great rebel, a monster, and a wild animal - the man you would never let your daughter go out with. And he released a record ("Electric Ladyland") with 21 naked women on the cover.
- You may say my music is erotic
- Or anything. It does not interest me. What other people think and mean about me does not interest me.
But when I die I want people to play my music, get wild, freak out, and do anything they want to. Enjoy themselves.
The mechanical life, where cities and hotel rooms run into each other, has killed something in me. I have to get out somehow. Maybe to Venus or some other place. Somewhere you cannot find me.
His long trip to "Electric Ladyland" has given his best record. "I am what I feel, I play what I feel, and I behave as I feel like.
We made most on "Electric Ladyland" ourselves, wrote songs, recorded and produced. There is a hard and tough feeling on some of the tracks. But this is USA".
And then Jimi Hendrix says: - I wonder what my old schoolmistress thinks about me. She looked pretty good, but got me excluded. In a lesson I spoke to a girl, and the mistress got up-set. "What is wrong, are you jealous?" I asked. That was it.
70.08.27. EB Love + Peace / Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
70.09.01. AK Jimi Hendrix i København på torsdag
Jimi Hendrix in Copenhagen on Thursday
Even though a big beat group, "Doors", under special circumstances are not going to give their concert in Denmark as planned, there will come another name which is at lest as big, Jimi Hendrix.
SBA arranges the concert with the black musician Wednesday in Århus and the day after in K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen.
For the non-connoisseur it should be informed that Jimi Hendrix in particular is famous and appreciated for a very improvised guitar play, advanced, and by some characterized as ear splitting.
70.09.02. AS Han kaldes verdens bedste
He is called the worlds best
When Jimi Hendrix works himself into his sizzling elegies, he is called the best beat guitarist in the world. Last Sunday Jimi Hendrix and Experience (Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox) played at the festival of Isle of Wight. Last Monday in Stockholm, Tuesday in Gothenburg. Tonight they will be on stage in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen with Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox. Our reporter traveled to Gothenburg and interviewed Hendrix (picture) see page 7: "I am tired of lying down".
70.09.02. AS Jeg er træt af at ligge ned
I am tired of lying down
Jimi Hendrix (in Århus this evening) feels mentally hollowed; he prefers reaction to revolution and is on his way towards a universal religion.
Maybe vulgar - but not - obscene.
Wasn't it the Pentecostal movement, which stood there with its heavenly message in the little portico at the Big Stage at Liseberg? And while the light streamed from the angels' flame-thrower and the 32 salvated began singing, "Find your God", came Jimi Hendrix - the electric religion.
They sang for him. They wanted to greet him as a preacher, a prophet who will show us the right way to the gospel of beat music?
Jimi Hendrix, 25 years old [sic]. Half Negro, half Mexican - an outcast. But when he works himself into his sizzling elegies, he is called the best beat guitarist in the world.
What does he want?
- I want to play my guitar, all the other things I write in a book. When will it be published? Some time after my death.
Feel for it.
Last Sunday Jimi Hendrix and Experience (Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox) played at the festival of Isle of Wight. Last Monday in Stockholm, Tuesday in Gothenburg. Tonight they will be on stage in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen. For the first time in a long time, Jimi Hendrix is on tour and it continues.
- I am tired of lying down and I feel mentally hollowed. Under all circumstances it can become different, even if the tour is lonely.
The Stockholm critics found the show boring?
- They must be the only ones. The audience was good, we noticed reactions. If something is going to work, you have to feel for it. And we did.
No politics.
Jimi Hendrix does not mean that he is politically involved - but still he sent a big cheque to the Martin Luther King Memorial Fund.
- They needed the money.
Maybe there were others who needed it too?
- Tell me, do you want me to give it to the Ku-Klux-Klan?
The Rolling Stones want revolution, they sing about uprising in the street, now it is time to change a sick society.
But is Jimi Hendrix on the front line?
T-h-i-s
- No I am not. At one point you have to choose: Revolution or Frank Sinatra. For me it was Frank Sinatra - and the reaction. I want to urge people to a lot of things, t-h-i-s (and then Jimi Hendrix takes his guitar and plays back and forth for a couple of minutes). I want to turn people on.
- Yes, I have said that I am electric religion - because it is all about religion, not Christianity. It was the Christians, who started most of the wars in this world.
I see in front of me a universal religion, containing all believes, containing the essence of them all.
The place found.
In that religion the children can grow up and feel free, they will not be programmed, like they are today. And they can go to college even as ten-year-olds.
I have been looking for a place, far away from this mechanical world, where cities and hotel rooms run into each other. I have found it, inside myself. Now I want to spread it.
My music needs love and understanding. Through music you get more religion than through anything else.
Jimi Hendrix and Experience will play as long as they feel good - And when we do not that anymore, we will tell you three years ahead.
Not obscene.
- Is it true, that The Daughters of the American Revolution accused you of being obscene?
- Me, obscene, I have forgotten. Should I be obscene? (Looks at himself in a mirror). Maybe somewhat vulgar, but obscene (Again in the mirror). You confuse me with Jim Morrison.
- He is not a voodoo doctor, is he?
- Bahhh, you can have an opinion about me, and I have heard many, but witch doctor - pushhh. There are not such anymore.
I do not feel like an outcast, as long as I am not treated as one. It has not happened today, but then I have been sleeping all the time.
They stand there.
Jimi Hendrix and Experience are due on stage. The entrance fee to Liseberg amusement park is raised from 1 Swedish crown to 19 Swedish crowns.
- I hope you got, what you wanted, he says.
- Yes, I hope you will too.
- I will - after the tour.
- Groupies?
- Hah. It is only persons, who are jealous who call them groupies. To me they are nice girls. And they will be there for sure.
---
At the concert tonight, Cat Mother, an American rock group, which has not been to Europe before, will play first. Jimi and Cat Mother continue the tour to Berlin.
70.09.03. AK Ville Jimi Hendrix ikke modtages af kongen og droningen
Would the King and Queen not welcome Jimi Hendrix - or would he not be in the same house as The Rolling Stones? There did happen many strange things in Kastrup airport - but the king of the electric guitar did not show up.
Whether it was because he would not want to be meet by the Danish king and queen and their Royal Life Guards, or that he did not want to be in the same house as the Rolling Stones, we do not know: The world-famous beat guitarist did not arrive when we all expected him yesterday morning in Kastrup airport. The plane from Gothenburg arrived according to plan at 10.30 am, but there was no Mr. Hendrix.
Well the truth is probably that the electric guitar king slept over, Jimi Hendrix likes to sleep late - so why get up early, when you can wait and catch a plane at 13.00? This is for sure a more reasonable time, being a night man. Jimi Hendrix gave Tuesday night concert in Gothenburg, so he did not go to bed early for sure. Last evening he stood on the stage in Århus.
Carnival
...[no Hendrix] The president of Island and Stones where in the airport, but as you know not Hendrix...
70.09.03. AS Hendrix lover gratis koncert
Hendrix promises to play a free concert
Three thousand will get their money back, after the beat musician last night sneaked out the back door
I am sick, I cannot anymore! Of course, I want no money for this concert, and I promise to come back here and play a free concert.
These words came from one of the most famous beat guitarists in the world, Jimi Hendrix, while he awes laying in the dressing room in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen last night.
Around three thousand persons, who each had paid 50-60 crowns, sat waiting in the hall, after Jimi Hendrix had played two songs and then asked for a five minutes break.
Hendrix, who feared that the suspended concert would cause troubles, asked to be let out through the back door, before the audience was told about the cancellation.
He was let out and driven away in a taxicab. While a member of Århus Studenterjazz, who together with the Copenhagen agency SBA, was organizers, went on stage to tell that the concert was over, many gatemen and a few policemen stood ready. Many feared that there would be troubles now.
But it did not happen. The hundreds of bottles, which were standing around in the hall, were left where they were standing. Not a single chair was turned over. Three thousand young persons accepted the situation and quietly left Vejlby-Risskov Hallen.
Calm audience
Afterwards a couple of security men said:
-Who talks about the irresponsible youth of today?
The young people, who were here tonight, had refuted every statement that young people of today take every opportunity to behave fierce fully. When we heard that the concert was over after two songs, we were sure, that the hall would be totally destroyed.
The event which began at 7 p.m., started with a concert with the group Blue Sun from Copenhagen. Then there was a pause. At 9 p.m. Hendrix was still not on stage.
Fifteen minutes later the audience quite naturally began whistling and booing and stamping their feet. Hendrix still was not on stage and nobody cared to tell the audience the reason why - and probably because nobody knew it. Everybody - including the organizers - was prohibited to go into the dressing room where Jimi Hendrix was together with the two other members, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell. When Hendrix finally came into the hall to go on stage, two men helped him. But not many persons noticed that the concert began without any comments.
Two songs
Two songs later the group left the stage.
The audience was told, that there would be a five-minute break. But those minutes got very long. When the organizers finally walked on stage, it was only to tell that everyone, who still had their ticket left, would get their money back today.
It can be interpreted as the irony of the destiny, that this one hundred thousand crowns show ended up being free for both the organizers and the audience.
The Jimi Hendrix concert in Århus was first mentioned in relation with the international Jazz-beat Festival, which begins in Århus this afternoon. Restaurant Tagskægget was of the opinion that they had an agreement with the agency SBA in Copenhagen for the arrangement.
The SBA people denied this. Another agency in Copenhagen, Bendix Music, had the contract for Jimi Hendrix and wanted to arrange the concert in Århus. But during the first weeks of ticket sales, the request for tickets was not, what Bendix Music had expected, which resulted in SBA taking over the arrangement, along with Århus Studenterjazz.
70.09.03. AS Det snerrende blev rodløst og monotont
The swinging got perplexed and monotonous. Jimi Hendrix could not - and knew it himself.
Even world famous persons can be sick. Maybe a reminder that beat-Gods are not Gods. Jimi Hendrix, who asserts to be a traveler in electric religion, was yesterday evening forced in knees at Golgotha. "Do you feel all right"? Hendrix asked, when he finally walked on stage. It was obvious to everyone, who had eyes to see with, that Hendrix did not.
Dressed like a twig decorated with colored feathers, he threw himself out into the first song. The notes, which came from his guitar, were surprisingly powerful and swinging, Vejlby-Risskov Hallen turned out to be a wonderful beat-universe...as far as acoustics was concerned.
But as the song continued, it got weaker and thinner, no nerve, no sweat, no strength, Nothing! I have been to many concerts in many countries. I have never heard such a quality conscious and fair audience as in Århus. No one felt like applauding very much at the world famous man, only because he is world famous. The song was miserable. Therefore the applause following the song was very short and weak as the song you just had heard.
Hendrix's face revealed clearly, that he was aware of the situation... It was not good enough what he was doing.
He changed guitar and soon afterwards the next song started rolling, but ended in a perplex, monotonous flip-out and a drum solo, when Hendrix suddenly disappeared behind a couple of loudspeakers on stage, became invisible to the audience, and stopped playing.
That drum solo, was the most talent-lacking and confused vacant nothing ever heard. When the solo foolishly and naively ended bam bam a lam bam...bam bam, we felt like having heard a rhythm education in a day nursery. What was wrong? That was it. The drummer left the stage. Hendrix left it, and the bass player followed them...
You did not get your moneys worth. Hendrix realized that. So did the promoters.
The audience behaved well. A fiasco concert, but everything were - and are - in perfect order.
70.09.03. AS Jimi Hendrix var overtræt
Jimi Hendrix was too tired
The concert was cancelled after ten minutes of effective playing.
Jimi Hendrix has become very ill and cannot go on. Everybody get their money back. But he will be back and play a free concert.
Thue Ditlevsen, Århus Studenterjazz, told us from the stage, that the concert with one of the leading beat guitarists in the world was abandoned. Ten minutes of effective playing - enough for "Freedom" and "Message for Love" [sic] - was all the audience of 3,000 got from Jimi Hendrix.
Double trouble
The cancellation was most disappointing to Scandinavian Booking Agency, represented at Vejlby-Risskov Hallen by director Anders Stefansen.
- We took over the arrangement, when another agency left, only to save Jimi Hendrix's appearance in Denmark, he says. Therefore it is twice as annoying for us, that we cannot do it. But the money back and a new free concert will be a satisfactory solution.
When Jimi Hendrix came to Gothenburg last Tuesday, he laid down to sleep in his hotel. When Aarhuus Stiftstidende interviewed him before he went on stage he seemed inspired and ready to go. On Wednesday he changed his plans for his trip to Århus. Instead of flying via Copenhagen in the morning, he chartered two planes in Gothenburg in the late afternoon.
Eight concerts in eight days
When he arrived, he seemed to be in a bad shape, a member of the meeting committee at Tirstrup [Aarhus airport], tells us. He was trembling and sweating a lot.
- Hendrix is simply too tired and you cannot say much about that, his road manager Gerry Stickers [sic] says. His program is demanding.
The question is, if this program: Eight concerts in eight days (Isle Of Wight, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Århus, Copenhagen, Berlin, Fehmarn, and Hamburg) are defensible.
Can such an exhausting tour be offered to Jimi Hendrix, who is known to give everything he has at every show?
-We have not prepared it, says Anders Stefansen.
In A month
Rumors said that Hendrix had taken narcotic drugs before the concert. This was denied by his tour accompaniment.
Others said that Hendrix was dissatisfied with the slight applause. But that is not true either. - We found the audience enormously enthusiastic, said Mitch Mitchell.
It is still unclear, when Hendrix will come back to town for the free concert. SBA expects it to be arranged in a month.
70.09.03. AS Kø efter pengene
Queue for money
Even as early as this morning there was a minor queue in front of Kaabers Musikforlag, Ryesgade 16 in Århus, which are responsible for the ticket sales for the Hendrix concert.
Everyone, who came this morning to get their money back, were asked to come back at noon, when a couple of officials from Århus Studenterjazz, would be there to take care of paying back the ticket money.
Nothing is said about a last date for when the money must be returned, but Århus Studenterjazz asks everyone to come as soon as possible with regard to the big account settlement. There is no doubt about this payback - which by the way is unheard of in the first history of beat concerts - will be of benefit for The Who concert on September 21. Kaabers Musikforlag will also sell the tickets for The Who.
70.09.03. BT Jimi Hendrix: Jeg er en mand som mange andre, f.eks. Napoleon
Jimi Hendrix: I am a man like many others, fx. Napoleon
The guitarist Jimi Hendrix will keep his present band till the end of the year. He will not give more than 20 concerts a year, though. He has recorded 150 tracks on record [sic], but think that only 15 can be used for his next LP. Which is not expected on the market at the moment. In the meantime he has released an LP with in amongst Otis Redding and Neil Young [sic], recorded at the Monterey-festival in 1967. This should be very interesting.
- When I heard it, I noticed that I play "feelings" not music, says Jimi Hendrix. I prefer to give concerts in Europe, where people listen to the music and not just sit and freak out. But I always play the best I can.
Endless sentences
Hendrix talks a lot about his music. About mystical, supernatural things. About euphoric drugs. About the audience. About peace. About war.
About his musicians: - We feel good together. Mitch Mitchell is an artist on his drums. He calls himself an idiot, because he fx. has signed a long-term contract with the record company Capitol. The latter is the reason why he released the LP "Band of Gypsies".
Otherwise he talks very hazy.
From his endless sentences, can be cited:
- I would die yesterday or tomorrow. We all go this way.
- We all come from somewhere, whether white, black or Indian.
- I do not get any fun from cocaine.
- You have to give up the word religion.
- We all have a God in ourselves.
- I hate to perform outdoor at night, then I cannot see the audience.
- LSD is naked.
- I am just a man like everybody else, fx. Alexander the Great or Napoleon.
70.09.03. BT Mere indfangende end nogensinde før
More catching than ever
Jimi Hendrix went on the stage in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen after more than half a hour of waiting. Then something happened. His music is as electric and catching as ever. He proved that he is one of the greatest personalities of the beat stars.
Though he did not take me as much by surprise this time, as when I heard him three years ago. One has gotten used to his extreme attitudes. But the rhythm, the feelings, is like never before. He lives with his guitar, like he was born in it.
Fascinating.
His vocal has not developed into anything special as his guitar playing. One listens to this dark guy, with the soft movements on the stage. He moves softly over the stage and tickles intensively the strings. The result: Beat music, which jumps the listeners. Hendrix has got some of the honest and original blues feeling, which gives the beat music a new dimension. He got the feeling inside him, which works itself out the ramp. Jimi Hendrix, his bass player Billy Cox and the percussionist Mitch Mitchell get the vibrations out, so we are looking forward to the concert with the trio in K.B. Hallen tonight. We care a lot about Jimi Hendrix. We like to hear him again and again.
70.09.03. DE Plop ! Farvel Jimi !
Plop! Goodbye Jimi!
- I am so tired and have not slept for three days, said the world's best guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, before his concert in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen yesterday night. That is why he should have cancelled his performance, which only lasted eight minutes. 4,000 people who had paid more than 150,000 crowns in entrance can go and get their money back today.
70.09.03. DE Faldt som en våd karklud
Fell like a wet rag
Jimi Hendrix (left), Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox on stage in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen. We got the heavy, groovy blues rock from the group in "Freedom", rock 'n' roll in "Message of Love" - but it all only lasted for 8 minutes, then the curtain fell for the guitar phenomenon Hendrix.
Jimi Hendrix completely "freaked" out in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen.
Vejlby-Risskov Hallen was yesterday evening the settings for the greatest beat scandal since The Who went on stage in Århus-hallen on September 26th 1965 and was attacked by fanatic fans, who razed the hall in a moment.
Jimi Hendrix got to play, like The Who, only a few minutes before it went wrong - but in contrast to five years ago, it was not the audience, who spoiled the concert - instead it was the highly estimated single guitarist himself. Jimi Hendrix who completely freaked out.
It went like this:
After the last lovely vibrations from the support group Blue Sun had closed around 20.15 an awaiting and expectant atmosphere spread in the Vejlby-Risskov Hallen. Now the man everyone was waiting for - and whom you had paid from 35 to 55 crowns to see, should show up.
But the minutes passed, and while everyone stared despairing at the stage entrance the mood was raised. There were stamping in the floor, whistling, and clapping. Meanwhile fifty press people and the organizers stood together and waited for the big master.
Finally at 21.05 came first the bass player Billy Cox, afterwards the drummer John "Mitch" Mitchell (sic) - and at last Jimi Hendrix who under earsplitting applauses entered the stage in his spangled clothing: black shoes, chalk-white sailor-trousers, blue-lilac colored silk scarf, tied around the upper arm, on the outside of an tight orange red Chinese shirt with blue yellow spots.
- Are you feeling all right asked the wild man with the rebellious curls, kept by a blue headscarf. Yeahhh, the answer was - Then welcome to the electric circus.
But there was no electric circus. After Jimi and his two companions had build up a stimulating compact wall of sound with tearing elegy from Hendrix' guitar, which he used in his widely famous "machine gun" style - it all fell down like a wet rag.
Precisely 8 minutes passed before Jimi Hendrix dropped his guitar plectrum. We only got a sporadic knowledge to the capacity of the three top musicians before it happened. Hendrix became strange and stood and strummed on the 12 stringed with the fingers completely out of inspiration, even though it was not support he needed from the 3,000 young people in the hall. Mitch Mitchell tried to save the rest with a great drum solo, while Jimi took a smoke, hidden behind the amplifiers. But the concert was over - you could see it on Mitchell who looked anxiously after Hendrix and Cox, who both stood and talked behind the stage. The last drumbeat died and it was announced over the speakers that Hendrix would take a five minutes break.
The five minutes became 10 and 15 - half an hour passed before the releasing message came: Jimi Hendrix feels very sick and cannot play anymore tonight. (Screaming and obscure yelling). He promises though soon to return and give a free concert here in Århus - everyone can get their tickets refunded tomorrow at Kåbers Musikforlag.
It was the complete frustration, nemesis for the many Hendrix fans that could not see how he staggered between all the empty beer bottles in the adjoining room.
Already before Hendrix went on stage, it was told from the inner circle amongst the organizers, that he had freaked out. And the misgiving was now confirmed: Hendrix had a blackout. Whether he was drunk or high no one could confirm in the panics that started - and it was not possible to get any sense from himself - but he had let down his fans, and this can give some bad consequences - at least there will not be sold many Hendrix-records in the coming time. Left back is Århus Studenter Jazz with an economic spanking, which can be felt long after. One understands their disappointment. The arrangement was well planned and the student's jazz should not be blamed that Hendrix freak out at that time. One really hopes that Jimi Hendrix shows himself like a man that the will keep his word and returns to Århus and gives a free concert, he owes the audience that - and not to forget Århus Studenter Jazz.
70.09.03. PO Hendrix afbrød koncert
Hendrix broke off concert
The Jimi Hendrix concert in Århus did not turn out as people had hoped. After only two songs the American guitarist left the stage and after ten minutes people were told that there would be no more music that night. Hendrix was sick and the people could get their money back. Before it all broke up in disappointment, we were told that Jimi Hendrix would come back to Århus within a month and give a free concert. Already from the beginning it was obvious that something was wrong. Hendrix said he did not feel very well ("I have been dead long"), and it took a long time to get him on stage. People who from the beginning showed the patience of an angel, started to whistle and buh, but the displeasure went into shouts of joy, when Hendrix, Cox and Mitchell finally showed up. They played only two - but long - songs: Freedom and Message to Love. - Welcome to the electric circus, Hendrix said, and then it was the old Hendrix. Stars were singing, children crying and humans and animals suffered and the people cheered, all together in the light of his guitar. Time ceased to exist, we stepped into a fourth dimension, and whether he played worse or better than before, I cannot tell. He played. But it got an abrupt ending, and several experienced the miserable sight of seeing him being half carried up the stairs and out of the Vejlby-Risskov Hallen.
According to Anders Stefansen, SBA, the concert this night in K.B. Hallen will be performed. Hendrix should be refreshed by that time.
70.09.04. AK Guitarkongen i kanonform
Guitar king in top form
The autumn pop season started in the best way in K.B. Hallen last night, where Jimi Hendrix, the undefeated master of the electric guitar, gave concert. The hall was full and 4,000 wild fans put the skids under the famous man. It seemed like the many pop fans had saved up all the summer, for similar atmosphere you have to look a long time for. There was applauded to the sound technician and the gatemen's, besides of course, the musicians and two men who rolled of with a piano.
A concert with Hendrix is one big prayer meeting, where the single musical point does not matter. It is the entirety, the power, the energy, the humor, which is the determining part. And Jimi was in good shape. He talked, laughed and played incomprehensible on his big shining guitar. We got "All Along the Watchtowers"[sic], "Machine Gun" and a lots of others, known and unknown. The amplifier pressed and the applause would never end.
The Danish-American group "Blue Sun" entertained the first section, with theatrical attitudes, gimmicks and avantgarde jazz. We could have been without them.
70.09.04. BE Hendrix uden overraskelser
Hendrix without surprises
Full house to the concert in K.B. Hallen
After a way to long break and a quarter with an impatient audience, who demanded the headliner on stage, Jimi Hendrix walked softly into the K.B. Hallen with his white guitar and his new group. His presence resulted in a true rush against the stage - as an idolized person he has a place next to Mick Jagger. His position as loner he confirmed by playing with the amplifiers being twice as large as the bass player Billy Cox's, and being on a sound level which made it completely impossibly to hear the drummer Mitch Mitchell. Though Hendrix is a great musician, he seems to have a small personality. The music was not different from Hendrix's two other visits to the city. In a scene show, with sexual appeal and songs from old records he is able to keep the listener's attention all the time. His brilliant finger maneuver and safe routine fills the room with high-pressure sound. The fantastic outlets, which Hendrix at single previous concerts has presented us for, did not came yesterday. It was obvious that this concert was one in a million.
In the middle of the show the left-handed American guitarist got lyrical and played dreamy and wonderful in "Baby where do you come from" [sic].
Hendrix, in gypsy outfit, also let a soft snarl renew his own compositions and Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower". It was Hendrix as expected, but without any news.
70.09.04. EB Hendrix træt, vil ha' pause
Hendrix tired wants a break
Why I work so much, yes, I wish I knew it. But now I have to take it easy. This was what Jimi Hendrix told Ekstra Bladet after his concert in K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen. At the same time he revealed that he did not know that he was the headliner this week at the Fehmaren festival. If Hendrix disappointed his audience Wednesday evening in Århus, he played for almost 100 minutes in Copenhagen. But Jimi is probably a kid for fun. Even though everybody started fidget with impatience around 20.15, when he was supposed to follow the group Blue Sun, he played on in his dressing room together with his bass player Billy Cox and with his girlfriends as an adoring audience. At the same time the mood in the hall was raising, and Anders Stefansen from Scandinavian Booking Agency got wrinkles on his forehead, and Hendrix's many people ran back and forth. One saw to that the door to the stage and the shouting people was closed. Would he play or not? That was what you asked yourself after 30 minutes. But Hendrix would, even though he was tired, exhausted, and lacked sleep. This was the official explanation. After the show he was not more tired though, than he and the ladies were planning a trip to Tivoli. This night Hendrix plays in Hamburg, if...
70.09.04. EB Varmt og direkte lydorgie med Hendrix
Warm and direct sound orgy with Hendrix
Even though K.B. Hallen with its dark lines of chairs and its enormous arching loft, is not normally the place where the big things happen, it was with some expectations, that the flight on Hendrix's soft, strong music was anticipated. Blue Sun, one of the new Danish groups, which has been very popular lately, supported Hendrix who could need that... Blue Sun reviewed ...But then Hendrix entered, greeted by a giant wave of applauses from the audience. He answered back by showing the V-sign and jumped right into ? [can not read this line], and let us knew that something was happening now, here and now. And with far-reaching, beautiful visual sound waves he gave back what he had and more than that. Far into the body one felt how Hendrix with his guitar and his amplifiers could make love to a hall full of people.
To the brimming over-climax Hendrix and the audience never reached, the communication with the pushing bass player Billy Cox missed a couple of times, and Mitch Mitchell was often lost, but everything flowed quiet and warm up and down without any of the parts reaching climax, and when Hendrix had played the extra songs "Hey Joe" and "Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire" everything went quiet and calm. There was given and there was taken so much that everyone felt comfortable.
70.09.04. JP Kort fornøjelse med Hendrix
Short amusement with Hendrix
2,000 tickets refunded after cancelled concert with Jimmi [sic] Hendrix in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen, but he will play a new concert.
Approximately 2,000 Jimmi [sic] Hendrix-fans had a short amusement, at ticket prices on an average of 50 crowns, at the concert in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen, Århus, last Wednesday.
As early as after the second song, the concert had to be stopped. The official statement from the agency, SBA in Copenhagen, says that Jimmi [sic] Hendrix was ill and over-exerted. Last evening a concert with him in K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen was performed. Head groundsmand Fjordside, Vejlby-Riskkov Hallen followed the first major beat arrangement in the new hall from the operator room: - Jimmi [sic] Hendrix took a long time to enter the stage. For sure I do not know much about beat, but I do not think the first song sounded as it should. The audience applauded and showed great enthusiasm. Then there was an embarrassing break of 15 minutes [sic] before the next song. The young and engaged audience took the break with stoic patience. With the same patience the audience took the message that the concert had to be broken off and that the ticket price would be refunded.
It did surprise us that there was no sign of trouble, but we are pleased with this calmness of the young audience.
- Was Jimmy [sic] Hendrix under influence of narcotics?
- Embarrassing question, ask a doctor...
Jimmy [sic] Hendrix was not consulted by a doctor, but lead out the back door and driven away in a taxi.
The beat guitarist promised to come back at the end of the month and do it over again. The date has not determined, but there are plans of a free open-air concert.
This was how the first major beat concert in Århus ended. In this month two concerts with top names will follow. September 9th The Rolling Stones will come and September 21st The Who. Head groundman Fjordside does not have any worries after the Hendrix episode. He is sure that The Rolling Stones will meet fresh and well available.
70.09.04. PO Kærlighedens kriger
Warrior of love
Unsurpassed Hendrix in Copenhagen
Concert of the year. This label is very used, but this time it is justified. Jimi Hendrix in K.B. Hallen last night surpassed anything we have heard until now. A filled hall made love to him, sat with open mouths and vibrating nerves and heard him, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell (who went to London yesterday and returned on a rented plane, to say hello to his new-born daughter). Stone Free, Foxy Lady, Message To Love, All Along The Watchtower, Freedom, Spanish Castle Magic, Purple Haze, Hey Joe, you name it, they where all there. Jimmi [sic] was ill and tired in Århus, but in Copenhagen he was so high that it was true energy, true adrenalin which ran through his fingers, through the guitar and into all of us. That any human can contain this much is so incredible that it can only be true.
He gave the peace sign when he entered, and the feelings he and his group expressed through their music was true love, a love that contains all the aspects of love, from sorrow to rebirth. As a warrior of love he stood dressed in many colors and was the best guitarist rock 'n' roll music can offer. What Hendrix, Cox and Mitchell gave those who where in K.B. Hallen can no one take from them.
70.09.05. IN Hendrixerei
Hendrixcraft
Jimi Hendrix and Blue Sun in KB-Hallen
In connection with the broken off concert in Århus last Wednesday Jimi Hendrix is supposed to have said that he had "been dead for long". If this is correct, I would suggest that the concert two days [sic] later in Copenhagen was a rise from the dead. A similar musical liveliness I have rarely experienced. It lasted one and a half hour, and left one as a rag. It was hard to bear.
More reserved listeners would might make objections saying that Hendrix gives the audience too few breaks, and that he was at unvaried speed at the highest volume and intensity. But I am afraid there seems to be nothing to do about that. After all it is on this level of sound, that he utilizes the guitar-amplifiers tonal possibilities. Should it not be possible to live on the intensity level he uses? After all it is not frequent you experience something like this. For my own concern I have to think back to the last Hendrix concert one and a half year ago, and from there all the way back to John Coltranes first visit, nine years ago. There is time for a breathing space.
Also the reminiscence of Hendrix as an entertainer - from time to time he put his tongue out and played guitar with his mouth, would it be too cheap to make sarcastic remarks about considering how much music you get besides, and in addition it is music which is continually built up, music which almost from minute to minute exceeds its own limits. Not to forget his apparition, which is unique, his colorful dress, but first of all his supple grace in every movement during his playing. I do not think I know any musician who offers the eye as much as Hendrix.
Beside him, his two co-workers get reduced to nothing but co-workers. The bass player Billy Cox is anyway no flyer, a very solid accompanist, but not filled with ideas like the predecessor, the English Noel Redding. The drummer Mitch Mitchell is on the other hand an excellent third part. Maybe not dynamic enough for Hendrix, that would demand an Elvin Jones or Tony Williams, but with a rhythmic complexity and an ability to follow Hendrix everywhere, which can be hard to imagine any other drummer do. And when did we last hear a drum solo so rhythmic and eventful as Mitchell's this time?
But beat concert? The word is too narrow to cover what happened. It was more a musically trip, which went beyond what you can hear on the records of Hendrix (and even at his last concert), and beyond all other musical categories. A trip, also in the sense that you would wait a while before a repetition, there is enough of impressions to work with. At the same time we look forward to the next time...
On this background, the first group Blue Sun's first hour fades a bit. They did play better and more independent, when talking about first breed, and this section also offered a special attraction in a short guest play by trumpeter Don Cherry, a combination I would love to hear more from... Blue Sun reviewed ... But of course, which other first group could have got away unhurt from supporting Hendrix?
70.09.06. MP Jimi Hendrix: - Jeg ofrer noget af min sjæl
Jimi Hendrix: - I sacrifice some of my soul
I am not sure I will live to be 28 years old, says the 25 years old [sic] beat-idol Jimi Hendrix in an interview with Morgenposten. - The moment I feel I have got nothing more musically, I will not be around on this planet anymore.
70.09.06. MP Jimi Hendrix: - Jeg er ikke sikker på, jeg bliver 28 år
Jimi Hendrix: - I am not sure I will live to be 28 years old
Unfortunately the concert in Århus with the one who is possibly the greatest guitarist of rock music did not turn out as we had expected. Jimi Hendrix was exhausted physically and mentally due to a far too tight touring schedule, This caused him to give up, having struggled his way through two songs, as he was unable to complete the concert. It was a shame - for both him and us, because we know he can do it, but the day before yesterday it did not work out. Still it must be said that the two tunes, he did play, "Freedom" and "Message to Love" from the album "Band Of Gypsys" really brought us onto the enormous sound trip that characterized his music.
The music was there, warm and vibrant and everything else ceased to exists.
Welcome to the electric Circus, Jimi Hendrix opened by saying, but it was to be short-lived. Still you got time to enjoy both Jimi's eminent guitar play, Billy Cox's bass play as well as Mitch Mitchell's powerful percussion. However, Jimi Hendrix promised after the concert had been broken off to return within a month to give a free concert in order to enable everyone to experience his wonderful playing, which at its best lifts us up into a higher sphere.
Talkative
It was clear that Jimi Hendrix was tired. Already long before the concert he talked about canceling because it simply was not fair to the audience. Even so he was very talkative before the concert. As a matter of fact he talks without interruption and gesticulates with his hands. Upon seeing the harbor of Århus, he exclaimed: Oh a harbor, this is the drag about being on tour constantly, we never get a chance to see the places we play, but it is all part of the machinery. I prefer to play in Europe, because here people listen and understand what it is all about whereas they freak out in the States. I do not like playing at night as I cannot see the audience, this is the most beautiful part of big open-air festivals, it is light and you can see the faces of the audience.
Religion is the thing
Jimi Hendrix talks a lot about supernatural phenomenon's, all the time he returns to Jesus and Djenghis Khan: -"In reality Jesus started off a lot of wars, not himself but the people who supported his cause. That is why Christianity is a something of the past. Religion is the thing and it has to be found within yourself, you have to live with peace of mind. Most human beings have been born as human beings made for love and peace. It is only their obligations in our society that make them dress gray and black.
- Why is it, that I keep hearing Mick Jagger's name? Jimi Hendrix asks. We are into different things, but I suppose thoughtwise we have got certain things in common. I would like to get involved in starting off a record company with the Rolling Stones, which they have talked about. Music is my life, you have to be honest. It is about life and feelings and you must take your time for it like in any other occupation. In my case, I sacrifice a part of my soul every time I play. There are also certain moments when I feel I HAVE got to write, especially before I go off to sleep when all thoughts run through my brain. My guitar is my medium and I want everybody to get into it. I want to turn the world on. Music- and sound waves are cosmic when they vibrate from one side to the other.
I am not sure I will live to be 28 years old (he is 25 years old [sic] now). I mean, the moment I feel I have got nothing more to give musically, I will not be around on this planet anymore, unless I have a wife and children, otherwise I have got nothing to live for.
Not LSD
While he continues to talk about mystical things, he says among other things that he does not like LSD, "because it is naked". I need oxygen, he says and takes a deep breath.
About his close friend, the leader of the group Love, Arthur Lee, Jimi Hendrix says: - I am very fond of him. We are like brothers. We could start a new human race with our music. I would very much like to do more things with him. We have just recorded an album together. We think and feel the same way, so it would be wonderful if we could work out something together. We are a kind of spiritual gypsies traveling around getting our message out through our music.
I love reading fairy tales, H.C. Andersen and Winni the Poo. Fairy tales are full of fantasy and like music they appeal to your sense of imagination. I never play a song the same way twice. I cannot play something that I do not feel for and that I can put my soul into.
Witchdoctor
Concerning his plans for the future, Jimi Hendrix says he intends to keep this band at least till the tour is over. With this line-up they have recorded about 150 tracks, 15 out of which they will be able to use on their next album. As for the bootleg album, which is supposedly been recorded after the festival at Woodstock, Jimi says he does not care.
People have many weird ideas about me, he continues, the ones that label me do not know me, or only one part of me. Like I said before, I hate labels and the one with witchdoctor on it does not stick.
Immediately prior to the concert, Jimi Hendrix said: - I am the bus driver and you are my passengers. As a matter of fact this remark summarizes all of his music - He is the captain of the spaceship, and he wants to take us - the listeners - along his space trip, out to where the sound waves are allowed to tickle you.
On stage he radiates electric energy, in private he is quiet and reflective...like a wolf in sheep's clothing, such is the nature of Jimi Hendrix.
70.09.11. SE Verdensstjernen forlover sig med dansk fotomodel
Worldstar gets engaged to Danish model.
70.09.11. SE Verdensstjernen forlover sig med dansk fotomodel
Worldstar gets engaged to first model
-The happy new engaged consider seriously marriage, but first Kirsten is going around the world to all Jimi Hendrix's concerts. After this they will make their home in London.
-Jimi and Kirsten were invited to real Danish meal, at Kirsten's mothers place, Mrs. Birthe Nefer, before the concert in Copenhagen.
-I had an awful time in Paris, says Kirsten Nefer. Actually I always hated the model job. Now I hopefully get a chance in some English film.
-Kirsten was happy to be home again after two years in the foreign. On Frederiksvej in Frederiksberg she meets her sister and little niece Louise.
-She is wonderful, thinks Jimi Hendrix about his Danish fiancé. Is it on the edge of marriage, film "stardom", and happiness, Kirsten stands?
The world famous English guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, who gave two concerts in Denmark last week, has been engaged to the young Danish model Kirsten Nefer.
Kirsten Nefer, the 24 years old Danish model, who went to Paris two years ago to try her luck, has been engaged to the world-famous beat musician Jimi Hendrix in London, and as a chord from his guitar they got in love. Kirsten follows now Jimi Hendrix' trio everywhere they play, and she loves it. She has always hated the model job, she tells SE og HØR. The time in Paris was the worst period of her life, but she loves London, and she now hopes playing a part in a film will give her a new life. The connection with Jimi Hendrix should not make her chances less. He has for several years been on the charts all over the world and has all in all played more than 150 tracks on records [sic]. He has been called "The greatest personality of Beat" and all the agencies are fighting to get him. Kirsten Nefer has tried the hard side of the model world, before her breakthrough as model. The first year she tried in Paris she ran to all the photographers with her pictures, and it was actually not until she came to London, that she was discovered by the photographers. Now the Danish Kirsten lives in the high class [?]elgrave-district, some more than the 3rd class hotels her time in Paris could offer. For a while she stayed with the designer Jean Voigt, who helped showing her around in the fashion city.
It was George Lazenby, the man who took over the role as agent in the James Bond films, who presented Jimi Hendrix to Kirsten, who now will make her a film star. Kirsten thinks that everything is wonderful now and hopes that it will not last long before the wedding bells will ring for her and the beat star.
VARIOUS ANECDOTES
1967 - Falkoner Centret
Anders Stefansen (Owner of SBA: in Lasse Ellegaard/Dansk Rockmusik/Information/1976, p. 43) - What about Hendrix? "That was a chance, because it was in may 67 and we had to choose between Friday-Saturday-Sunday. We took the Sunday because we expected the weather to be great that weekend, then people would return from the beach or the forest Sunday evening and they could go to the concert. That turned out to be right. There were not many tickets sold in advance but people came running Sunday evening and we got sold out. Since then we had him 3-4 times, and sold two concerts each time." How was Hendrix to work with? "Nice. He was a real musician, he just loved to play. There were never any problems."
Peter Thorup (played support in Beefeaters: in Record News) - "We had taken some different drugs that evening, and we played some improvised tunes. I remember Jimi standing and looking at us with a big smile. Later in London [Peter Thorup played with Alexis Korner from 1969 onwards] Jimi came to a concert and went backstage after the show, and he said "Sure I remember you".
1968 - Tivolis Koncertsal
Niels "Pind" Pedersen (support in Page One: pers.comm.)
"Oh yes I remember very clearly that evening. The 1st show Bjørn [Uglebjerg] and I saw from behind the drummer, during 2nd show we sat among the audience. The thing that really thrilled me about Hendrix was that he had hurt his hand in Stockholm so he just played with the other hand [Maybe he did not know that Hendrix was left-handed, or he remembers wrong].
1969 - Falkoner Centret
NCH (recorded 1st show: pers.comm.)
"My equipment was the best you could buy at that time, a UHER reel to reel with a good microphone, it was just that Hendrix played so terribly loud that I could not make the recording any better"
1970 - Vejlby-Risskov Hallen
Bo Jacobsen (supporter in Blue Sun: pers.comm.) "We had to leave when we had played our support, we had a job in Stakladen, Århus."
Thomas Røll Larsen (in audience: pers.comm.) "Jimi was not sick, you know with influenza or alike, he did not feel well in the way you look when you have had a bad trip. I do not remember much about the music, but after we was told that the show was cancelled and the tickets were refunded, some friends of mine rushed for the dustbins, well knowing that many had thrown the tickets in these after the entrance - they got a lot money by that."
Tobias Wienberg Jagd (Jimi collector, his father saw the performance: pers.comm.) "Audience supposedly wondered which trick Jimi were doing as he bend over and picked something up from the floor all the time, after entering, suddenly my father realized that he was actually dropping his plectrum all the time"
Kasper (Jimi fan, his friend saw the set: pers. comm.) "A guy I know walked backstage before the show and asked if anyone had a cigarette, "oh yes" and Jimi gave him one."
70.10.18. PO Nyt om rock
News in Rock
Among the friends to Jimi Hendrix' burial in Washington was Johnny Winter, who is among the many who have recorded tapes with Hendrix (others are Arthur Lee & Love, Buddy Guy, and Eric Burdon). Part of these tapes will probably be released in the future, fx. some recording from Jimi's Woodstock house last year will be released on a bootleg LP, where he plays with a couple of friends. Jimi Hendrix himself did not have a warm relationship to these tapes. About the still flowing stream of Otis Redding records after his death Jimi said (in Århus):
- I don't want that to happen for me.
About bootleg records he sneered:
- I walked into the bathroom, flushed out, and there was somebody recording.
94.05.14. ÅS Beat-stjerners ejendele jagtes
- Searching for beat stars possessions
...Shortly before his death in 1970 Jimi Hendrix was on tour in Scandinavia and in Germany. He had a jacket back then, which was made of yellow, black and blue patchwork. This one would Sotheby be very pleased to get. Maybe it is found here in Århus...Who knows? When he performed in Vejlby-Risskov Hallen on the same tour he wore a jacket, which matches the description. (here is a picture of Jimi in Århus with the jacket)...[Jimi actually wore this jacket on Fehmarn Island].
1970 - K.B. Hallen
Bo Jacobsen (supporter from Blue Sun: pers. comm.) "We did not see Hendrix backstage, he locked himself up with some really beautiful girls, he only came out when he had to go on stage. I sat and talked with Mitch, Mitch was fixing drugs right next to me, but besides that, he was extremely nice to everyone, it was kind of, yes come on here and lets talk, no arrogance. Then it was time for Hendrix to enter the stage. I remember that very clearly, Hendrix came out, walked by me, and just before he entered the stage he said "buh, people" then he entered the stage showing the peace/victory symbol, how could he do this? That must be the American way of show business. I saw the show far away from the stage but still the sound was absolutely deafening, he had his 12 Marshall amplifiers, and the volume level must have been in top. I also remember he broke a string, and he put a new on, without even pausing the song"
Anon (in audience: pers. comm.) "I have seen Hendrix several times, the last time I saw him was in K.B. Hallen but he was for sure not feeling well, I could see that."