Category Archives: Peace Love Art and Activism

April COVID 19 Trump

April COVID 19 Trump

This is the third post regarding President Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are links to the first and the second.

I have also posted chronologies about the pandemic in general. Here are links to the first and the second and third of those.

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump Diverts

April 1: CNN reported that President Donald Trump had made another series of false, misleading or dubious claims at a  coronavirus briefing that began with an off-topic discussion of his administration’s efforts to fight drug trafficking.

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump Claims U.S. Testing Most Per Capita

April 2: Trump again said that “nobody” could have foreseen a pandemic crisis leading to a shortage of ventilators, for which there were numerous warnings. He predicted that the virus would no longer be a concern after about a month, a timeline at odds with assessments of experts. And he implied some states are basically fine when it comes to the coronavirus.

During his  briefing with the coronavirus task force, President Trump repeated a claim that the United States has done more testing for the contagion on a per-capita basis than any other country.

“We’re now conducting well over 100,000 coronavirus tests per day,” Trump said. “It’s over 100,000 tests a day. And these are accurate tests, and they’re moving rapidly, which is more than any other country in the world, both in terms of the raw number and also on a per-capita basis, the most.”

Given the population of the U.S. (about 327 million), that’s roughly one in every 273 people, as of April 2.

South Korea, with its population of 51.5 million, has done 431,743 tests, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s approximately one in every 119 people.

Germany had tested about one-in-90 people — 918,460 with a population of 82.8 million. Germany also happens to have one of the lowest fatality rates from COVID-19.

With 581,232 tests conducted, according to the Italian health ministry, and a population of roughly 60.5 million, Italy’s testing per capita is on par with South Korea — about one in every 104.

April COVID 19 Trump

2019 BioDefense Summit

On April 3, 2020 CNN reported that at the at the BioDefense Summit in April 2019, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Tim Morrison, then a special assistant to the President and senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense on the National Security Council said, “Of course, the thing that people ask: ‘What keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world?’ Pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room probably shares that concern,” Azar said, before listing off efforts to mitigate the impact of flu outbreaks.

Such a statement undercut President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the coronavirus pandemic was an unforeseen problem.

April COVID 19 Trump

C.D.C. says all Americans should wear masks.

Trump says he won’t.

April 3: President Trump said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was urging all Americans to wear a mask when they leave their homes, but he undercut the message by repeatedly calling the recommendation voluntary and saying he would not wear one himself.

“With the masks, it is going to be a voluntary thing,” the president said at the beginning of the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House. “You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it. It may be good. It is only a recommendation, voluntary.”

“Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens — I don’t know,” he added, though he stopped receiving foreign dignitaries weeks ago. “Somehow, I just don’t see it for myself.” [NYT article]

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump Continues  to Promote Dubious Treatments

April 3: NPR reported that President Trump continued to claim that hydroxychloroquine was a promising treatment for COVID-19.

“Hydroxychloroquine, I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s looking like it’s having some good results. I hope that, that would be a phenomenal thing.”

But the clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine had just recently started, and the scientists in charge of them have not reported any results as yet, either positive or negative. Seeing any positive effect from the drug is likely to take some time, perhaps weeks.

April COVID 19 Trump

Surge yet…

April 4: the NY Times reported that President Trump predicted a surging death toll in what he said may be “the toughest week” of the coronavirus pandemic before also dispensing unproven medical advice. He suggested again that Americans might be able to congregate for Easter services next Sunday.

“There will be a lot of death,” he said at the White House, where he and other American officials depicted some parts of the United States as climbing toward the peaks of their crises, while warning that new hot spots were emerging in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Washington, D.C.

April COVID 19 Trump

What do you have to lose?

April 5: NPR reported that President Trump doubled down on the suggestion that people facing the coronavirus should consider taking an anti-malaria drug that has not been proven to be an effective treatment.

In a news conference he repeated a line he has said many times before — “what do you have to lose?” — when detailing that the federal government had stockpiled 29 million doses of hydroxychloroquine for potential use to treat the virus. He also suggested doctors take the drug before treating coronavirus patients.

What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose? And a lot of people are saying that when … and are taking it, if you’re a doctor, a nurse, a first responder, a medical person going into hospitals, they say taking it before the fact is good, but what do you have to lose? They say, take it, I’m not looking at it one way or the other, but we want to get out of this. If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn’t do it early. But we have some very good signs. So that’s hydroxy chloroquine and as azithromycin, and again, you have to go through your medical people get the approval. But I’ve seen things that I sort of like, so what do I know? I’m not a doctor, I’m not a doctor, but I have common sense. [full transcript]

April COVID 19 Trump

White House official warned in January that a pandemic could imperil millions of Americans.

April 7: the NY Times reported that Peter Navarro had warned in a memo to Trump administration officials on January 29 that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.

“The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,” Navarro’s memo said. “This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

The memo came during a period when Mr. Trump was playing down the risks to the United States. He later went on to say that no one could have predicted such a devastating outcome.

In one worst-case scenario cited in the memo, more than a half-million Americans could die.

April 7: Trump criticized the WHO for mishandling the pandemic. “The WHO really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China-centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately, I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?” [NPR timeline]

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump weakens oversight

April 7: President Trump moved to oust Glenn A. Fine of the new Pandemic Response Accountability Committee charged with overseeing how the administration spent trillions of taxpayer dollars in coronavirus pandemic relief.

Fine had been the acting inspector general for the Defense Department since before Trump had taken office and was set to become the chairman of the new committee to police how the government carries out the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, but Trump replaced Mr. Fine in his Pentagon job, disqualifying him from serving on the new oversight panel. [NYT article]

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump/WHO contradiction

The NY  Times reported that President Trump threatened to cut funding from the World Health Organization, accusing it of not being aggressive enough in confronting the dangers from the virus.
“We’re going to put a hold on money spent to the W.H.O.,”  Trump said.
In fact,  on January 30  the W.H.O. officially declared COVID a  “public health emergency of international concern.”weeks before Trump declared a national emergency. In fact, on that same day, Trump said, “We think we have it very well under control.”
April COVID 19 Trump

Kayleigh McEnany

April 7: Kayleigh McEnany replaced Stephanie Grisham as the White House press secretary, a position that had become a titular one. Grisham left without ever having briefed the press.
In a video of McEnany on the Fox Business show “Trish Regan Primetime” from Feb. 25, circulated by Andrew Kaczynski of CNN, the new press secretary said, “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here, and isn’t that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?”
April COVID 19 Trump

Chloroquine Study Halted

April 13: the NY Times reported that a small study of chloroquine, which is closely related to the hydroxychloroquine drug that President Trump has promoted, was halted in Brazil after coronavirus patients taking a higher dose developed irregular heart rates that increased their risk of a potentially fatal arrhythmia.

The study, which involved 81 hospitalized patients in the city of Manaus, was sponsored by the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Roughly half the participants were prescribed 450 milligrams of chloroquine twice daily for five days, while the rest were prescribed 600 milligrams for 10 days.

Within three days, researchers started noticing heart arrhythmias in patients taking the higher dose. By the sixth day of treatment, 11 patients had died, leading to an immediate end to the high-dose segment of the trial.

April COVID 19 Trump

Unkept Promises

On March 13, President Trump declared a national emergency and in a Rose Garden address, flanked by leaders from giant retailers and medical testing companies, he promised a mobilization of public and private resources to attack the coronavirus.
On April 13, NPR reported that few of those promises had come to pass.
  • Target did not partner with the federal government.
  • A lauded Google project turned out to not to be led by Google at all, but by Verily and then once launched was limited to a smattering of counties in California. According to Verily, there were not 1,700 engineers ever engaged in the project.
  • The president  had said there were 1,700 Google engineers working on it,
  • the retailers had not yet initiated any wide-scale implementation of drive-through tests.  Walmart had opened two testing sites — one in the Chicago area and another in Bentonville, Ark. Walgreens had opened two in Chicago; CVS has opened four sites. Target had not opened any.
  • Home testing kits were promised. NPR called more than 20 LHC sites in 12 states, and none of them were doing in-home testing. Employees at the LHC sites said they lacked both testing kits and the training to administer kits.
  • The president had said he would waive license requirements so that doctors could practice in states with the greatest needs, for example. But medical licensing is a state issue, and the president does not have the authority to waive it.
  • The president had announced that his administration would “purchase, at a very good price, large quantities of crude oil for storage in the U.S. Strategic Reserve.” It had not done so.
April COVID 19 Trump

Trump fights back

April 13: the NY Times reported that President Trump turned  the daily coronavirus task force briefing into an aggressive defense of his own halting response to the pandemic and used a campaign-style video to denounce criticism that he moved too slowly to limit the deadly spread of the virus.

For nearly an hour, Mr. Trump vented his frustration after weekend news reports that his own public health officials were prepared by late February to recommend aggressive social distancing measures, but that the president did not announce them until several weeks later — a crucial delay that allowed the virus to spread.

In an article on the same meeting, NPR reported that Trump declined to specify exactly when he expected to see restrictions eased on the American public but offered that he expected full cooperation from states, following guidelines from his task force. That statement was in contrast to the fact that several governors had banded together to coordinate easing their restrictions as groups.

“The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful,” Trump said. “The president of the United States calls the shots.” (see April 16 below)

April COVID 19 Trump

April 14: the NY Times reported that recent polls had show that more Americans disapproved of  President Trump’s handling of the virus than approve.

On this date, the president tried to shift the blame elsewhere, ordered his administration to halt funding for the World Health Organization and claimed the organization had made a series of devastating mistakes as it sought to battle the virus. He said his administration would conduct a review into whether the W.H.O. was responsible for “severely mismanaging and covering up” the spread.

“So much death has been caused by their mistakes,” the president told reporters during a White House briefing.

António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, defended the World Health Organization, saying it “must be supported, as it is absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against Covid-19.”

Guterres added that it was “possible that the same facts have had different readings by different entities,” but he said that the middle of a pandemic was not the time to resolve those differences.

“It is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus,” he said.

Patrice A. Harris, the president of the American Medical Association, said that the move was “a dangerous step in the wrong direction.” [2nd NYT article]

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump walk-back

April 16: though having said on April 13 that “the president of the United States calls the shots,” on this date, the President essentially ceded control over easing restrictions to the states.

“We are not opening all at once, but one careful step at a time,” Trump told reporters during a briefing at the White House.

In the hours before Trump spoke, the $349 billion fund for small businesses ran out of money and a new labor report revealed that 22 million Americans had filed for unemployment in just the last month. Basic necessities like food, shelter and medical care, long taken for granted by most people, were suddenly at risk for millions.[NY Times article]

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump’s Saturday coronavirus briefing was littered with false claims, old and new

April 18: CNN reported that President Donald Trump’s coronavirus press conference was littered with false claims about the pandemic crisis.

  • Trump continued to favorably compare the coronavirus testing situation in the US to the situation in other countries. He alleged that Democratic governors are deliberately not using testing capacity the federal government has created — and suggested that the only governors “complaining” about testing challenges are Democrats.

But…

CNN: There is no evidence that any governor is deliberately not using available testing capacity. And it’s not only Democratic governors who have spoken of problems and challenges with testing. Governors from both parties, and public health officials around the country, have warned that they are still unable to do the amount of testing needed to safely lift social and economic restrictions.

  • Trump repeated one of his go-to falsehoods that he often uses to defend his administration’s fumbled response to the coronavirus pandemic. “In speaking to the leaders of other countries this morning, they said this is incredible the way you’ve done this so quickly,” Trump said, without naming any foreign officials. “You know, we’re only talking about a few weeks since everybody knew this was such a big problem.

CNN: Trump is on an island with this one. Not only have there been multiple warnings about America’s vulnerability to a pandemic over the past few years, but Trump’s own government issued numerous warnings since the beginning of this year about the potential severity of the coronavirus.

  •  President Trump repeated his claim that he inherited a “bare cupboard” of medical supplies to fight coronavirus from the Obama administration. “We started off with a broken system. We inherited a broken, terrible system. And I always say it, our cupboards were bare. We had very little in our stockpile. Now we’re loaded up.

CNN: Trump’s argument has some truth to it, but it’s also somewhat misleading. While Trump isn’t wrong to suggest he inherited a depleted stockpile of some medical supplies — the stockpile of masks, for example, was depleted and not replenished by the Obama administration — the cupboards were not completely “bare”; he inherited significant quantities of other supplies. And Trump had three years in office to build depleted stockpiles back up.

  • Speaking about testing for the coronavirus, Trump said, “I inherited broken junk.”

CNN: The faulty initial test for the coronavirus was created during Trump’s administration in early 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since this is a new virus that was first identified this year, the bad tests couldn’t possibly be “inherited.”

  • In addition to claiming President Obama left him with a depleted stockpile of medical supplies, Trump said Obama left him with “no ammunition.” “If you remember when I first came in, we didn’t have ammunition,” Trump said. “Not a good way to fight a war. President Obama left us no ammunition, OK.

CNN: It’s not true that the US had “no ammunition” at the beginning of Trump’s presidency. Rather, according to the public comments of military leaders, there was a shortfall in certain kinds of munitions, particularly precision-guided bombs, late in the Obama presidency and early in the Trump presidency.

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump/Immigration/COVID

Close borders

April 20, 2020: President Trump announced a plan to close the United States to people trying to come to the country to live and work. He justified the drastic move as a necessary step to protect American workers from foreign competition once the nation’s economy begins to recover from the shutdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”

Not quite close borders

April 21: the NYT reported that the Trump administration announced new restrictions on permanent residency in the United States.

The President said  that he would order a temporary halt in issuing green cards to prevent people from immigrating to the United States, but he backed away from plans to suspend guest worker programs,

April COVID 19 Trump

Science Not Politics Dismissal

April 22: the NY Times reported that Rick Bright, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, the federal involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine said that he was removed from his post after he pressed for rigorous vetting of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug embraced by President Trump as a coronavirus treatment, and that the administration had put “politics and cronyism ahead of science.”

Bright was abruptly dismissed this week and removed as the deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response. He was given a narrower job at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Bright, who received a Ph.D. in immunology and molecular pathogenesis from Emory University, assailed the leadership at the health department, saying he was pressured to direct money toward hydroxychloroquine, one of several “potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections” and repeatedly described by the president as a potential “game changer” in the fight against the virus.

“I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the Covid-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit,” he said in his statement. “I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science — not politics or cronyism — has to lead the way.”

April COVID 19 Trump

Trump Quackery

April COVID 19 Trump

April 23: the NY Times reported that after William N. Bryan, the head of science at the Department of Homeland Security, told the day’s briefing that the government had tested how sunlight and disinfectants — including bleach and alcohol — can kill the coronavirus on surfaces in as little as 30 seconds, the President said, ““Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but we’re going to test it? And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, either through the skin or some other way.”

Shortly after Mr. Trump made his latest comments, emergency management officials in Washington State posted a warning on Twitter against following the president’s suggestions.

April 24: in Maryland, so many callers flooded a health hotline with questions that the state’s Emergency Management Agency had to issue a warning that “under no circumstances” should any disinfectant be taken to treat the coronavirus.

In New Jersey, Dr. Diane P. Calello, the medical director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System, warned in an interview that injecting bleach or highly concentrated rubbing alcohol “causes massive organ damage and the blood cells in the body to basically burst…(and that) it can definitely be a fatal event.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Hendrix Before Jimi

Or, God Bless Linda Keith

It was likely 1967 when we American listeners first heard the then 24-year-old guitarist called Jimi Hendrix. For some, we’d never heard rock played quite that way. And we would never have believed that we would only have three years before he would leave us.

Like all legends, there was a prequel. This post will try to fill in some of Jimi’s story before he became Jimi.

And many thanks to Philip Norman’s biography of Hendrix: Wild Thing: The Short, Spellbinding Life of Jimi Hendrix. The book provided an invaluable outline for this post.

Buster

James Allen Hendrix, known as Al, met Lucille Jeter. in Seattle. Al and Lucille married on March 31, 1942.  World War II had already begun and three days later Al was shipped off to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for basic training.

Lucille gave birth to a son on November 27, 1942. She named him Johnny Allen Hendrix.  When he returned from the Pacific, Al worried that perhaps Johnny wasn’t his having had received anonymous letters suggesting infidelity on Lucille’s part.

Al  changed Johnny’s name to James Marshall Hendrix, but the youngster later preferred the name Buster. He loved the action movie hero actor Buster Crabbe and wanted that name.

Buster remained Buster until he entered  Washington Middle School (Seattle, WA).  There he became Jimmy.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Early Bands

After years of begging and “playing guitar” on a broom and on a one-stringed ukulele, Dad Al finally bought an actual guitar for his 12-year-old son. Despite the left-handed Buster having to play  the right-handed instrument “upside down,” the guitar (and there were many!) encompassed the rest ofJimmy’s life.

He joined a band called the Velvetones. In 1959 he joined the Rocking Kings; then Thomas and the Tomcats.

In 1948, Ray Charles had moved from Tampa, Florida to Seattle, Washington because he wanted to get as far away from Tampa as possible. It was in Seattle that Charles was “discovered” and he always had a fond spot for the city.

He was performing there in early 1960 and needed some backup players. Jimmy Hendrix was one of those selected.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Army

In October 1960, Jimmy dropped out of high school and shortly afterwards ran into some legal issues and the judge offered him jail-time or the Army. Jimmy chose the Army, specifically the 101st Airborne Division where he found the challenges both exciting and unnecessary. He was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

He eventually had his guitar with him, of course, and also met Billy Cox. Together they formed the Kasuals and performed locally in their free time. Hendrix’s Army time was too limiting for his play time and by July 1962 he was discharged, honorably, basically for being unfit for the Army.

Hendrix Before Jimi

King Kasuals/Marbles

Cox left the Army (on time) a few months later and together they formed the King Kasuals and lived in Clarksville, Tennessee.   They met Larry Lee there.  Of course, the three would later be on stage at Woodstock.

Others saw his dedication to practicing guitar to be more of an obsession and nicknamed him “Marbles” as in, losing his marbles.

Hendrix Before Jimi

First recording session

It was at this time that Hendrix was  first hired as a session musician. Billy Cox was able to arrange a recording job through a friend, DJ and music producer Bill “Hoss” Allen for Clarence “Frogman” Henry.

Cox and Jimmy did the gig, got paid, and went back to being struggling musicians. Nothing was heard about it again until the mid-90s when Allen asked Cox if he knew what had happened to the recordings? Cox said he didn’t, but told Allen who he might contact.

In a 2017 Facebook post, Cox wrote, “Hoss went off to investigate. He later came back and told me, with mournful–regret: “I can’t believe it. I erased all the tracks that Jimi played on and replaced him because I thought Jimi was playing too loud. I erased millions of dollars!….” I could feel his pain….

Hendrix Before Jimi

Vancouver

Nora Rose Moore

Though Jimmy had a limited relationship with his grandmother, Nora Rose Moore, he loved her and loved being with her.

Frustrated with his lack of success, he visited Nora in Vancouver in December 1962. He joined Bobby Taylor and he Vancouvers, though they already had a lead guitarist, a Tommy Chong. Chong would later leave music and become a far better known comedian and nowadays a cannabis entrepreneur. Chong says that Taylor knew Hendrix, but that Hendrix didn’t play in the band. Hendrix Haze.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Chitlin’ Circuit

Hendrix Before Jim

By early 1963, Jimmy was back in the states, Nashville, Tennessee specifically. He rejoined Billy Cox and the King Kasuals, which later included Larry Lee.

That didn’t last long and with some reluctance, Jimmy joined Cox and Lee on the informal Chitlin’ Circuit.  The extreme segregation that existed, Black musicians had to find venues that would allow them to play.

Jimmy was reluctant because although the Circuit could offer steady work, the accommodations, travel conditions, low pay and living conditions far from comfortable.

Their job was with Bob Fisher and the Bonnevilles who were backing the Marvelettes and the Impressions with Curtis Mayfield.

Jimi would later say, ““The best gig was working with Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions. Curtis was a really good guitarist…I learned quite a lot in that short time. He probably influenced me more than anyone I’d ever played with up to that time” 

Hendrix Before Jimi

Many Bands

Eventually Lee and Cox left the circuit. Jimmy stayed and played for a number of bands: Chuck JacksonCarla Thomas, Slim Harpo, Tommy Tucker, Jerry Butler, and Marion James.

From the wings, he observed (and learned) such luminaries as Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and Otis Redding.

Hendrix eventually joined Solomon Burke‘s band, but his tardiness, scene-stealing style, and general lack of cooperation led to repeated dismissals.

Burke traded him to Otis Redding, but Redding tossed him for the same reasons and Jimmy returned to Nashville.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Isley Brothers & 1964

In January 1964, Jimmy left for New York City. Shortly after his arrival, he entered the amatur night at the Apollo and won first prize: $25. It filled an empty wallet.

Though his work ethic didn’t fit with most band’s rules, his reputation guitar prowess was always his saviour, however temporarily.

The Isley Brothers not only hired him, the first bought him a guitar case (for his earlier guitar carrier, think Chuck Berry and his gunny sack) and then a much better guitar.

Testify

He entered a recording studio for the second time with the Brothers and played on their 2-sided 6-minute “Testify.” And this recording, we have.

C’mon and Swim

And he played on Bobby Freeman‘s “C’mon and Swim.”

Mercy Mercy

And Don Covay and the Goodtimers “Mercy Mercy.”

Hendrix Before Jimi

Little Richard stint

Meanwhile, Jimmy leaves, quits, or is fired from the Isley Brothers. and tours with Gorgeous George. While the band was in Washington, DC, Jimmy missed the bus and was left. Luckily, Little Richard happened to show up with his Upsetters. Jimmy stretched a story about Seattle that appealed to Richard and Jimmy was an Upsetter.

While in LA with the band, Jimmy met Rosa Lee Brooks. Like most women Jimmy met, he told her that she reminded him of his mother and they were an item.

She recorded Love group Arthur Lee‘s “My Diary” with Jimmy on guitar.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Maurice James

It was 1965 and Jimmy Hendrix decided he would be Maurice James. He quit/was fired from the Upsetters and rejoined the Isley Brothers.

But from the “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him” Department, they fired him and Maurice rejoined Little Richard.

In July 1965, Maurice was on TV for the first time playing behind Buddy and Stacey on “Shotgun. on Nashville’s WLAC Channel 5 television show Night Train.

Shotgun

Homeboy

Now switching between Maurice James, Jimmy James, and Jimmy Jim, Hendric recorded for Mr. Wiggles (aka, Dickie Diamond,  aka  August Moon, aka Alexander  Randolph) on his Homeboy single

How Would You Feel

Next came whatever-his-name was playing for Curtis Knight on a Bob Dylan inspired “How Would You Feel. “

As the Clouds Drift By

And he also backed Jayne Mansfield on her “As the Clouds Drift By,” but the production hides his guitar.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Curtis Knight > Joey Dee

from the Joey Dee site

Toward the end of 1965, Jimmy left Curtis and joined Joey Dee  and the Starlighters on their country-wide tour. He would quit before Christmas. The routine was just too formal and so boring.

Enter Linda Keith

Diane Carpenter

It was January 1966 and Jimmy James was back in New York.  The broke musician sent a postcard to his dad writing:   “everything’s so-so in this big, raggedy city of New York. Everything’s happening bad here.”

He’d met the equally downtrodden 16-year-old Diane Carpenter  and they moved in together. She earned what she could as a sex worker, but became pregnant by Jimmy and moved home to Minneapolis. On February 11, 1967 give birth to a daughter, Tamika Laurice James, today, Tamika Laurice James Hendrix.

Linda

In May 1966, Jimmy was back with Curtis Knight again playing some gigs at the Cheetah, a small club on Broadway and West 53rd St.

Linda Keith was a model. Her career had begun in 1964 when she was 18 and delivering mail at Vogue House. Her first assignment was to model for hats for a spread in the ‘Observer’.

Her best friend, Sheila Klein, was dating (and later married) Andrew Oldham, the Rolling Stones’ manager. Through him, she met  Keith Richards. They had a shared interest in music and became romantically involved. She began accompanying the band to their US tours despite Oldham’s rules of no wives or girlfriends on these tours.

The  Stones was about to start their US tour in Lynn, Massachusetts on June 24.  Linda Keith had come on her own and stayed with a well-to-do friend Roberta Goldstein who was living with Mark Hoffman.

They Spent the Night Together

One night Linda and Roberta decided to take a walk and ended up at the Cheetah.  Linda was astounded by Jimmy’s skill and invited him back to Mark’s apartment.  Even after Roberta and Mark retired for the night, Jimmy and Linda talked and played records through the night. She asked him why he didn’t sing? He felt his voice would never measure up to the great singers he’d played with such as Otis Redding.

She asked him if he’d listened to Bob Dylan’s voice and played his “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.”  She also asked him if he’d like some acid? Though he’d heard of LSD and didn’t think he’d ever use it. At first, he didn’t even know what she meant by acid.

He did try it and had a so-so experience.

Jimmy James and the Blue Flames

Being a part of the music scene meant Jimmy ran into a lot of fellow musicians. One of them was Richie Havens who recommended Jimmy try getting work at the Cafe Wha?

Manny Roth, its manager hired Jimmy. After the first night, his guitar was stolen. Linda Keith came to the rescue and loaned Jimmy Keith Richards’ white Fender Stratocaster.

To make a band, Jimmy found two other players: 15-year-old Randy Wolf and 18-year-old Jeff Baxter.  Randy would later become Randy California and help found the band Spirit. Baxter played with many bands including Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers, as well as Spirit.

The band did many covers such as the Troggs’ Wild Thing, Wilson Pickett’s In the Midnight Hour, the McCoys’ Hang On Sloopy, and Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone.

Jimmy also met others such as John Hammond, Jr, Robbie Robertson, became friendly with Bob Dylan, and Pete Kearney of the Fugs who made a fuzz box for Jimmy.

Red House

The always out-of-money Jimmy sometimes stayed at Mark Hoffman’s apartment which Jimmy nicknamed Red House because of its bright red wallpaper.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Jim

Roberta Goldstein’s father owned a hotel in the Catskills and during the summer of 1966, she invited Jim (another name adjustment) to visit. He did.

On July 28, the Stones tour ended and the band was in New York to visit. Linda pitched Hendrix to their manager Oldham.  He watched and was impressed. So impressed he was worried. Would having such a talent be toxic to his star band? Brian Jones, the band’s leader and guitarist, didn’t need such a threat. Linda, still Keith’s girlfriend, and Jimmy seemed too close.

Oldham declined.

Seymour Stein of Sire Records listened and watched. He didn’t go for all Jim’s fuzz and distortion.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Enter the Animals

The Animals rode the coattails of the Beatles British invasion with their interpretation of the American blues classic, House of the Rising Sun.

In 1966 they were opening for another British band, Herman’s Hermits. Money disagreements put the band on the verge of breaking up and the tour would be the last of the original group.

Chas Chandler

Hendrix Before Jimi

Chas Chandler was the band’s bassist and he’d decided to pursue production.

On August 2, after the Animals played on Cape Cod , they flew back to New York City. Chandler met Linda Keith  at a club called Ondine‘s. She told him about Hendrix.  The next day, Chandler went to the Cafe Wah? to listen.

Linda took him for a afternoon for two reasons: 1) that Jimmy wouldn’t be distracted, and 2) fewer customers would be there to recognize and distract the well-known Animal bassist.

One of the songs Jimmy played was “Hey Joe,” his “Hey Joe” as the song had been worked and reworked a couple of times by others.

Chandler immediately offered to manage Jimmy and Jimmy, despite some reservations, immediately accepted.

Reservations

Chandler explained that Jimmy would be coming to the UK alone, not with his Flames. It would be all new territory for Jimmy.

In the meantime, others in New York began to jump on and jump off the Hendrix bandwagon.

Amazing guitarist Mike Bloomfield was thoroughly impressed, but famed producer John Hammond  (already discoverer of Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Mike Bloomfield, Pete Seeger, and later Bruce Springsteen) listened and was not impressed.

Hendrix Before Jimi

September 24, 1966

Chas Chandler knew his skills in management limited and asked Mike Jeffrey, the Animals’ manager and a man with many ties, skills, strengths, and legal shenanigans, to help out.

Jeffrey said yes.

On September 24, 1966 Jimi Hendrix arrived in London  without a work permit, little money, but more skill on the guitar and showmanship with it (as Eric Clapton for example, would soon see) than any of the British rock guitar icons Jimi admired.

Hendrix Before Jimi

Still I’m Gonna’ Miss You

Suspecting fire where there wasn’t even any smoke and still in love, Keith Richards broke up with Linda Keith whose father had already dragged her back to London because of the “black junkie” he’d heard Hendrix was.

Keith, with help from Brian Jones, would wrote an ode to Linda. They recorded it in November. It became the band’s fourth number-one hit in the United States on March 4, 1967.

Ruby Tuesday
She would never say where she came from
Yesterday don’t matter if it’s gone
While the sun is bright
Or in the darkest night
No one knows, she comes and goes
Goodbye Ruby Tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I’m gonna miss you

Thank you Linda

The 2013 film  All is by My Side, starring OutKast’s André Benjamin as Hendrix and the British actress Imogen Poots as Linda shows Linda’s role in Hendrix’s life, while he was still performing as Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Director John Ridley told the New York Times he had been inspired by an obscure, late-career Hendrix recording called “Send My Love to Linda” and “the emotional velocity” of this pivotal but little-known chapter in Hendrix’s emergence as a rock star. [Guardian article] [NYT article]

screenshot from the trailer for “Jimi Hendrix — Hear My Train a Comin'” film
Hendrix Before Jimi

1967 Vancouver Be In

1967 Vancouver Be In

1967 Vancouver Be In

March 26, 1967

Ton of feathers vs ton of steel

There is the old riddle that asks: What weighs more: a ton of steel or a ton of feathers?

The initial thought for many is that of course a ton of steel weighs more, but allow a few more moments of thought and we realize that a ton is a ton. They weigh the same.

The 1960s had so many iconic counter-cultural events that it’s easy to think of them as the only ones, but there were many smaller and so lesser known events that together also weigh in on that tumultuous decade’s happenings.

1967 Vancouver Be In

San Francisco Human Be-In

On January 14, 1967 the Human Be-In was held in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. It was a prelude to San Francisco’s Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and introduced the word “psychedelic” to suburbia. Timothy Leary proclaimed his famed advice that day: Turn on, tune in, and drop out.

While instantaneous social media did not exist in 1967, news found its way around, of course and Vancouver resident Jamie Reid asked the Vancouver Park Board to have a Human Be-In on Easter. The Board turned down the request.

Reid said that the Boards refusal will not prevent young people from coming anyway. He told the Vancouver Sun:

I haven’t any control over whether a number of people will still choose to go down to the park on Sunday. This is just another of those repressive things against young people. Fifty per cent of the population of Vancouver is under 25 and they’re not allowed any outlets. No wonder they are protesting.”

1967 Vancouver Be In

Easter

And so on March 26, Easter, the Vancouver Human-Be in spontaneously happened. San Francisco had had twenty thousand, perhaps thirty thousand attend. About a thousand came to Vancouver’s event.

The Sun reported, The hippies and the teeny-boppers gathered in Ceperley picnic area near Second Beach from one to seven p.m. and danced to the god of love.

And that They flew kites, sniffed incense, munched little frozen apples, burned joss sticks and stood in groups talking about how they hate hate.

Sun photographer Ken Oakes took many pictures that can be seen via this link.

1967 Vancouver Be In

Country Joe

Country Joe had recently played other nearby venues and stuck around to play some more along with local bands Painted Ship and the Fabulous Sensations.

And so Vancouver added another feather to the growing path that led to Max Yasgur’s field in Bethel, NY.

1967 Vancouver Be In