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After playing clubs in Greenwich Village as Jimmy James for a few years, Jimi went to London and formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Paul McCartney recommended him (actually insisted upon him) to John Philips for Monterey Pop and the rest is history.
Jimi set more than his guitar on fire that weekend. He revolutionized modern music and brought the guitar blazing into its own as a fiery solo instrument. Jimi's fire was fueled by rock, blues, jazz, and his own inspiration. I don't think many of us who heard him that weekend realized it at the time, but when the smoke cleared, we were looking at a new music world which Jimi had created. The prevailing memory of the show was the fire, the smoke, and feedback. But, you know, the guy could really play and sing. Unfortunately, the flame of Jimi's creative genius was snuffed out long before it hit its peak. |
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 COMMENTARY CONTINUED...
Sunday dawned bright and clear. Jerry and I headed out for the fairgrounds again and got bored listening to Ravi Shankar all afternoon. An hour or two would have been plenty. It seemed to me that only the really spaced out lasted until the end of his performance. Anyway, we were milling around the fairgrounds, enjoying the booths and stuff when we met this gal wearing a red band uniform jacket and a flower painted on her face. I can't remember her name, but the only name we called her by anyway was Sgt. Pepper, so I guess it doesn't really matter (except maybe to her). She and I got to be good friends and her friend seemed to like my friend ok, so we decided to spend the afternoon together. We went into Carmel and did some shopping, got called nasty names by the snotty store-keepers because of our long hair and weird clothes and then headed back for the Sunday evening (and final) performance.
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