Jimi From The Mailbag

Gotta love this article...

Although the Band of Gypsies had been together for only a month - following the break-up of the Jimi Hendrix Experience - the new six-piece formation keep up pretty well with their mercurial leader. They look as if they are enjoying themselves, too.

On the phone from his home in Nashville, one of them, Billy Cox, says he met Hendrix when they were both in the 101st Airborne Division in 1962. They played together on and off, before Hendrix moved to London and got back in touch after Noel Redding left the Experience. Cox is keen to clear up a few myths "because Jimi Hendrix is like Elvis, or the Beatles: surrounded by outrageous folklore".

He is particularly dismissive of the tale that Hendrix hadn't slept for three days before his gig at the festival because of, well, you know what. "No, no, no. That whole drug culture thing that has been loaded on poor old Jimi Hendrix's back was not the way it was. You can't do all that and play the way he did."

According to Cox, the night before going on, they had tinkered around on acoustic instruments then slept for about five hours in a house near the stage. No drugging or boozing. "Jimi was upbeat, he was energised. We were tight, on the same vibe."

Hendrix's most impromptu move at Woodstock, Cox reports, was The Star-Spangled Banner. The band had heard him play it around the house but had never rehearsed it with him and although Cox says he tried to keep up for the first eight bars, he stopped when he realised that "Jimi was off on one".

Three years of rock stardom hadn't changed his old friend, Cox says. "He was the same guy, a good person, very spiritual, with wisdom beyond his years. And very funny. He always managed to overcome his problems with his sense of humour."

The biggest problem Cox encountered came not from the band's leader but from his management. "The office did not want our group to exist, mainly because it was too black." By now, four out of six of Hendrix's band were African-Americans, and deemed an iffy proposition in business terms for the white rock audience of the time. But Woodstock loved them. When the Band of Gypsies finally left the stage about 11am, their mood was buoyant. Legend has it that Hendrix promptly collapsed with exhaustion.

"Bullshit!" says Cox. "We all drove off to a little joint down the road for a hamburger."

So much for the legendary 'simultaneous spiritual orgasm' that was allegedly felt by all at Woodstock, according to folklore.