Hendrix: The End of a Beginning Maybe

On Electric Ladyland, Hendrix was listed as producer. What did that mean, exactly? What had his role been?

"I don't know, really," Hendrix said, quite directly. "I haven't found out yet. 'Cause I heard it, and I think it's cloudy. The sound is very, you know, dusty."

Then that hazy, cloudy sound was unintentional?

"It got lost," he explained briefly, "in the cutting. Because we went on tour right before it was finished."

It was reported that Hendrix had been rehearsing the Band of Gypsies up to 18 hours a day. He laughed when asked about this. They did play 12 and 14 hours some days, he admitted, but it wasn't rehearsal, it was jamming for fun. They were grooving behind it. He still digs playing with Cox and Miles, and they're still friends. Hendrix repeated this a number of times.

What had happened to the Gypsies was that Hendrix had walked offstage, right at the start of a major appearance, and hadn't appeared with them since. This was at the January Moratorium benefit at Madison Square Garden. They had barely begun when he stopped, dropped his axe, said into the microphone, "We're not quite getting it together," and walked off. This was precisely one month after Bill Graham had given them his ultimate accolade. I asked Jimi what had happened to blow the Gypsies apart.

"Maybe," he began, "I just started noticing the guitar for a change. It's like the end of a beginning maybe or something. I figure that Madison Square Garden is like the end of a big long fairy tale. Which is great. I think it's like the best ending I could possibly have come up with.

"The Band of Gypsies was outasite as far as I'm concerned. It was just going through head changes is what it was, I really couldn't tell — I don't know: I was very tired. You know, sometimes there's a lot of things that add up in your head about this and that and they might hit you at a very peculiar time, which happened to be at the peace rally, you know? And here I'd been fighting the biggest war I ever fought. In my life. Inside, you know? And like that wasn't the place to do it."

But anyway, what came of it is that the Experience was going to be his main concern.

"We're in the process of, you know, getting our own thing together now again. Like we'll have time scheduled in a way so there'll be time on the side to play with your friends. That's why like I'll be jamming with Billy and Buddy and probably recording, too, on the side."

Would there be any new musical direction for the re-constituted Experience?

"Well," Hendrix grinned at Mitchell and Redding, "I'll try to make it more of an up." They all nodded. "We're going to go out somewhere into the hills and woodshed or whatever you call it, to get some new songs and arrangements and stuff together. So we'll have something new to offer, whether it's different or not."

Their first gig will be in mid-April at the Forum in Los Angeles. In mid-March they'll sequester themselves somewhere in England for that one-month workout.

Precisely how Hendrix and his management managed to patch up the bad feelings that reportedly undid the Experience in the first place was not mine to discover. But Mitchell and Redding said they were quite happy with the new schedule, which allows them time for themselves and their own projects. Redding is presently completing his second LP with Fat Mattress and may record further with them. But he'll not take them on the road again. At present, Mitchell is touring with Jack Bruce, Larry Coryell, and Mike Kandel, a sort of super-jam band. He'll do a lot of this playing in the future.