Jimi Hendrix: The Road to Woodstock

Jimi said, "We got this gig here"

and he just said it casually like he did with everything else, you know.

I had no idea what Woodstock was.

It was the place to come to, it was not just a rock'n'roll show.

It was not just about the music.

It was really about that decade and that culture.

There was 200,000-300,000 people that had converged on this... pasture.

I drove through it in a station wagon

and there was just endless people.

This was the greatest rock'n'roll concert ever put on.

MUSIC: "Hey Izabella"

# Girl, I'm holding you close in my dreams

# Every night, every night

# Always sweet darlin'... #

The Woodstock Festival was being planned and, I guess,

the guys in charge of the festival figured,

"Oh, let's get Jimi Hendrix to headline this festival."

Jimi was important as a cultural icon...

and, musically, as one of the premier musicians of his day.

MUSIC: "Purple Haze"

I though that Jimi would likely be the most exciting act on the show.

Erm, and...I thought it would be an amazing way to end it.

Actually, to be perfectly honest with you,

he was not my first choice for a closing act.

My first choice was Roy Rogers.

I tried to book him. I wanted him to end the festival

with Happy Trails, because we had all grown up with Roy Rogers

singing Happy Trails when we were little kids, at that time.

And I thought it would be the perfect way to end it.

And I was going to have him follow Jimi, but,

that aside, I thought that that would be the high point, you know,

certainly of the day and a great way to finish the festival.

Jimi Hendrix was The Beatle...

in that year.

He was on the same level as The Rolling Stones. He was rock royalty.

You'd have to say they were a large act,

apart from the festivals

where they obviously played a major part in festivals.

They could tour arenas, which...

there weren't that many acts touring arenas at the time.

MUSIC: "Crosstown Traffic"

# You don't mind a little pain

# You say you just want me to take you for a drive... #

Our biggest gig was in a place in a place called Devonshire Downs,

in Los Angeles, in 1969,

and we played to 100,000 people.

It's a bit weird.

MUSIC: "Fire"

# Stop acting so damn crazy

# You say your mama ain't home

# It ain't my concern

# Just don't play with me

# And you won't get burned

# I have only one itching desire

# Let me stand next to your fire... #

The one thing you have to know about an act

is that they have a direction that they're going, musically.

And when they reach the summit of their life,

when they are creatively on the top of the mountain,

they don't know where to go next,

and start looking around.

And that's what I think happened to Jimi, at that point.

The last gig I played at, we were playing in Denver.

And we were on with Creedence, or something,

and there were 35,000 people there

and we were doing our gig...

and, prior to the gig, someone in the hotel had said...

had you heard that Jimi had said to the press about extending the band?

And I said, "Well, he didn't tell me."

So that went to me head. And then, we played this gig, 35,000 people

and they all tried to get on stage, which...

They wouldn't fit, would they?

And, er...

then the police started firing tear gas,

except the wind was coming our way.

So, basically, we had to get off the stage.

And then these 35,000 people are trying to chase these three blokes,

so they put us into this Avis Rent-a-Truck...

lock the back door...

there's no lights in it.

And all these people start crawling all over the truck

and the roof's buckling and the guy gets in and drives us

back to the hotel and there's still people on top of the truck.

And we had to go in the back of the hotel,

cos we couldn't get in the front, through the kitchens

or something, and next day I got on a plane. I just said...

Couldn't handle it any longer.

Jimi went through many struggles to put a new band together.

He was looking for a new sound. He was tired of playing

the same, uh, type of music, uh, that he had played.

He didn't want to play all the... He had a whole plethora of

new music that he wanted to present.

He could see the point of having...

of expanding...

..a situation outside of a three-piece band.

I mean, for heck's sake, there were so many opportunities...

and I think it was just like... In his mind, he grabbed hold of...

..what he thought would be comfortable.

He knew it would take, er, getting away, concentrating

and getting the right people, er, together, in order to form

this group that he had a desire of forming.

When Jimi Hendrix first came back from England, he fell in love

with Woodstock and he was looking for a place to live and to practise,

to play music.

Woodstock had always been known from the early '20s as a hotbed for...

..artistic endeavours. There were painters and sculptors, writers,

and then, later on in the '50s and '60s, entertainers who loved

that peace and tranquillity of Woodstock, as a place to go to,

to recharge their batteries.

And, I know, Michael Jeffery had bought a house up there in Woodstock

and Jimi had a house he'd rented up there, to go and rehearse

some material, so Woodstock became a place to hang out.

When I ran into Jimi in Woodstock,

he said... he invited me to come over and jam.

He was a prolific jammer, he loved to play with so many different people.

He said, "Billy, your job is to find Larry Lee. Find him."

And I found him.

Billy called me. I guess Jimi

had my mother's number and Billy called me.

I remember... I just... I think I had just come back from Vietnam,

I think I'd been home about...

..maybe two weeks.

I don't know if I had just come from the unemployment office.

And I... phone rang and...

..it was Billy. I said, "Wow! I ain't heard from that old cat."

I said, "Billy, what's going on?"

He said, "Everything fine..."

I said, "Where are you?" He said, "I'm in New York."

I said, "What you doing up there?"

He said, "I'm with Jimi."

I said, "Wow!"

Er, I said, "Where is Jimi?" I figured he was going to

say in England somewhere cos he was hot there at the time...

He said, "He's sitting right here." And it kind of scared me!

HE CHUCKLES

I said, "Yeah...

"..can I speak with him?" And I spoke to Jimi and he were the same

Jimi, I didn't know if he would even remember me,

as much money as I heard he was making, you know.

And he was the same Jimi, just the same Jimi, no change.

He said, "Yeah, what you doing?

"We are going to try a few things up here,

"we'd like for you to come up here and join us."

When I first went to Woodstock, to play, before this festival.

They'd been playing for... together for about... I don't know,

ten days, maybe, something like that.

And you've either got that gel and you can work off that conflict.

It's either there or it's not, you know. And this was just not...

I know the band that he was putting together,

cos he was living in Woodstock at that time

and I knew a lot of the guys in the band

and I spent some time with Jimi

and I know that he was trying to figure out which direction to

take his music and was experimenting with different players.

And so, we knew this wasn't going to be The Experience,

but it was going to be Jimi.

I remember arriving at Woodstock...

about 5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning,

sun coming up over this hill and I saw the structure...

..that was hanging over what was, supposedly, a stage.

And I'm saying to myself, "Wait a minute,

"we're going to be recording here in about four or five hours.

"The stage is still being built."

There's a crane hanging up over the stage

and they had these pieces of wood just hanging out there.

Looked like fingers above the stage.

This was going to support a canvas top, which was going to

supposedly protect the people...

HE CHUCKLES

..the artists!

And I'm thinking to myself, "What kind of craziness am I into?"

We realised early on Friday that the shows were going to go late,

cos we were having big gaps in our performance schedule.

We had to wait for the rains to stop,

we had to wait for the bands to get in.

Everybody...everything was running late. The roads were obviously...

there were no roads! The roads were solid masses of people and humanity.

Er, we started flying people in, but everything was sort of...

backing up.

And it continued that way through the weekend,

so we knew we were into major, major...overlaps in time.

The band was supposed to go on at 12 o'clock, midnight.

We arrived there, after a long delay, and that was, er, that was pretty...

disheartening, cos we just had to camp up in some little shack

and just wait and wait our time.

This was like military...

..warfare.

I mean, you know, helicopters coming in, dropping people in,

dropping out.

We didn't get a chance to get a helicopter,

it just took for ever to get there.

I remember we all loaded up in some old station wagons.

Our whole band and whoever was going was heading for the helipad.

And we finally got there and the helicopter wasn't running so...

we had to go on in the station wagon.

It had rained and, as we pulled up, I saw people laying up

and I thought they were dead, man, covered with mud and...

Got naked people, you know, I had never seen that...

And I figured I'd been gone too long in Vietnam.

He had just got back from Vietnam, he made a statement about that.

Jimi thought that was really funny...

"That girl over there ain't got no clothes on!"

I think Jimi was originally scheduled to finish Sunday...

the show on Sunday night but because of the back-up of artists over the

two or three-day period, there was just no way he was going to

go on Sunday night and it forced him to go on Monday morning,

which was really a shame, cos after all the rain and the mud and...

you know, there's Jimi going on at nine o'clock in the morning.

Jimi arrived with Michael and, er...

Jerry Morrison, I think there was

a bunch of people that had met backstage.

I had a house for him to stay in and I tried to talk them

into going on at midnight.

And I said to Michael, "Listen, I know you're contracted

"to close the show and you can, if you want to,

"but I think it's a mistake - the show's running late,

"the best moment of the night will be at midnight."

And, for whatever reason, they chose to stay with their principal

and, er, close the show.

And in some ways, it was unfortunate,

in that a lot of the audience didn't get to see his performance.

MC: Good morning.

CROWD: Good morning.

MC: Very shortly, we'll continue.

Thank you for making all this possible.

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

It's been a long one, but it's been delightful.

As the, the sun rose and we were getting ready to go on,

all of the people who had been there, even for three days,

they were revitalised and they also knew that Jimmy was going to

come and play and the energy level, just everything, the karma...

er, was all there in spades. It was great.

We were the last act to go on.

And we followed Sha Na Na.

That was my first time seeing or hearing about them, maybe we were...

But we went on right after they did.

We were down around the back

and you couldn't see a lot that was going on out the front,

so the lift carried you up to the main stage.

Jimi says, "Look at all those people" and Mitch says,

"Hell, I'm not going out there."

So, Mitch had a bottle of Blue Nun wine and when he got through,

between me, Jimi and Mitch, the wine were down to there so we went out...!

HE LAUGHS

AMP FEEDBACK

I had bought a little scarf that had fringes on it and I folded it,

so when I tied it round like a headband, it, kind of...

I thought it was nice, you know. Everybody was doing their own thing.

I hadn't seen nobody doing that...

It came down, I thought it looked nice. Nobody cared, anyway...!

So, I just thought, you know, "Doing my own thing..."

CHEERING

So many people. As far as the eye could see, it was nothing but

a big field of people, so most of us, except for Jimi,

had not had that particular experience.

When you see how much power he puts into his show,

it's so amazing that he was fresh.

Up, you know, intense, right from the get-go.

MC: Ladies and gentlemen...

the Jimi Hendrix Experience...

CHEERING

Yeah, there's a lot of girlfriends we like to try to sing about sometimes.

We're going to sing about this one over there in the section over there,

the one with the yellow underpants on. Yeah, yeah, you.

I remember you last night. Hey, baby!

MUSIC: "Foxy Lady"

# You know you're a sweet little heartbreaker

# Foxy

# You know you're a sweet little heartbreaker

# I wanna take you home

# I won't do you no harm, no

# You've got to be all mine, all mine

# Ooh, foxy

# I see you, hey, down on the scene

# Hey, foxy

# You make me wanna get up and scream

# Foxy

# I've made up my mind

# I wish you were my baby

# You've got to be all mine, all mine

# Foxy lady

# I've made up my mind

# I'm tired of wasting all my precious time

# You've got to be all mine, all mine

# Woo, foxy... #

CHEERING

MUSIC: "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix

# All right, baby, listen here to what I'm sayin'

# You don't care for me I don't care about that

# Gotta a new fool, ha

# I like it like that

# I have only one itching desire

# Let me stand next to your...

# Hey, baby, let me stand

# Oh, let me stand

# Listen here, baby

# And stop acting so damn crazy

# You say your mama ain't home

# That ain't my concern

# Just play with me and you won't get burned

# I have only one itching desire

# Let me stand next to your...

# Oh, let me stand

# I ain't gonna do you too much harm

# Oh, move over Rover

# Let Jimi take over

# Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about baby

# Yeah

# You try to give me your money

# You'd better save it babe

# Save it for your rainy day

# I have only one itching desire

# Let me stand next to your...

# Oh, let me stand

# Let me stand

# Yeah

CHEERING

Thank you very much.

MUSIC: "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)"

# Well, I stand up next to a mountain

# And I chop it down with the edge of my hand

# Well, I stand up next to a mountain

# And I chop it down with the edge of my hand

# Well, I pick up all of the pieces and make an island

# Might even raise a little sand

# Yeah

# Cos I'm a voodoo child

# Lord knows I'm a voodoo child, baby... #

Before we leave I just want to say the name of the group one more time.

This is our first-ever gig and I just want to say thank you very much

for listening with your ears and your hearts.

And the name of the group is Gypsy Sun and Rainbows

and you can call it, Band of Gypsys, anything you want to.

Let me call them here. Playing congas over there, that's Juma.

We have Larry Lee, with a headscarf around his face!

We got Billy Cox over there, playing bass.

Mitch Mitchell...

and Jerry Velez.

# I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time

# I'll give it right back to ya one of these days

# I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time

# I'll give it right back one of these days

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

# If I don't see you no more in this world

# I'll meet ya in the next one

# And don't be late

# Don't be late

# Cos I'm a voodoo child A voodoo child, baby

# Lord knows I'm a voodoo child, baby

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

I'd like to say, thank you very much and good night.

I'd like to say, peace.

Yeah, and happiness.

Happiness, yeah. Happiness!

MUSIC: "Stepping Stone"

# I'm a man At least I'm trying to be

# I've lived before The other part of me

# I'm try-y-ying

# Cry-y-y

# You're a woman At least you say you are

# But then I see you make it with my guitar

# I cry-y-y

# Cry-y-y

# Doo-doo-doo-doo

# Doo-doo-doo-doo

# Doo-doo-doo-doo

# Doo-doo-doo-doo

# Doo-doo-doo-doo... #

Thank you, you can leave if you want to, we're just jammin', that's all.

You can leave or you can clap.

MUSIC: "The Star-Spangled Banner"

MUSIC: "Purple Haze"

# Purple haze, in my brain

# Lately things just don't seem the same

# I'm acting funny but I don't know why

# Excuse me while I kiss the sky

# Purple haze, all around

# Don't know if I'm coming up or down

# Am I happy or in misery?

# Whatever it is That girl put a spell on me

# Help me

# Help me, baby

# Purple haze, all in my eyes

# Don't know if it's day or night

# You got me blowin', blowin' my mind

# Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?

# Help me, baby

# Help me, baby

# Hey, yeah, purple haze

# Yeah, purple haze... #

MUSIC: "Improvisation"

MUSIC: "Villanova Junction"

Thank you.

CHEERING

CROWD CHANT: More! More! More!

CHEERING

MC: Ladies and gentlemen, The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

MUSIC: "Hey Joe"

# Hey Joe

# Where you goin' with that gun in your hand?

# Hey Joe

# I said, where you goin' with that gun in your hand?

# I'm goin' down to shoot my ol' lady

# I caught her messin' 'round with another man

# Yeah, I'm goin' down to shoot my ol' lady, yeah

# You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man

# And that ain't too cool

# Hey Joe, hey Joe

# Where you gonna run to now?

# Hey Joe, hey Joe

# I heard you shot your lady down

# All the way down

# And he say, yeah, I did

# Yes, I did, I shot her

# You know I can't mess around

# Yes, I did, I shot my woman

# You know I caught her messin' around

# I gave him the gun, I shot her

# Hey Joe, hey Joe

# Where you gonna run to now?

# Hey Joe, hey Joe

# Where you gonna run to now? Where you gonna run to, yeah

# I'm goin' way down south, way down south

# Way down to Mexico way, yeah

# Yes, I'm goin' way down south, way down south

# Way down where I can be free

# Ain't no man gonna find me

# Ain't no hang man gonna...

# He ain't gonna put a rope around me

# You better believe it, baby

# Hey Joe, hey Joe

# Hey Joe, you better run down, you better goodbye everybody... #

CHEERING

MC: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so very much.

I had been listening to Jimi, of course, since he was recording.

And, um, Hey Joe, and that era, especially,

so that was the group that I expected to see on stage

but I thought that... the expansion of the group,

the increased ability to have different modes

of music was just perfect, especially for Woodstock.

Most artists, from Van Gogh, to Beethoven, to Hendrix,

they...they have to grow,

and Jimi was in the growing period of his time and he wanted to grow.

He felt the need, in order to survive,

he had to grow musically.

Now, to the chagrin of the management at that time,

they didn't want him to change a thing,

because they had ... they had their formula.

It's just, like, once you have a formula,

you don't want to change it, because this is what people -

it's even true today, in the music world -

that's what they want you to stick to,

to what is a sellable item.

I don't know how much pressure the management put on Jimi,

to be honest, you know?

I just know there was a conflict

and that was the reason I told Jimi I would leave.

I was seeing that he was fighting a battle that,

maybe, if I was gone,

he would be more like... what they wanted.

They wanted three pieces, as far as I could gather.

There was a money-maker, there was the hit,

I had to experience it.

So I just told him, "I'm just going to leave."

He said, "Well, we'll get a drummer and we'll get together."

I just came on back to Memphis.

I was hoping that would take some of the heat off Jimi, you know.

He had so established an identity with the public...

..that they wanted to see him they way they saw him

and when he didn't want them to see him that way any more,

they weren't ready for the transition.

Let's put it this way.

It was much easier after that - a relief, shall we say -

just to play with Jimi and Billy Cox.

I think, all in all, it went well.

Everyone did exceptionally well.

I was proud of that group and I was proud to be a part

of that Hendrix band, at that particular time.

I really wanted him under the lights

and I wanted it to be that really special moment

and the high point of the show for me and for the audience

and...then he did Star-Spangled Banner

and all that changed.

That was all of it - combined.