Excuse me while I Kiss this Guy!

March 31st, 1967, Jimi Hendrix sets fire to his guitar on stage for the first time at London's Astoria Theatre. He is sent to the hospital afterwards for burns on his hands. Management of the Rank Theaters ask him to tone down his stage show (Yesterday was Lord Rank's Birthday, I think it was pretty upsetting to the old guy to have this happen the day after).

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington November 27, 1942 to Al Hendrix and Lucille Jeter & died September 18, 1970 in St. Mary Abbots Hospital, South Kensington, after taking a reported nine vesperax sleeping pills and choking on his own vomit.

Jimi was a shy child, and was deeply affected by his parents' divorce in 1951 & his mother's death in 1958. Raised partly by his Maternal Grandmother, who was part Cherokee who instilled in him a strong sense of pride about his Native American ancestry, and ex-vaudvillian Paternal Grandparents who tought him to play the Ukulele (and you thought I couldn't work a Tiki reference in!) that his father bought him after the death of his mom.

After playing with several local Seattle bands, Hendrix enlisted in the Army, joining the 101st Airborne Division (stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky) as a trainee paratrooper. After less than a year he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle on his 26th parachute jump (Supposedly the sound of air whistling through the parachute shrouds was one of the sources of his "spacy" guitar sound). He then made a he made a precarious living performing in backing bands for touring soul and blues musicians, including Curtis Knight, B. B. King, and Little Richard during 1965. His first notice came from appearances with The Isley Brothers, notably on the song "Testify" in 1964. On October 15, 1965, Hendrix signed a 3-year recording contract with entrepreneur Ed Chalpin, receiving $1 and 1% royalty on records with Curtis Knight (This contract later caused litigation with Hendrix and other record labels). By 1966 he had his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, and a residency at the Cafe Wha? in New York City. During this period Hendrix met and worked with singer-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine and guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, as well as, iconoclastic Frank Zappa. Zappa introduced Hendrix to the newly-invented wah-wah pedal, a sound effect pedal which Hendrix soon made an integral part of his sound and became an acknowledged master. While performing with The Blue Flames at the Cafe Wha?, Chas Chandler (bassist of the The Animals) discovered Hendrix. Chas took him to England, signed Hendrix to a management and production contract as his record producer, and helped him form a new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, with bassist Noel Redding (a Pop/Rock Guitarist who switched instruments when his previous band couldn't find a Bassist) and drummer Mitch Mitchell (a Jazz Drummer). Chas' idea of mixing Rock Bass, Jimi's Blues guitar playing & Jazz Drumming is partly credited with the unique sound & stylistic mixture of early Experience tracks like the melodic ballad "The Wind Cries Mary", pop-rock "Fire", psychedelia "Third Stone from the Sun", blues "Red House", & nearly indescribable "Purple Haze".

After his first few London Club appearences word of his showmanship and dazzling musicianship made instant fans of reigning guitar heroes Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, as well as, members of The Beatles and The Who, whose managers signed Hendrix to The Who's record label, Track Records. Paul McCartney then insisted that The Monterey Pop Festival book The Jimi Hendrix Experience, where his performance, dry humping, burning and smashing of his guitar, was immortalized by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker in the film "Monterey Pop." A short gig, opening for the pop group The Monkees on their first American tour followed the festival, this was used as a media event and Hendrix was quickly "booted off" the tour under the fabricated pretense of complaints made by the Daughters of the American Revolution that his stage conduct was "lewd and indecent" (Chas & Australian journalist Lillian Roxon later admitted this).

Subsequent recordings & performances showed a downhill slide: Jimi's increasing dislike of playing his hit's live, his jelousy of Noel Redding's luck with the ladies & Noel's subsequent firing (they remained friends afterwards, they just couldn't work together anymore), drugs, alcohol & fatigue taking their toll, it was taking more & more takes to try to capture the magic (43 takes for "Gypsy Eyes"? 20 takes of Dave Mason's accoustic part in "All Along the Watchtower"?), more band member hired & subsequently fired, more drugs & alcohol, Chas & later Mitch Mitchell quitting, record companies & management suing each other, etc, etc, spiraling down to the morning when his German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, found him unconsious & couldn't wake him up.

After his death the legal wranglings have continued, and it's only been since the late '90s that the Experience Hendrix company's been able to remaster & reissue many of Jimi's masterworks.

Other Historical Highlights of today are:

• Thomas Mundy Peterson Day - On March 31, 1870, Thomas Mundy Peterson (1824 - 1904) a school custodian from Perth Amboy, New Jersey became the first African-American to vote in an election under the just enacted provisions of the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. He was active in the Republican Party and became the city's first African-American to hold elected office, on the Middlesex County Commission. He was also the city's first "colored" person to serve on a jury.
• 1204 - Eleanor d'Aquitaine, Queen of France and England, Died (b. 1121)
• 1596 - René Descartes, mathematician, philosopher, is Born (d. 1650)
• 1742 - P. D. Q. Bach, Classical composer, is Born (d. 1807)
• 1889 - The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated. Originally built as only a temporary entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, it's importance as a radio transmission station & acknowlegement as an piece of archetectural art have ensured that it would be allowed to remain after it's 20 year building permit expired.
• 1917 - The United States takes possession of the U.S. Virgin Islands after paying $25 million to Denmark, ensuring a continuing supply of VI Rum to thirsty Americans.
• 1922 - Richard Kiley, actor, singer, is Born (d. 1999)
• 1934 - Shirley Jones, singer, actress, is Born. She appeared with Kiley in Oklahoma!
• 1935 - Herb Alpert, musician, is Born
  
• 1945 - Anne Frank, whose world-famous diary was published after WW II, Died of Typhus in the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen (b. 1929)
• 1949 - Bethel Enproe Adam, second Angam Baby, is Born. Angam is the Nauruan word meaning "jubilation","celebration","to have triumphed over all hardships" or "to have reached a set goal" or "coming home". After WWII the people of the Island nation of Nauru had only 400 survivors of the Japanese occupation, and the people had been told that they needed at least 1,500 to survive as a race. On March 31, 1949, the people of Boe celebrated when Bethel Enproe Adam was born to parents Kenye and Clarence Adam.
• 1954 - Edwin Armstrong, electrical engineer, inventor of FM radio, Died
• 1966 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first spaceprobe to enter orbit around the Moon.
• 1970 - Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere (after 12 years in orbit).
• 1980 - Jesse Owens, athlete he participated in the famous 1936 Olympics against the so-called master race, Died (b. 1913)
• 1993 - Actor Brandon Lee is accidentally killed during the filming of The Crow when a prop gun accidentally fired a jammed bullet using a blank cartridge.
• 1998 - Netscape gives the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement, thus creating Mozilla Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation to oversee the development of Mozilla.

Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Freelance, Ph.D., D.F.S

[ Edited by: freddiefreelance on 2005-03-31 08:55 ]

On 2005-03-31 08:54, freddiefreelance wrote:
1935 - Herb Alpert, musician, is Born

and there was great rejoicing.

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Wow, Dawn, that was awesome. I can't believe I've never seen that!!!

thank you, cough cough, arghdamncold,

tikivixen