Jimi Hendrix's classic 1967 set at the Monterey Pop Festival is enjoying its 40th anniversary with a new DVD and CD release. Jon Perks met two of the guitarist's closest friends to discover more about the man behind the music.
 Recently voted by Uncut magazine as the greatest ever gig, Jimi Hendrix's appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival has gone down in history for so many reasons.
Appearing on June 18, 1967 - the third day of the legendary Californian festival - this was Hendrix's first major appearance in his home country, having first wowed England with his blend of psychedelic blues rock and virtuoso guitar playing, which led the likes of The Beatles and the Stones to regularly namecheck him in interviews as one to watch.
Paul McCartney and Brian Jones were both regulars at his concerts. The 45-minute festival set not only captures a near perfect collection of Hendrix staples - Purple Haze, Foxey Lady, The Wind Cries Mary and his covers of Wild Thing, Like A Rolling Stone and Hey Joe - but also features the now famous guitar sacrifice - in which Jimi liberally pours lighter fuel onto the fretboard before lighting it and watching the flames lick over his beloved instrument.
He then proceeds to smash it to pieces. Then of course there is the music - whether playing the strings with his teeth, from behind his neck or simply extracting the most extraordinary sounds with what appears to be little or no movement, Monterey left few in doubt who was the new king of guitars, or who had been the highlight of a phenomenal weekend - which had seen the likes of Otis Redding, Simon and Garfunkel, The Who and The Mamas and The Papas all take to the stage. There would never again be anyone quite like Hendrix - which made his death in London three years later all the more painful and poignant. Drummer Mitch Mitchell recalls: "I have such fond memories of Monterey and the festival. It was my first trip to America. This was such a big thing for me, in as much as golly, since the age of, I don't know, six or something like that. In June 1967, Monterey lived up to my expectations. It was all of that and then beyond. "There was an amazing purity to the Monterey Festival. No offence to the many others that followed, but Monterey was truly something different. Woodstock was a lovely place and all that but just full of mud and helicopters and a feeling that you were part of a war manoeuvre. Monterey was very pure and a place where alliances and lasting friendships were formed." Mitch adds: "Jimi played it as cool as he could at Monterey. I knew the man pretty darn well. He was excited plus scared because this was the first time we was going back to America. He had never been able to make it there, but Monterey was an opportunity that could change everything for him. "Everything went right. We had done it. My adrenaline was still going for at least an hour and a half after the show." Forty years on, and Mitchell, along with two of his other close friends of the time - bassist Billy Cox and producer Eddie Kramer - were in London to mark the CD and DVD release of the classic concert. Both have fond memories of not only the legendary musician, but the man behind the music. * The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey 40th Anniversary Celebration is out now on DVD, HD DVD and CD www.hendrixatmonterey.com.
You get the impression it would take a lot for Eddie Kramer to get star-struck.
He has, after all, worked with everyone from Led Zeppelin and The Beatles to the Stones, Kinks and Bowie. But ask him about Jimi Hendrix - whose complete back catalogue of albums he engineered - and he won't hold back:
"The man was so obviously talented and gifted, one of a kind," says the erudite Kramer, who, in his tailored shirt and black velvet jacket, doesn't look like a man who helped shape the sound of the 60s. "He was one of those wonderful individuals that you get a chance once in a lifetime to work with; he was unquestionably the greatest guitar player I've ever had the privilege of working with - in command of his instrument, his destiny and his own music. "Even with all his insecurities - and he was insecure about many things, his voice for one - you can put him into that category of greatness with artists like Picasso or Degas or musicians like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis; they were just dissatisfied to the point of being very self-critical." Alongside Hendrix on every one of his albums, Kramer helped capture the energy and buzz of Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland - a partnership on a par with George Martin and The Beatles, or Phil Spector and his stable of artists. Kramer is, however, immensely modest about his own contribution and achievements: "I'm not sure if it was difficult or just me not knowing what the hell I was doing!" he laughs. "We met in January '67, it was a wonderful first meeting," says Eddie. "I remember him walking into the studio with a raincoat on, he took it off and there was all his fine clothes underneath - he was fabulous, we just got on immediately. "I was very lucky with Jimi; we hit it off immediately and it was always a challenge to see who could top the other one - he'd get a sound and I would go 'oh, okay' and I'd twiddle a few knobs and he would come in and listen, then he'd run out and do something wacky with the amplifier or play something really so far out, keep upping the ante... "I think some of it was because I was so new to the game and was experimenting; it's interesting because Chas Chandler said something very interesting, he said: 'the rules are there are no rules' - I can't do the [Geordie] accent very well, but you know what I'm saying, and it's true - with Jimi you were creating stuff every day that was new and had never been done before. "He encouraged us to be inventive; phasing had never been done in stereo until we figured out how to do that; how do you record an amplifier on ten with feedback? It hadn't been done before; it was very exciting times. "With my job, if I've done it correctly, the artist comes out of the studio with a piece of product and it sounds like them, it doesn't sound like me - I try not to put a heavy stamp on it. There are a lot of pop artists who need that kind of handling, but with a person like Jimi you had to really go with every flow and bend of the river - if you don't you're out."
Billy Cox has a real sparkle in his eye when he talks about his old friend, James Marshall Hendrix.
"He was a genius - and a genius's works last for years - for probably the next 100, 200 years his legacy will still be alive and well," says Cox, who first met Hendrix when the two were serving in the army at Fort Campbell, Kentucky in 1961. "We were youngsters, and we realised that we had a lot of things in common," Billy recalls. "I heard what no other ears had heard - I saw him put 25 years in a guitar in five years; it was a night and day affair - he loved what he was doing so it was morning and night, even when we weren't gigging he was constantly practising 'cos he knew where he was destined to go - and he went there." In the early 60s Hendrix would tour with the likes of Little Richard and the Isley Brothers, before being offered the chance to go to Britain, where his manager, former Animals bassist Chas Chandler, felt the young guitarist would be a huge hit. "Jimi came and said 'this guy wants to send me to Europe and make me a star and I told him about you,'" says Billy, who had to forfeit the opportunity to join The Jimi Hendrix Experience. "I couldn't make it [to England], I was a poor musician, and didn't even have the fare to leave to go from Nashville to New York." Billy would later replace bassist Noel Redding and play with Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell as Band of Gypsys and Gypsy Sun & Rainbows, most famously at Woodstock in 1969. "If you listen to the Star Spangled Banner [at Woodstock] you will hear me play the first six or seven notes - and then I said to myself 'wait I got to lay out of this, this has not been rehearsed...' and sure enough he went on and carried it to another dimension... he just felt in his spirit to play that, it was an incredible song." Billy adds: "Off stage he was a gentle, kind, compassionate friendly person. I don't know what other people say - any negatives I've heard I have always had to correct them, they did not know the man - he was a great person, I still miss him today. "He has influenced countless guitar players - you pick up a guitar, you're going to have to eventually go to Jimi Hendrix," says Cox. "I have a saying that there are two kinds of guitar player - one who will admit to being influenced by Jimi and one who will not admit being influenced by Jimi..."
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