Jimi Hendrix’s Last Stand
Madness and magic behind the scenes at the legendary Isle of Wight rock festival
By Ray and Caroline Foulk
The U.K.’s Isle of Wight Festival of 1969 had famously tempted Bob Dylan out of retreat, becoming at once the launchpad and gold standard for all rock festivals. The question was: how to follow it?
In 1970 the Isle of Wight would host one of the greatest music gatherings of all time. The dazzling constellation of stars included Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, the Who, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Joni Mitchell, Procol Harum, the Doors, Leonard Cohen, Emerson Lake & Palmer and the Moody Blues. This was Europe’s Woodstock, reportedly drawing 600,000 people to a small island off England’s south coast. It would also be Hendrix’s last major performance of this size— within three weeks of the show, he was dead.
Here, festival organizer Ray Foulk provides a behind-the-scenes account of Jimi Hendrix’s last great triumph, excerpted from his recent book chronicling the landmark event.
We were waiting for James Marshall Hendrix to appear. In the early summer, manager Mike Jeffrey had exhorted Hendrix to embark on a European tour in order to cover the huge outlay for his new Greenwich Village studio and nightclub. My brother Ronnie subsequently had a jovial lunch with his agent, Dick Katz, and between them they persuaded Hendrix manager Chas Chandler that the short tour should begin at the Isle of Wight before continuing to Denmark, Sweden and Germany.
Following a celebratory opening party for the Electric Lady studios on August 26th, 1970, Hendrix had delighted in testing out its recording possibilities, laying down the instrumental known as “Slow Blues,” which reflects some happy moments. He was itching to do more recording.
A day later, Jimi Hendrix flew in — first by Air India and then light aircraft. He arrived in a state of some trepidation. He had been away so long that he feared Britain would have forgotten all about him. On August 29th, he told Melody Maker’s Roy Hollingworth: “I’m back right now to where I started. I’ve given this era of music everything. I still sound the same, my music’s still the same, and I can’t think of anything new to add to it in its present state… I just wanted to go away a while and forget everything. I wanted to just do recording, and see if I could write something.”
Hollingworth noted that Hendrix was brimming over with plans: “His mind is six months pregnant with ideas.” The creation of a big band that he could conduct and write for and incorporating classical music were among Jimi’s new ambitions. “I dig Strauss and Wagner — those cats are good, and I think that they are going to form the background of my music. Floating in the sky above it will be blues — I’ve still got plenty of blues — and then there will be western sky music, and sweet opium music — you’ll have to bring your own opium, and these will be mixed together to form one.”
Hendrix pondered his concerns and shared such thoughts as he tried to loosen up with fellow musicians in the glacial blackness at Afton — a hill by the Freshwater village on the Isle of Wight — on that newborn Monday morning, August 31st. He loped about backstage taking it all in, the big fires, candlelit faces, cider, joss sticks, and so many different smells — the rich loamy soil, grass (both kinds), piss, shit, vomit, hotdogs and body odor. It was a freakish moment of anticipation. The sheer volume of numbers was pressing, compressing — electric shock treatment for the nerves.
“A lot of us hung out at night by the campfires backstage at Isle of Wight,” reported artist Ford Crull, then 17 and a stage hand. “Jimi and Miles Davis were around one, talking about working together — my friend heard them. Jimi wanted to be taken seriously as a musician. He didn’t want to play the guitar with his teeth… I think his handlers were almost forcing him to cash in, and he wanted off.”
It finally began — the slow start. Ronnie and I, stressed out by too many delays, began to breathe again. Six numbers in, after “Lover Man,” and Jimi was at last in his stride and he re-introduced himself. “OK, we’re gonna start all over again. How’ya doin’ England? Glad to see you. We’ll do this thing called ‘Freedom’.”
“Suddenly there was life on the stage,” proclaimed Melody Maker. “Yes they were going to play some music! And Jimi proved why he was one of the all-time greats, to coin a phrase, by some superb blues playing. The miracle and magic worked towards the end of his two-hour set, with the air of a medley of hits.”
The beautiful, black “fiery angel” appeared gaunt and ragged — more Holy Ghost than high priest, but the other two members of the trio were faring better than the ethereal Jimi. Mitch Mitchell had his drum kit installed up front, plum centre of the stage, just like Keith Moon the previous night, and featured strongly with most of the lighting aimed in his direction. Mitch was dead snazzy, in canary yellow flares, a patterned top with girlish shoulder straps and matching bandana to restrain his crazy blonde locks. He pounded the drums, providing a good deal of the show’s energy. Mitch had drummed for Jimi at Woodstock, but now, slimmed down to a three piece (the five piece at Woodstock included rhythm guitar and bongos), he felt things were looking a lot better.
“The band with Jimi and Billy and myself I’d say from a musical standpoint was the best band that we had with Jimi.” Mitchell’s appeal varied from excellent to dull, depending on how much one appreciated extended drum solos — some of which were due to Jimi disappearing behind the amplifier stacks to check his costume or sound issues (some said for imbibing drugs, but without any evidence or eye witness accounts to support the allegation).
Afro-ed Billy Cox, dressed modestly in a blue-violet shirt and black leathers, stood anchored for the two hours, reliable and dutiful, his solid bass foundation helping to hold the performance together. Cox sensed the crowd to be overwhelming. “It was monstrous. Even though we couldn’t see — it was night time — it was by lights, and more by audio than by video. We heard it. It was humongous. You know, we heard it. I’ve read the specs and they say six hundred thousand people were there. You know Woodstock was three hundred thousand. That’s double Woodstock.”
In contrast to Mitch, Billy — standing on the opposite side of the stage to Jimi — was not well lit. My brother Bill, roaming about with me for a few moments, pointed out that the bass player was barely discernible. Yes it was true, I was struggling to see Billy Cox at all once I began my meander backwards into the crowd. Not that it mattered. Those further away could see nothing. It was sound and spirit that mattered at this late hour.
Sitting anxiously in the press arena was our family dentist, Miles Oldershaw. “I watched with horror, during ‘Foxy Lady,’ as he played the guitar with his teeth, fearing from then on that I would be the one that would shortly be called upon to fix them.”
If Jimi was stressed and hamstrung by the yoke of his fame, including whatever medication came with it, it was a successful and momentous set — a moving showing from the man with the guitar who quit the stage with few words.
“Thank you very much. And peace and happiness and all the other good shit.”
The DJ’s chilling announcement followed all too soon, accompanied by plumes of white smoke. “We have a fire on stage. If there’s any firemen anywhere in the area that could help put the fire out as soon as possible.” My gaze alternated between a search for firefighters and the possible culprits. Nerves jangled to the repeated plea: “Fire on stage, We have a fire on stage. If somebody in the area has any means of getting water on to the stage to put the fire out.”
I rushed over with my heart in my boots, believing, “This is it, a final defeat...” But no sooner had I been gripped by the original announcement when the DJ continued: “Somebody just said it’s only a firework. Well, we did a concert once before like this and someone threw a firework on the stage and the next moment the stage was a wreck.”
The magnesium flare was a marine distress rocket, and the controversy as to who fired it was never resolved. The White Panthers tried to claim the credit, in a half-hearted kind of way. Other suggestions were that it was a Hendrix stunt, which I immediately discounted. It may have been someone celebrating the end of his show, or just someone fooling around with it as a firework that was misdirected and ended up on the stage roof. Anyway, it was quickly extinguished and by the time I arrived at the foot of the smouldering canopy just the pungent smell lingered, as it did for the remaining hours of the festival. Contrary to folklore, there was no fire on stage while Hendrix was performing or even present. As the announcement began, the equipment was already being packed away.
Jimi used his short music career employing technology to break sound barriers in a search of the ultimate experience of musical spirituality. His Electric Church concept postulated that music had the power to hypnotize people, taking them back to their natural state of pure positivity — like children who find ecstasy in the natural world around them. By 1970, the world was an increasingly electrified place and, according to Hendrix, the combination of electricity and music could, if perfectly blended, break down superficial human prejudice.
This in part accounted for Jimi’s avant-garde use of distortion and feedback which he synthesised into a musical whole. His virtuosity became a key to another dimension. The soaring and sighing of that miraculous guitar was transformative. Whether Jimi broke through his spiritual barrier right there in front of my very eyes I can’t say. With my critical limitations and my mind juggling so many problems, I was in no position to judge. But others give their own account.
When Jimi Hendrix came on stage I had been DJing and found myself less than four feet from his Marshall stack. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was the chaos of his equipment failures or maybe it was just the fact that, off form or not, Hendrix was still Hendrix, but I found myself lying on the stage staring up at this wild afro and thinking it can’t get any better than this!
Excerpted from When the World Came to the Isle of Wight, Volume Two: The Last Great Event with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, by Ray Foulk with Caroline Foulk. Available now from Medina Publishing, via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine retailers. Order direct from Media Publishing and save 20% using the promo code MEDINA20 when you check out.
