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GW Though the band sounds rough hewn at times, there are certainly many brilliant moments during the Woodstock performance. MITCHELL What most people don’t realize is that the sound equipment in those days was sorely lacking, especially when it came to monitors. I had nothing, so I had to rely on watching people’s hands. You couldn’t hear what you were doing, so it made it very tricky. As an ensemble, the Woodstock band, to me, left something to be desired. GW One of the highlights of the Woodstock show was the great new material that was showcased, such as “Izabella,” “Message to Love,” “Jam Back at the House” [later retitled “Beginnings”] and “Villanova Junction.” COX “Villanova Junction” [the slow A minor blues that culminates the Woodstock performance] was just a simple blues Jimi devised up at the house. That repeated melodic riff is really just a takeoff on a typical Curtis Mayfield–type of melody, without really being based on any particular tune. It’s the Curtis flavor. MITCHELL Jimi “stole” from everywhere; if it was out there, he’d take it and twist it into something else. COX We hung out up at the house for about three weeks, and played a lot, though the rehearsals were extremely informal. It was a wild scene up there, between trying to keep the groupies and other characters away. In truth, we all worked on music constantly, in spite of the “interruptions” and the general madness. The downstairs living room was the main practice room, with all of our big amps and equipment, and upstairs was another practice room. GW Bill, another cool thing was that you devised great new bass lines for many of the older Experience songs, such as “Fire” and “Spanish Castle Magic.” You played these songs in your own unique way. COX I gave them another flavor. Jimi encouraged me to add things in the gaps. He’d say, “What would you do there? Would you play a line going down? Going up? Add a different run?” Jimi had some specific things in mind for the bass parts; that’s why he played the bass himself on so many of the studio recordings with the original Experience. MITCHELL Noel didn’t like it at all when Jimi told him what bass line to play. With Bill, there was always enthusiasm for any idea Jimi wanted to pursue. Bill would quickly grasp the structure of the tune, and then he’d add his own personality, which was great. GW The Gypsy Sun and Rainbows band was unique in that it was the only time Jimi ever utilized a second guitarist. What was Jimi’s history with guitarist Larry Lee? COX Jimi knew Larry from our post-army days together in Tennessee. At the time, Larry had helped Jimi out quite a bit, guitar playing- wise, and Jimi respected Larry as a player. They were good companions. When we were first putting this group together, Jimi said to me, “I’ve got to find Larry Lee!” So I did, and Larry showed up a few days later. MITCHELL [To Cox] Bill, do you think Larry ever felt really comfortable working in that situation with us? COX No, I don’t. He came to me many times and said, “Look, Jimi is playing so much guitar; what is there for me to play?” Larry was a great player, and he had his important place in Jimi’s earlier history. But by 1969, Jimi had evolved so much. They’d throw licks back and forth at each other, and a lot of it sounded good, but Larry felt that Jimi had come so far, and his own playing was not that effective. The truth is that any other guitar player would have sounded inadequate onstage next to Jimi. I said to Larry, “Let’s do this gig, have a good time and take it from there.” GW Jimi was certainly encouraging of Larry in that he gave him many solos; they play some tandem/trade-off licks together; and the band also performed one of Larry’s compositions, “Mastermind,” at Woodstock. COX Jimi was very encouraging of Larry in that I think he did like Larry’s playing and he liked playing with him. Larry had also brought the Curtis Mayfield tune “Gypsy Woman” to the table, and when we played that song at Woodstock, Larry sang it and Jimi sang backup. In fact, Jimi, Larry and myself toured as the backup band for Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions back in the early Sixties for about a dozen gigs within 150-mile radius of Nashville. MITCHELL Jimi was the first person I ever met who could play all of those incredible Curtis Mayfield rhythm parts right off the top of his head. He knew that stuff backward and forward. Jimi retained so many different bits of knowledge, all across the board and in every style. I could see that Jimi really respected Larry, and that Larry was a great player, but, unfortunately, I never really got the chance to know him. COX There was so much happening then; it was really a crazy time. From my perspective, from the short time we had to get new things together with a new group of people, Woodstock was an incredible show, one that many people enjoyed, and still enjoy hearing today. MITCHELL I know it’s not a “romantic” viewpoint, but I can’t help but think of the logistics of the Woodstock event, which were trying. The first major show I ever played with Jimi was the Monterey Festival [June 18, 1967], and it was so much better organized than Woodstock. At Woodstock, we were supposed to fly in by helicopter, but because there was mud everywhere, Mike Jeffrey had these ex-CIA guys drive us in a couple of rickety old station wagons, which took about five hours just because of the traffic and the mass of people. We were due to go onstage at midnight to 1 a.m., as we were the headliners of the three-day event. When we eventually arrived at the site, we asked, “Where is the dressing room?” We were told there were no dressing rooms, and they pointed to a cottage across a rotted, muddy field about a half a mile away. We went over there, tried to keep warm—my wife was pregnant, too—and then we had to wait about eight hours before we played. It was like an army maneuver! [laughs] Absolutely foul! I was also witness to a variety of, shall we say, security breaches… Things were pretty out of hand, to say the least. I guess I do give a monkey’s fart about the whole thing, but only if the music can hold up over the years. Back then, we never could have guessed that, all these years later, people would be listening to it and enjoying it for the very first time. I never sit and listen back to the stuff. In the Monterey film, for instance, I can see that we went out there and kicked some backsides. COX From my perspective, the Woodstock Festival was history being made right before our eyes. So many people had converged on that one area, right at that moment. It was incredible. Woodstock was the mother of all of the rock festivals that followed. GW In retrospect, Jimi’s performance of the “Star Spangled Banner” that day is regarded as the shining moment of the Sixties youth movement; in those electrifying three minutes, he was able to capture the power, the beauty and the vibrancy that the Sixties counterculture has come to represent. COX That was completely impromptu. I know Jimi had played it before on a few shows, but we hadn’t played it or discussed it. If you listen to the recording carefully, you will hear me start playing along with him; I was glued into where he was at—his posture, and where he was going mentally and physically. When he started playing the “Star Spangled Banner,” I started to play with him, but I got the feeling I should lay out, so that’s what I did. I let him continue, which I think was the right thing to do. That was history—he wanted to make a statement, and what an incredible statement it was. Some people have tried to interpret Jimi’s version of the song as something negative, but it was really just a beautiful artistic statement. An electric guitar never sounded like that before! And there was no negative connotation; let’s not forget that Jimi had done his time in the army, the 101st Airborne Division. We fulfilled our obligation to our country and ourselves, and we left the army with pride. Jimi didn’t burn his draft card, as some young people were doing at the time. He thought that was a deplorable thing to do. He played the “Star Spangled Banner” from his heart. He loved this country; it was something we had talked about a lot. GW “Machine Gun” [Band of Gypsys] was another way Jimi expressed his feelings about the country at that time. COX War is nothing to be proud of. There will be wars as long as there are human beings, and it is very unfortunate that blood is shed. But it is a prophecy. MITCHELL I am aware of and can appreciate the historical significance of that moment in retrospect. But in real terms, it was 9:00 in the morning; a lot of people had left because we were due to be on hours before; we were very tired, it was very cold and we couldn’t hear ourselves. There’s nothing worse than people saying to you, “Hey man, great show!” when you know that it wasn’t. You know when you have played well, and that kind of thing would really bother Jimi a lot. I cannot romanticize Woodstock; I won’t do it! If we went on earlier it would have been better, because, at the very least, the audience was completely drained by the time we did go on. GW One of the tunes showcased at Woodstock, “Jam Back at the House,” was later retitled “Beginnings” and credited to Mitch Mitchell, and features incredible polyrhythmic drum syncopations. MITCHELL That was my tune, and thank you. It was really built from drum patterns I’d “stolen” from listening to Art Blakey and Elvin Jones and is based on African rhythms. This is something that was so wonderful, so pleasing, about working with Jimi, because he was so open to any musical suggestions and things came to him so naturally. GW Following the Woodstock festival, the Gypsy Sun and Rainbows band made a few studio recordings in September but soon broke up. MITCHELL I think I can speak for Jimi when I say that, ultimately, he was not happy with that lineup and he knew things had to be changed once again. COX The management were always giving us hell because we spent so much time writing and recording in the studio. Of course, here we are 35 years later and everyone praises us for the work we did! MITCHELL That was why Jimi ended up putting his ass into so much debt with the building of the Electric Lady Studios. Owning his own studio was something Jimi wanted, and very much indeed.

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