The Peter Green and Jimi Hendrix Connection

[desertangel]

I finally found the information I had been looking for in a book called The Ultimate Experience. One other publication had mentioned something about John Mayall and Peter Green being at CBS Studios in London when Jimi was recording a version of 3rd Stone from the Sun... the question was whether they participated or not. According to The Ultimate Experience author, they did not. However, it did mention that members of Fleetwood Mac were in the audience at a gig Jimi played at The Scene in London... Peter was quoted as saying that Jimi wasn't very good that night, not like he'd seen him before and that he thought Jimi looked like he was on heroin. :shrug: ... who knew. ;) just kidding.

Laura

[sharksfan2000]

Thanks for the updated info, Laura. Does your book mention when that show at The Scene took place?

[desertangel]

Oops.. it wasn't an official gig... I'll just give you the actual text or I'll probably goof it up again (getting old sux! LOL!)

From "The Ultimate Experience"

"11 Nov 1968: Hendrix jams with Fleetwood Mac at The Scene.

Mick Fleetwood: On the off-nights we'd hang out at the hip club of the day, Steve Paul's Scene. Jimi would come in to jam, turn Peter's guitar upside down, so he could play it left-handed, and off he'd go. It was unbelievable.

Peter Green: We were invited along to The Scene to play with Jimi, so me and Danny (Kirwan, guitarist Fleetwood Mac) went down. Hendrix wasn't playing a gig, the place was empty, but he was up on the stage, playing about with his guitar and he asked me if I would like to get up and play.

His playing wasn't good that night, not like it had been when I saw him in the early days. He was making a lot of wrong notes, sort of slowing them down and nothing was coming out. He seemed to be in a world of his own up there. He looked to me like he was on heroin, or something. I liked him as a person though. I remember he let me touch his frizzy hair and shook hands with me."

I didn't find any record of this jam session being recorded. Apparently at one point Hendrix used to go around with a portable and tape anything and everything, but I think that was later than '68. And who knows what may have happened to those tapes, doubtful they made it into the public.

Peter and Jimi... in some ways the thought excites me, in other ways it frightens me. Know what I mean? hehe

Laura

[sharksfan2000]

Laura, thanks for posting that passage from the book - reading that sounded familiar, and sure enough there's a pretty much identical passage in Martin Celmins' biography of Peter Green. The Scene was actually in New York City, not London, and the jam with Hendrix would have been near the beginning of Fleetwood Mac's second US tour (and their first US tour with Danny Kirwan).

I also found that this jam is mentioned in Fleetwood Mac soundman Dinky Dawson's book Life On The Road. According to Dawson's account, Green, Clifford Davis, and a couple of other people were just headed to The Scene to check the place out with the club's manager prior to the first of Fleetwood Mac's four nights there. Dawson mentions that Green grabbed his guitar before leaving "just in case there's some jamming going on." Dawson says that although he wasn't there that night himself, he was told that Hendrix was there with Buddy Miles, as well as Eric Clapton and the Chambers Brothers, and that Hendrix played bass (maybe not for the whole jam?) while Green & Clapton played guitar. All this took place around 1am, in front of about a dozen people! Dawson confirms that no recording was made of that event, which he says was in December 1968 (this seems to be correct - the band was in Scandinavia in November 1968).

Celmins makes it sound as if Green's recollection - the same one as in your book - is fairly recent, not something he said soon after the jam at The Scene. Don't know if there's any hint about that in your book.

[desertangel]

One thing I didn't like about that particular book, it was not distinguishable whether the quotes were recent. I believe it was more recent just due to the lack of detail. There's no mention of this jam in Steven Roby's 2002 book "Black Gold: The lost archives of Jimi Hendrix." Since he started dragging that portable 4track around, I can't help but hope that particular jam made it to tape. And since he used to give those tapes away as momentos, I can't help but hope that someday it might surface. Gawd, that would be so cool!!


Laura