Original Chicago Members Recall Jimi Hendrix Inviting Them To Be His Opening Act on 1969 Tour
by Best Classic Bands Staff
To help celebrate what would have been Jimi Hendrix’s 80th birthday, Experience Hendrix LLC, in partnership with Legacy Recordings, is releasing Jimi Hendrix Experience Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 on Nov. 18, 2022, on CD and LP vinyl. Recorded in the spring of 1969 before a raucous, sold out audience, the performance of the original lineup (singer/guitarist Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell, bassist Noel Redding) has never before been released in its entirety. Hendrix was born on Nov. 27, 1942.
The main support act at the Forum that night was Chicago Transit Authority, who soon thereafter shortened their name to Chicago. In a brand new short film, three original members (trombonist James Pankow, trumpeter Lee Loughnane, keyboardist/vocalist Robert Lamm) recall being in awe of Jimi Hendrix as a musician and his graciousness as a person, and explain how his personal invitation to open for him on such a large stage was a turning point in their career. Pankow remembers meeting Jimi Hendrix at the Whisky a Go Go: “He looks at us and he goes, ‘You guys have a horn section that sounds like one set of lungs, and a guitar player that’s better than me. You want to go on the road?’ Hell yeah! . . . our jaws were hanging open.” The band’s self-titled debut was released two days after the Forum concert.
Watch the film
[The advance tracks “I Don’t Live Today” and “Purple Haze” from Jimi Hendrix Experience Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 are below.]
“The way that they [the Jimi Hendrix Experience] were approaching their music was very jazz-like,” says Chicago’s Lamm. “Jimi’s songs, the way that he addressed them, the way he sang them, the nature of the solos and how the sections kind of bled into each other . . . we had never seen anything like this and we were grateful to be there.” Pankow says of witnessing the live performance: “Nobody had the ferocity and the daring that Jimi and his trio had . . . I’m not so sure that the audience necessarily understood the musicality, but they felt the power. It was overwhelming. It was undeniable. If you were living and breathing, you were overwhelmed, period . . . And to be invited? To be a part of that? My mouth to God’s ears– it was the coolest, most important invitation that we have yet received.”
From the original Sept. 8 album announcement: Following the massive success of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s 1967-68 studio album trifecta (Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland), the trio had developed into the most popular international touring attraction in rock music. This widescale public interest coincided with the construction of new arenas for sporting events, among them the Forum in Inglewood, CA. Designed by famed architect Charles Luckman (who also designed New York’s rebuilt Madison Square Garden), this multi-purpose venue opened in 1967 as the home of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, but also began to serve as a music venue. Among the earliest concerts held there was Aretha Franklin in January 1968 and the Cream farewell tour with opening act Deep Purple in October of that year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience were booked to perform on April 26, 1969 with opening acts Chicago Transit Authority and Cat Mother & The All Night Newsboys, the latter of whom shared management with the headliners. Floor seats cost $6.50 ($51.20 adjusted for inflation).
Watch a brief trailer for the release
By the time the Jimi Hendrix Experience took the stage to blaze through a spirited set, live concert sound had drastically improved from the time of the Beatles baseball stadium tours, but crowd control was still a major concern. Between songs, Hendrix pled with audience members to stop rushing the stage. A heavy police presence is felt; lyrics for their hit “Purple Haze” are altered (“‘Scuse me while I kiss that policeman!”) and Jimi dedicates “Spanish Castle Magic” to “the plain clothes police out there and other goofballs.” Hendrix treated each performance as a unique event. He never relied on a standard set list comprised only of his biggest commercial hits. This approach was on full display at the Forum performance, blending more familiar tunes such as “Foxey Lady” with “I Don’t Live Today” from Are You Experienced and his signature blues original“Red House” (“Everybody want to know what America’s soul is; everybody think it’s Motown . . . America’s soul is something more like this here”) which had still not yet been released in the U.S. at this time. Furthermore, the group opened their set with a cover of “Tax Free” – an obscure 1967 instrumental by Swedish duo Hansson & Karlsson (consisting of Bo Hansson and Janne Karlsson), with whom the Experience had previously shared bills in Stockholm. Another unique highlight featured within the Forum performance was an early reimagining of “The Star Spangled Banner,” which Jimi would canonize four months later at Woodstock. “Here’s a song we was all brainwashed with,” Jimi trenchantly declares, at a time when the nation was in a state of great political unrest. The group closed their performance with a unique, extraordinary medley of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” and Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”. The song was an Experience favorite and a perfect live vehicle for the trio’s unparalleled improvisational skill.
Watch the clip for “Purple Haze” (released on Oct. 26)
Listen to the performance of “I Don’t Live Today” from the concert
The concert was recorded by Wally Heider and Bill Halverson contemporaneously, and recently remixed by longtime Hendrix producer/engineer Eddie Kramer for maximum audio fidelity. It was produced by Janie Hendrix, CEO of Experience Hendrix, LLC (and the sister of Jimi Hendrix), Kramer and John McDermott, who manages the Hendrix music catalog on behalf of Experience Hendrix. The package’s liner notes are by former LA Times staff writer/critic Randy Lewis with a preface by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons who attended the Hendrix Forum show, having toured with the Experience, as part of the Moving Sidewalks, his pre-ZZ band.
“After the performance, Jimi came by and said, ‘Hey man, how did we do?’” Gibbons states in the liner notes of the Los Angeles Forum album. “How do you respond to that since there’s no basis for comparison as it was such a singular performance? All I could manage was, ‘I’m floored, I’m fixed’ and left it at that. Still am.”
Also coming out during the month of Hendrix’s 80th birthday is the book JIMI. Published by Chronicle Books imprint Chroma for a Nov. 24 release, this comprehensive visual celebration is an official collaboration with Janie Hendrix and John McDermott. JIMI significantly expands on the authors’ previously published titles, including An Illustrated Experience, and features a new introduction by Janie, extensive biographical texts, and a trove of lesser known and never-before-published photographs, personal memorabilia, lyrics, and more. Additionally, JIMI includes quotations by legendary musicians such as Paul McCartney, Ron Wood, Jeff Beck, Lenny Kravitz, Eric Clapton, Drake, Dave Grohl and others who have spoken about Hendrix’s lasting influence.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 Tracklist
Intro
Tax Free
Foxey Lady
Red House
Spanish Castle Magic
Star Spangled Banner
Purple Haze
I Don’t Live Today
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Sunshine of Your Love
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Related: Director D.A. Pennebaker talks about filming Hendrix at Monterey Pop
6 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationPreviously released as the 4th disc to the “Lifelines – The Jimi Hendrix Story” boxed set. Now out of print and hard to come by at reasonable prices. Thankfully I have mine still with the outer box.
Janie Hendrix is running out of any kind of recording of her brother that she can regurgitate into a “New Release,” to keep plundering his legacy. It’s disgusting, and even more so that Eddie Kramer is along for the ride. Kramer, probably the only living person involved who was actually “there,” should be protecting Hendrix’s legacy instead of helping his baby sister to pilfer it. This release at least is a live performance that is what it is, unlike so many of “Experience Hendrix’s” reclaimed studio out-takes studio jams and recording of songs in the writing process that they’ve release as posthumous Hendrix albums. All in all, disgraceful.
It’s worth noting that Ms. Hendrix is NOT a blood relative of Jimi. Anybody interested can look it up.
Jimi was being his humble self talking to Chicago. Terry Kath was a technically superior guitarist in his day. But he was no Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix’ genius was in his mind that he was able to translate in the studio. He used his guitar, as well as other instruments, to make sonic palates around song ideas. His actual guitar playing, which was groundbreaking, was just a tool he used to create his recordings. But what sounds…..
I got the Lifelines boxed set too, once of the first things I ever bought when I got a cd player. It’s got a lot of rarities on it, such as Cherokee Mist
In his time, Jimi would jam with anyone! But there is no record of him jamming with Terry K. A sign of the respect he had of Terry’s skills. J.R. 67