Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child Page #2

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I played in cafes,

clubs and on the streets.

That's where I really learned to play.

I started a group called King Kasuals

with a fella called Billy Cox

who played funky, funky bass.

I met a guy named Gorgeous George

and he got me on some tours.

So I started traveling around

and playing around the South.

The idea of playing guitar with my teeth

came to me in a town in Tennessee.

Down there you have to play with your teeth

or else you get shot.

Those people really were hard to please.

There's a trail of broken teeth

all over the stage.

What are you looking at?

What are you looking at?

There was a soul package

coming into town

with Sam Cooke, Solomon Burke,

Jackie Wilson, B.B. King and Chuck Jackson

and I got a little job

playing in the back-up band.

I learnt an awful lot

playing behind all those names every night.

"Dear Dad,

I hope everything is fine.

"Well, here I am again,

traveling to different places.

"I am on a tour that lasts about 35 days.

"We're about halfway through it now.

"We've been to all the cities

in the Midwest, East and South.

"I'll write soon, Jimmy. "

"Dear Dad,

"Just a few words to let you know

I made it to South Carolina.

"Tell everybody 'Hello'.

With Love, Jimmy"

I went to New York and won first place

in the Apollo Amateur Contest.

I stayed up there

for about two or three weeks.

Then The Isley Brothers asked

if I would play with them.

I played with them for a while

and got very bored

because you get very tired

of playing behind other people all the time.

I quit them in Nashville somewhere

and this group came up

and brought me back to Atlanta, Georgia,

where I met Little Richard.

"Dearest Dad, I received your letter

while I was in Atlanta.

"I'm playing with Little Richard now.

"We're going towards the West Coast.

"We're in Louisiana now.

"But my address will be in Los Angeles

when I write again. Jimmy. "

Well, Little Richard,

he was the guy up front and that was it,

and he said he was the only one

allowed to be pretty.

I guess I played with Little Richard

for about five or six months.

I quit because of money misunderstanding:

he didn't pay us for Eve and a half weeks.

I couldn't imagine myself for the rest of

my life in a shiny mohair suit

with patent leather shoes

and a patent leather hairdo to match.

I didn't hear any guitar players

doing anything new

and I was bored out of my mind.

I wanted my own scene,

making my own music.

I was starting to see that you could create

a whole new world with an electric guitar.

'Cause there isn't a sound like it.

I had these ideas and sounds in my brain,

but I needed people to do it with

and they were hard to End.

I went back to New York and played

with this little rhythm and blues group

called Curtis Knight And The Squires.

I also played with King Curtis

and Joey Dee.

"Dear Dad,

Well, I'm just dropping in a few words

"to let you know everything's so-so

in this big, raggedy city of New York.

"Everything is happening bad here.

"I hope everyone at home is all right.

Tell Leon I said hello.

"I'll write you a letter real soon

and will try to send a decent picture.

"So, until then,

I hope you're doing all right.

"Tell Ben and Ernie

I play the blues like they never heard. "

I had friends with me

in Harlem and I'd say,

"Come on down to the Village

so we can get something together. "

The Village was groovy.

I just laid around

and played for about two hours a night.

You had to chat someone up real quick

before you had a place to stay.

I got a break playing guitar

for John Hammond Jr. at the Cafe au Go Go.

Bob Dylan was also down there.

We were both stoned

and just hung about laughing

thanks to the demon ale.

When I first heard Dylan,

I thought you must admire the guy

for having that much nerve

to sing out of key.

But when I started listening to the words,

that sold me.

First real group I got together,

that would be around 1965, I guess.

My big slice of luck came

when a little English friend

persuaded Chas Chandler,

the bass player of The Animals,

to come down where

we were gigging and give an ear.

Chas came down

and heard me and asked,

would I like to come to England

and start a group there?

He seemed like a pretty sincere guy

and I'd never been to England before.

I wasn't thinking about nothing

but the idea of going to England.

That's all I was thinking about.

'Cause I like to travel, you know?

One place bores me too long,

so I have to see if I can get something

together by moving somewhere else.

And the idea of England

was the idea of England itself.

I said, "Wow! I've never

been there before. "

September 24th 1966.

That's when I came to England.

They kept me waiting at the airport

for three or four hours

because I didn't have a work permit.

They carried on like

I was going to make all the money in England

and take it back to the States.

I moved into a flat with Chas Chandler.

We used to get complaints about loud,

late parties when we were out of town.

Chas got real mad about it

but I didn't let it bug me.

Chas knows lots of telephone numbers.

He helped me ind

my bassist and drummer.

Four days after we got together,

we were playing at the Paris Olympia

with Johnny Hallyday,

who is like the French Elvis.

We just got thrown together,

we didn't know each other from Adam.

I was thinking of the smallest pieces

possible with the hardest impact.

That's why I like us being called

The Experience, it's right.

All the photos I had done

for publicity to begin with

were picked because I looked so grim.

But I guess it was necessary

to get that visual thing going

before we could make people listen.

My music isn't pop, it's me.

My guitar is my notes,

regardless of where they came from.

I haven't set out

to produce a commercial sound

but our intention is to be respected, you know,

after we die and we're old and all that.

Who doesn't want

to be written down in history?

"Dear Dad,

We're playing around London now.

"That's where I'm staying these days.

"I have my own group and

we'll have a record out in about two months

"named Hey Joe

by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

"I hope you get this card.

"I think things are going a little better.

Your loving son, Jimi. "

We all dug Hey Joe as a number.

Chas made me sing serious.

I was too scared to sing.

It was the first time

I ever tried to sing on a record.

While we were working on it,

I don't think

we played it the same way twice.

Hey Joe is really a blues arrangement

of a cowboy song.

It isn't quite a commercial song,

so I'm surprised

that it got so high in the hit parade.

I'm just wondering

how people are going to take the next one,

because it's so different.

I had this thing on my mind

about a dream I had

that I was walking under the sea.

It's linked to a story I read in a science

fiction magazine about a purple death ray.

It's called Purple Haze.

I don't consider it

the invention of psychedelic music,

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