They Came, They Experienced, They Left

hey there,

i noticed that mitch mitchell (above, left), the drummer for the jimi hendrix experience, passed away yesterday at the age of 61. bassist noel redding died back in 2003.

i believe that makes the jimi hendrix experience the first band from the 60s to be completely gone.

they were perhaps the only group ever to release a debut LP ("are you experienced") that was so freaking good that some folks still think it's a greatest hits album.

i remember one afternoon back in '67 or '68 walking with my friend and neighbor dave baker down to a garage in the 600 block of saint nicholas to pick up papers for dave's newspaper route. the delivery truck was late that day and so everyone was sitting around just talking.

this one guy named jerry wonderly, who was kind of cool but also kind of odd, was going on and on about this record album that he had just bought. he said there was this black guy who played guitar with just a drummer and a bass player, and that the guy was really amazing. jerry said it was called "heavy" or "psychedelic" music.

i remember a couple of us said that it was hard to imagine a black guy playing rock and roll music - especially lead guitar.

of course a few years later everyone knew who jimi hendrix was and it was no longer difficult to imagine a black guy playing rock and roll guitar.

by that point the difficulty was trying to figure out how in god's name he played it the way that he did.

.