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Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

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Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

May 21, 1967
Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Jimmy Who?

I doubt any of us know that on May 21, 1967 Reprise Records signed a guy named Jimi Hendrix. Would we have even known the name Jimi Hendrix in May 1967?

An American kid from Seattle who’d joined the Army not so much out of a sense of patriotism, but an alternative to jail. That hadn’t gone well, but he made a friend with Billy Cox.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Apollo Theater amateur

That in 1964 he’d won first prize in an Apollo Theatre amateur contest or that he’d worked with the Isley Brothers, Rosa Lee Brooks, Little Richard, or Curtis Knight?

Maybe you saw him (accidentally?) as Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in Greenwich Village when Jimi decided he needed to be himself, not a back up guitarist.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

NYC Unknown

You may know now, but didn’t know then, that Keith Richard’s girlfriend Linda saw him playing in New York and recommended Hendrix to Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones’ manager. Oldham declined.

One did accept. Some of you do know that it was the Animals’ bassist Chas Chandler who was leaving the Animals and looking to produce did think Hendrix was a good choice, particularly for the song “Hey Joe.”

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Chas Chandler

Chandler brought Hendrix to the UK and from that point the road to fame was relatively short. In no time Hendrix was impressing people. We might find that an understatement. How could he not have impressed. Keep in mind, “we” here State-side weren’t that impressed and an English woman had to convince a second English man the Hendrix had great talent.

Chandler helped Hendrix form the Experience and in the fall of 1966 they began dates and recording singles. “Hey Joe” and “Purple Haze” did OK in the UK. In March 1967, Hendrix, in a way to “enhance” his stage performance, upped the guitar-smashing of  Pete Townshend to guitar-burning.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

UK Are You Experienced?

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

On May 12, 1967 the Are You Experienced album was released in the UK. It did very well and missed being the #1 album only because another album did better. Some album called Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

And that’s what we were all listening to this side of the pond.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Hey Joe?

As referenced above, Reprise Records signed Hendrix on May 21, 1967. The single “Hey Joe” failed to chart here!

Luckily one of the band members, a Paul McCartney, from that Beatles group strongly recommended Hendrix to the Mamas and the Papas who were helping to organize The Monterey International Jazz and Pop Festival. His legendary performance there that June 18 left mouths literally agape and in mesmerized wonder.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

US Are You Experienced?

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix

Reprise released the US version of Are You Experienced  on August 23 and Hendrix finally made his Billboard splash.

Richie Unterberger’s All Music review begins with, “One of the most stunning debuts in rock history, and one of the definitive albums of the psychedelic era. On Are You Experienced?, Jimi Hendrix synthesized various elements of the cutting edge of 1967 rock into music that sounded both futuristic and rooted in the best traditions of rock, blues, pop, and soul. It was his mind-boggling guitar work, of course, that got most of the ink, building upon the experiments of British innovators like Jeff Beck and Pete Townshend to chart new sonic territories in feedback, distortion, and sheer volume. “

He became the biggest rock and roll star of his time playing gig after gig, festival after festival.

But there would be a new member of the “27 Club.”

Three years and 26 days later after the release of his US album, Hendrix would be gone.

Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix
Greenwood Cemetery in Renton, Washington
Reprise Signs Jimi Hendrix
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Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

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Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

MKULTRA

The popular series Stranger Things may seem like another interesting fictional suggestion that there are secret government secret programs unleash terror upon peaceful law-abiding citizens, but MKULTRA was an actual program.

Army Kool Aid Acid Tests

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

MKULTRA

When it came to drug experimentation, the Feds were no slouches. The CIA program had its secret and illegal MKULTRA program that went on from 1953 to 1964. It tested subjects at over 80 institutions, many of which were fronts funded by the government and filtered to schools, private hospitals and even a jails. (Army Acid Test).

It had existed under previous names such as Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke. One of MKULTA’s goals was to develop a robot-like assassin, a real-life “Manchurian Candidate.”

On one level, the drug program hoped to achieve a simple drug protocol to effortlessly get Soviet spies to “spill their guts.” The means toward that end were typically illegal.

Director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Stansfield M. Turner, wrote a letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which that Committee released in 1977. In it Turner wrote that:

…the following types of activities were undertaken:

A. Possible additional cases of drugs being tested on American citizens, without their knowledge.

B. Research was undertaken on surreptitious methods of administering drugs.

C. Some of the persons chosen for experimentation were drug addicts or alcoholics.

D. Research into the development of a knockout or “K” drug was performed in conjunction with research being done to develop pain killers for advanced cancer patients, and tests on such patients were carried out.

E. There is a possibility of an improper payment to a private institution.

Volunteers

When our government needs experimental subjects, an easy pool of “volunteers” would be, of course, our Armed services.

From the looks of things it was an unqualified success as long as the goal was for the soldiers to have some fun and ignore orders. Here is a US Army film of its 1963 experiment. One soldier, James Stanley, sued government afterward saying the drug caused his marriage to fail. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled against him (Ruling Reopens Wound for Bitter Ex-soldier), but in 1991, Stanley finally succeeded. (U.S. Backs Payment for Soldier in LSD Tests)

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

Fall in

The CIA destroyed most of the documents relating to the project in 1973.

November 27, 1964: the British did their own experiment as part of research into how the drug might affect military operations. From the Imperial War Museum’s description of the filmed summary: Introductory title places trial in context of recent research to discover chemical agents able to incapacitate enemy forces but with negligible risk of fatal casualties. … One Marine in state of distress is comforted by nurse, while others smile and laugh hysterically, one attempting to cut down a tree with his spade, and another climbing the tree. … After exercise Marines rest in bed in Porton ward … One very distressed Marine is held by duffel coated doctor and scientist, muttering “I am not going to die.”  

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

Ironic Acid Tests

Military Kool Aid Acid TestsNovember 27, 1965: Ken Kesey began his acid tests. Not documented as such, it may have included the first performance by The Grateful Dead, known as The Warlocks. Held in Soquel, it was a small semi-public event advertised only at the local Hip Pocket underground bookstore.

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests
Beatles, Music et al, Music of the 60s, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

November 16 Music et al

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November 16 Music et al

LSD

Louis Lewin

In 1886 Louis Lewin, a German pharmacologist, published the first systematic study of the the cactus from which mescal buttons were obtained (his own name was subsequently given to the plant: Anhalonium lewinii).

The plant was new to science, but not to the Indians of Mexico and the American Southwest. It was (according to Aldous Huxley’s 1954 essay, The Doors of Perception), “a friend of immemorially long standing. Indeed, it was much more than a friend. In the words of one of the early Spanish visitors to the New World, “they eat a root which they call peyote, and which they venerate as though it were a deity.”

November 16 Music et al

Albert Hoffman

November 16 Music et al

November 16, 1938: Albert Hofmann, a chemist working for Sandoz Pharmaceutical in Basel, Switzerland, was the first to synthesize LSD-25. He discovered LSD, a semi-synthetic derivative of ergot alkaloids, while looking for a blood stimulant.

He set it aside for five years, until April 16, 1943, when he decided to take a second look at it. While re-synthesizing LSD, he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug through his fingertips and discovered its powerful effects. (see April 16, 1943)

November 16 Music et al

Beatles Christmas Show sold out

November 16 Music et al
The Beatles dressed for a part of their Christmas Show

November 16, 1963: tickets for The Beatles’ Christmas Show sold out. CBS News bureau London – at the suggestion of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein – sent a news crew to the British seaside resort of Bournemouth where they film a Beatles concert, thousands of screaming fans, and a few Beatles’ comments on camera.  This film clip is later sent to New York. (see Nov 21)

“Deep Purple”

November 16 – 22, 1963: “Deep Purple” by Nino Tempo and April Stevens #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. [In 1968 Richie Blackmore suggested the title as the name for his new band named after his grandmother’s favorite song.]

November 16 Music et al

Jimi Hendrix

November 16 – 29, 1968: Electric Ladyland the Billboard #1 album. (Rolling Stone review) (see June 20, 1969)

November 16 Music et al

John Lennon’s Mind Games

November 16 Music et al

November 16, 1973: US release of Lennon’s fourth album, Mind Games. I’ve posted this video before, but it’s so beautiful and worth watching again. Take a Central Park walk with John. (see Nov 24)

November 16 Music et al

Bob Dylan

November 16, 2016: the Nobel Academy said on its website that it had received a letter from Dylan explaining that due to “pre-existing commitments” he was unable to travel to Stockholm in December. “We look forward to Bob Dylan’s Nobel Lecture, which he must give ― it is the only requirement ― within six months counting from December 10.” (see Dec 10)

November 16 Music et al