Andy on Jimi Hendrix:
A band called the Druids had been playing at Ondine for a couple months. Jimi Hendrix — this was before he was Jimi Hendrix, he was still Jimmy James — would sit there in the audience with his guitar and ask them if he could play with them and they’d say sure. He had short hair and really beautiful clothes — black pants and white silk shirts. This was before he went to England and came back here as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, way before he played Monterey, before the bandanna and the twangy guitar and all that. But he was already playing with his feet. He was such a nice guy, so soft-spoken. One night he told me that he was from Seattle, Washington, and it seemed like he was homesick when he talked about how beautiful it was there, all the water and the way the air was. It’s funny but I remember the song that was playing at Ondine while we talked — “Wild Thing” by the Troggs — the song I’d eventually see Jimi do so fantastically himself in ’67 at the Fillmore East in his pirate prince look — a green velvet shirt and hat with a pink Musketeer plume. But the night we talked, he was just simple black and white elegant and there was a very sad look to him somehow.
Good one. Keep em coming.