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“When Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival he created one of rock’s most perfect moments. As Hendrix lit his guitar, Caraeff took a final photo. It would become one of the most famous images in rock and roll” Alex Vadukul, Rolling Stone, 2009
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HOO L LY W O O D , C A L I F O R NIA, AUU G U S T 1 8 , 1 9 6 7 Two months after burning up the stage at Monterey, The Jimi Hendrix Experience were taking just about every booking managers Chas Chandler and Mike Jeffery could get them, including an ill-fated tour as the opening act for the squeaky-clean, madefor-television band, The Monkees. “I thought that was great because The Monkees were huge in America at that point. They had their own aeroplane that had Monkees written on the side of it and I thought that was lovely,” remembered Noel Redding. But the audience didn’t agree. Following complaints from parents who had taken their young daughters to see the television band and found The Jimi Hendrix Experience on the bill, the band was asked to leave the tour. However, despite their musical differences, Hendrix warmed to the band members themselves and is quoted as saying “they’re such good cats.” Some rock historians argue this was all a publicity
stunt to further the band’s reputation as “dangerous”, others simply believe that Chandler and Jeffery only looked at the numbers on the check. At any rate, The Jimi Hendrix Experience was cut-free from the tour, and went back to Los Angeles to open for one of the biggest selling acts performing at the time, The Mamas & The Papas. When they arrived to perform at The Hollywood Bowl for the first time, they were low down on the line-up, supporting The Mamas & The Papas, with Scott McKenzie added to the bill shortly before the concert. Music insiders already knew the power behind The Jimi Hendrix Experience and rock journalists and promoters were already selling the band as the next big thing. In promo spots aired on the influential Los Angeles rock station 93/KHJ, they plugged the band as “the truly incredible Jimi Hendrix Experience.” Despite everyone’s best efforts to hype the band to a folk-song loving contingent, the concert didn’t go well. “Los Angeles was hard on us,” remembered Noel Redding. “We died a death at the Bowl. The Mamas & The Papas folk-rock type crowd were the very opposite of our own followers.”
Despite flower power being in full-bloom and the Summer of Love in full swing, The Jimi Hendrix Experience wasn’t embraced by the audience that night in August. The crowd came to see folk music. But Hendrix played on and thanked everyone who stayed to watch them perform. A year later, they’d return to the Bowl. This time, as headliners.
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“I had assumed that all the excitement about The Experience was purely press agentry and hype. Now I comprehended why all the major British guitar players were discussing Hendrix on a daily basis� Sharon Lawrence, reporter and author, on seeing Hendrix play at Anaheim
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L O S A N G E L E S , C A LIFORNIA, OCTOBER 19, 1968
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The Whisky A Go-Go has cradled the Los Angeles rock scene since it opened in 1964; a venerated venue on the Sunset Strip, where The Doors, Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin all took to the stage, and where the up and coming bands of today still go to make their mark. In the fall of 1968, the club was in full swing. Former house band The Doors were now world famous and everyone made it a point to stop and play the Whisky. From superstars to unknowns, the list of acts who graced the stage at the Whisky while the go-go dancers entertained from above, is a list of music icons. The months before and after Hendrix made his unannounced appearance on the Strip in October 1968, the Whisky would host such acts as Tim Buckley, Three Dog Night, Alice Cooper, Mothers of Invention, Steve Miller Band, The Byrds and a new band out of New York City who called themselves The Velvet
Underground. Only a month before Ed Caraeff would catch Hendrix on stage, the guitarist would jump in to jam with Eric Burdon and Graham Bond at his friend Buddy Miles’ debut of The Buddy Miles Express. This wouldn’t be the last time Hendrix played with the band; he’d join the group on stage again at Newport ’69, in another unannounced session. Hendrix was a fixture at the Whisky when he was in Los Angeles. Often, the venue would attract superstars who weren’t onstage, but just looking for a night out. Mario Maglieri, the Whisky’s manager, remembers Hendrix as being “quiet and gentlemanly; he never wanted a fuss to be made over him.” That night, Hendrix and his crew dropped by the Whisky after seeing Cream with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce perform at the Forum in Inglewood. Hendrix, along with Mitch Mitchell, George Harrison and others, were in the audience to see the band on their farewell tour. After the gig, a group headed over to the Whisky to talk about what they just heard and seen. The guitarist for Eire Apparent, Mick Cox, remembers that night when Jimi
picked up a guitar. “We arrived at the club. Eric Burdon was there walking around and Bobby Darin… We were all pushed into a booth… Jimi had been to see The Cream… and he came back and was completely blown out. He came in and he sat down in the booth, and he said, ‘God, I’ve just been to see Clapton, and it was unbelievable, my mind’s completely blown out. I guess I just can’t play anymore’.” But play he did. Unannounced, Hendrix took to the stage for a few songs and Caraeff was one of the only people in the audience who had a camera. “I just happened to be there, the Whisky was just where we all went. Rodney and I would just drop by, and by this time I knew that I should always bring my camera,” remembers Caraeff. “There was practically no light at the Whisky and any light there was was low and I had a slow shutter. Nevertheless, I was able to get a few shots off that night.” Later that evening, Hendrix would wreck the car he was driving, a Stingray that Gerry Stickells brought all the way over from New York for him. “I drove that car across country for him. The day I got there he totally wrecked it.”
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