Jimi always relished the chance to work with other musicians, and he turned up on the following:
STEPHEN STILLS
Released November 1970 (Atlantic SD 7202)
A great debut album from Stills and Jimi plays lead on the terrific “Old Times Good Times”. Stills was himself a great guitarist who Jimi admired but here there is no dueling, as Stephen plays organ. Jimi’s solo is similar in part to what he played on his own “Dolly Dagger”.
Another guest on the album was Eric Clapton who plays second lead guitar on the following track “Go Back Home”.
Jimi and Stephen got on very well and they jammed together on a number of occasions. Stephen showed up on piano for Jimi’s song “My Friend”, on a jam with Johnny Winter and Jimi (“The Things That I Used To Do” – which appeared on “Lifelines”) and on a rough demo of “Somewhere” (appeared recently on “People, Hell & Angels”) where he played bass.
Stephen Stills – 2013 box set with a previously unreleased jam with Hendrix
March 2013 saw the arrival a Stills box-set titled “Carry On” which includes “Old Times Good Times” and “No Name Jam” which turns out to be the infamous “White Nigger” with a new (politically correct) title, without a vocal track and new drums and bass overdubbed as the master had suffered apparently. The box set looks interesting but don’t overlook the magnificent “Manassas” album he made with Chris Hillman – an absolute must.
> Beware of the bootleg “Still’s Basement” which features no jams of Stills and Jimi ! Well, Jimi could be on bass. The rest of the tracks are already on a number of other bootlegs.
> A couple of collaborations with Stills turned up in 2018 on Both Sides Of The Sky: “$20 Fine” (a little similar to “Old Times Good Times” in feel) and “Woodstock (with Jimi on bass only).
LOVE – “False Start”
Released December 1970 (Blue Thumb BTS 22)
Arthur Lee was another old friend of Jimi’s (they both participated in “My Diary”, a single for Rosa Lee Parks in 1965 (appeared in 2010 on “West Coast Seattle Boy”).
This is not one of the band’s best albums but I quite like it and Jimi plays lead on the opening track “Everlasting First”. It blasts in with some lovely wah-wah from him then a few fills as the slow ballad progresses.
> An alternate “Evalasting First” turned up in the West Coast Seattle Boy box set. Perhaps the same as the Blue Thumb acetate version (I must compare them one day).
The Blue Thumb acetate
This acetate turned up recently on e-bay and eventually circulated among collectors. It features recordings of Love with Jimi in March 1970 (at the same time as the sessions for the Stills album-, when Jimi dropped by to jam and help out with the “False Start” album. Only three tracks here: a different mix of “Everlasting First”, a couple of stabs at “Ezy Ryder” (with a vocal from Jimi) and an interesting ten minute “Jam”.
In a September 1970 interview in Aarhus Jimi said about his collaboration with Arthur Lee: “We have just recorded an album together”. He was obviously relating to these recordings but it doesn’t look like an album’s worth of material was recorded.
Beware of the bootleg “Midnight Sun: Jimi Hendrix With Love” (Third Eye) which claims to feature 8 tracks recorded with the band in 1970. The tracks are only from an unfinished Love album and without Hendrix.
EIRE APPARENT – Sun Rise
Released May 1969
Jimi produced this Irish band’s first album and played lead on some of the songs. He can be heard most clearly on “Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” (which sounds a little like The Flaming Groovies) but he is also present on “Captive In The Sun”, “Let Me Stay” and “Mr. Guy Fawkes”.
Eire Apparent toured with The Experience, opening for them on many occasions. Henry McCullough (later of Paul McCartney and Wings) was an early member of the band but had left before the recording of this album.
A big Thank You to Régis for helping out with this !
McGOUGH & McGEAR
Released October 1968 (Parlophone PCS 7047)
A very rare record by two members of the comedy pop outfit The Scaffold (remember “Lily The Pink” !).
A lot of big names appeared on this and Jimi played on “Ex Art Student” and “So Much”. Mitch and Noel also took part.
Most interesting is the latter part of “So Much” with Jimi putting in some dreamy wah-wah playing.
Produced by Mike McGear (Paul McCartney’s brother).
> In 2016, the album was remastered and expanded as a 2 CD edition, featuring the mono and stereo mixes.
TIMOTHY LEARY – “You Can Be Anyone This Time Around”
Released April 1970 (Douglas Records 1)
Jimi jams on bass only on the 14 minute “Live And Let Live” with Steve Stills and John Sebastien on guitar and Buddy Miles on drums.
It’s a sort of collage really with the music fading into the background at various points, for exceprts of interviews and proclamations from Leary.
This was organised and produced by Alan Douglas.
> A superb Band Of Gypsys jam titled “Sending My Love To Linda” with the same musical theme as “Live And Let Live” surfaced on Both Sides Of The Sky in 2018.
Various unreleased guest recordings:
THE GHETTO FIGHTERS – “Ghetto Fighters” (Unreleased album)
The Ghetto Fighters were the twin brothers Albert and Arthur Allen, (also known as the Aleems, Fantastic Aleems, Us and Prana People). The vocal duo were old friends of Jimi’s from his pre-Experience days and in 1070, they provided backing vocals on Jimi’s songs “Freedom” and “Dolly Dagger”. During their sessions together, Jimi also produced and played guitar on some the duo’s own songs and there was perhaps enough recorded for an album.
One track, “Mojo Man” appeared on the 2013 Experience Hendrix album “People, Hell & Angels” (it had been released as a download in November 2011 but with modern day overdubs). Jimi had only overdubbed his parts onto an already completed recording apparently and it’s a great funk song with some very cool guitar from the man.
Let’s hope more Hendrix/Ghetto Fighters recordings will emerge!
> The duo are interviewed in many Hendrix documentaries including “A Film About Jimi Hendrix” and the “Band Of Gypsys” DVDs.
More about the Aleem brothers and “Mojo Man” here
THE LAST POETS
Another legend is that The Last Poets also did a little work with Jimi but all that we have to go on so far is the loose jam/rap “Doriella du Fontaine” with Poets member Lighnin’ Rod which was released in the eighties by Alan Douglas (who had set up the session) – see “Live albums 80s” section.
Production only:
CAT MOTHER & THE ALL NIGHT NEWSBOYS – “The Street Giveth And The Street Taketh Away”
Released June 1969 (Polydor 24-4001).
Jimi only co-produced this album.
BUDDY MILES EXPRESS – “Electric Church”
Released 1968 (Mercury SR 61222)
Jimi produced only four tracks “Miss Lady”, 69 Freedom Special”, “Destructive Love” and “My Chant”.
Jimi also wrote a sleeve-note (see below)
for another album by Miles called “Expressway
To Your Skull” (but he didn’t produce any of the recordings).
Jimi’s sleeve-note for the album.
> On Buddy’s album “Them Changes” (recorded after the Band Of Gypsys concerts), Billy Cox guested on fuzz bass for the title track.
The 1967 Studio 76 recordings – a guest appearance?
The albums “Get That Feeling” & “Flashing” (released in 1967 and 1968 respectively) which Jimi, his management and Track Records tried in vain to stop.
These albums contain a mixture of old Curtis Knight & The Squires material from 1965 plus tracks constructed around the two 1967 reunion sessions of 1967 at Studio 76 in New York. Jimi had dropped by on two occasions to jam, using his newly discovered wah-wah pedal and play some 6-string bass guitar. He later insisted that these were just jam sessions and not formal recording sessions but has was caught on tape saying “You can’t use my name on this, right?”, just before he was about to record overdubs on an old Knight recording (Gloomy Monday).
The Johnny Hallyday “Hey Joe” rumour
This all began when I read in an old French biography of Johnny Hallyday that Jimi had played one of his songs called “Psychedelic”. Then in a filmed interview on French television in 2004, Johnny Hallyday said that he and Jimi were good friends and would meet up in the early days when they happenned to be in the same town. That was confirmed quite recently by one of Hallyday’s old staff. Johnny also said that Jimi was “present” when Hallyday recorded his own version of “Hey Joe”!
Investigating these claims, I asked the opinion of a French Johnny Hallyday web site and they told me that Jimi didn’t play on “Psychedelic” but he did play on an outtake of Hallyday’s version of “Hey Joe”! Furthermore, the outtake was officially released in France in 1993 on a CD that was included in a luxury metal and denim bound book titled “Johnny: Le Livre” (Altinea Collectionneur/Vade Retro). The site’s webmaster was kind enough to send me scans of the texte and track details which seemed to confirm that Jimi played on the recording. However, in an April 2017 interview, Johnny stated that Jimi didn’t appear on the recording! The opposite of what he had stated earlier!
A little history
Hallyday was in a London club with his producer George Gomelsky and had seen the still unknown Jimi in September 1966 jamming with Brian Auger (although Brian has no recollection of his good friend Johnny being there). Halliday proposed to Chas Chandler that the young black wonder could play with him on his forthcoming short tour of the north of France. This gave Jimi his first professional engagement in Europe. Chas then sped up his search for a rhythm section to back Jimi for the tour and The Experience were born.
A friendship struck up between the musicians on the tour. The book says that during the brief October tour (only four or five dates with The Experience), Jimi would join Hallyday on stage to perform “Hey Joe” with him (though I have never read anything that confirms this, so it’s probably nonsense). The song was little known in England and France but had been already in Jimi’s repertoire since his Greenwich Village days. Hallyday liked the song and Gilles Thibault was commissioned to write new French lyrics (he also wrote the lyrics of “Comme d’habitude” which Paul Anka rewrote as “My Way”).
Mickey Jones confirms that Jimi was at the session!
Immediately after the handful of dates of the Hallyday tour, The Experience went into the studio to begin recording, in particular “Hey Joe”, which was set aside to be the debut single. Hallyday was also recording in London a month or so later and working on his own version of “Hey Joe”! At the time guitarist in the backing group (The Blackburds) was future Foreigner star Mickey Jones. In a 1997 article (Juke Box Magazine, France) Jones stated that Jimi was there at the session but he couldn’t remember if Jimi played on the song. However, he did remember that Jimi had shown him the parts to play for the song. So if it isn’t Jimi on the recording, it would be Mickey Jones closely copying what Jimi had just shown him, as it does sound like Jimi’s snappy rhythmic playing (when compared to the acoustic “Hound Dog”* for example – some runs are identical). So the mystery remains whether it is Jimi on there or not.
So, Jimi had dropped by the studio to say hello to Johnny, and ended up participating in the session, though not necessarily appearing on the recording. This would have taken place in November 1966, so only a few short weeks after the French tour. Jimi perhaps told nobody about this and the whole thing was forgotten. One must remember again, that at the time, Jimi was still pretty well unknown, having only played on the Hallyday tour and a few London club dates. It wasn’t as if “The Great Jimi Hendrix” had come to the session – he was just a friend who came to say hello.
In that book, it sort of says that the “outtake” recording was in fact simply remixed to become the single. I recently listened to the Hallyday single version of “Hey Joe” and that same acoustic guitar is on there, but a little further back in the mix! Johnny’s vocal take is different, that’s all.
*That acoustic version of “Hound Dog” is on a number of bootlegs (“Freak Out Jam” for example) and it comes from the unreleased Gold and Goldstein film “Experience”. It was filmed as Jimi relaxed on a bed, playing to friends and can usually be found on YouTube.
> In his book Noel said that he had played with Halliday before he met Jimi. Or was him memory letting him down ?
> In 1968, Johnny’s management called in reputed session guitarist Jimmy Page to play on a song called “A Tout Casser”. The driving riff that Page put down is exactly the same as what he would later play on …”Whole Lotta Love”!
THE JOHN MAYALL RECORDING
In a 1997 interview with Record Collector, John Mayall stated that Jimi had sat in with his band at a jam at The Speakeasy on November 2, 1967. The blues jam was recorded, and some of it turned up on his 1968 album “Diary Of A Band” on a track credited to Mick Taylor (who handed the guitar to Jimi for the number) called “The Lesson”. Mayall said that Jimi was not credited on the album for contractual reasons.
However, Univibes chief Caesar Glebbeek informed me that the sequence on the album (all 1m 32s of it) does not feature Jimi. That would mean that John got his (bare) wires crossed somewhere. To make matters worse, Caesar said that the original tape went up in flames in a fire at Mayall’s LA home ! What a shame.
Only Volume two was released on CD.