Jimi Hendrix
Band of Gypsies
Review by Steve Colombo
Band of Gypsies is more than a classic album. It is a moment in time when the world of music changed forever. Recorded live at the Fillmore East on New Years Eve 1969/70 these six songs represent Hendrix at his finest, his sharpest and ultimately, like many others in music, it shows us what he could have evolved into had he not died of an accidental overdose on sleeping pills shortly thereafter. Soon after this show he started to falter. Pressures of fame, drugs, money and creativity tore him down in the days after this show. His live performances started to slip and there would be no more studio albums in his lifetime. Only the imperfect takes, outtakes and scraps pasted together into complete albums to be released posthumously.
The background of this show is interesting. Jimi Hendrix was really the first male sex-rock star: flashy clothes and costumes, arty albums, and wild shows. We all know about how he torched and smashed his guitars and played like a possessed shaman on stage, but here is where he started to change and what happened on New Years 69/70. Hendrix was booked to play 2 shows by promoter Bill Graham, a star maker in his own right. The first set that evening was what everyone expected to see, the whole "show." Backstage afterwards while the audience was leaving and the second set crowd began to arrive Hendrix asked Graham how his show was. Graham replied that it didn't matter what Jimi played because no one cared, it was the wild antics that everyone wanted to see, not to hear music. Shaken and hurt by such a blunt statement, Hendrix's second set recorded and released as The Band of Gypsies album, was different. He stood stock-still, didn't twitch a muscle and played a concert described later by Bill Graham as "With respect to Carlos, Eric and all the rest, that was the best playing that I have ever heard in my life."
The Band of Gypsies were Jimi Hendrix (guitar and vocals), Buddy Miles (bass) and Billy Cox (drums).
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: The Early Years Volume 4 at garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-The-Early-Years.
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