Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee in Los Angeles
Music, Influence and a Friendship that Changed Rock Music Forever
Jan 15, 2009
Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee were never formally in a band together, but their paths crossed and interwove in a number of ways. Arthur Lee found a way of integrating very diverse music traditions from folk to rock by way of Bert Bacharach and Mexican brass to produce a sound that have never been replicated, while Jimi Hendrix quite simply reinvented the way the electric guitar was played and rock music sounded.
Each was also leader of a multi-racial band at a time when racial segregation was still the de facto norm on both sides of the Atlantic.
Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee: Early Days in Los Angeles
The two came across each other in Los Angeles music scene before they became internationally successful, hearing each other play in clubs and meeting in the recording studio. In fact, Jimi Hendrix’s first known appearance on a record release was a song written by Arthur Lee. The song was called ‘My Diary’ and it was performed by Rosa Lee Brooks. Jimi Hendrix played guitar.
As part of the fairly tight Los Angeles rock music scene, Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee would have bumped into each other regularly, including at the city’s famed Whiskey a Go Go and Bido Lito clubs. It is, for example, well known that Arthur had seen Jimi played as part of the Isley Brothers’ backing band. Arthur Lee was well known for his flamboyant dress style, including wide-brimmed hats with scarves tied around the brim and it has been suggested that Jimi Hendrix’s dress style was strongly influenced by him.
Arthur Lee, Jimi Hendrix and Hey Joe
The track that broke Jimi Hendrix as a successful recording artist was ‘Hey Joe’, a song that had its origins in folk music but which has become one of the rock classics. The Hendrix version of ‘Hey Joe’ draws heavily on a version by Tim Rose which was picked up by Arthur Lee and rearranged in a rock style and released by Love.
Lee claimed that it was the version recorded by Love that in was the first heard by Hendrix and lead to Jimi incorporating it into his act.
Other connections
Love’s sixth album, ‘False Start’, was a minor hit getting into the Top 200 and the first track, ‘The Everlasting First’, featured Jimi Hendrix.
Following the second break-up of Love, Arthur Lee started a band with the name Band-Aid which he probably took from Hendrix as Jimi had earlier come up with the name for a (sadly) never-to-be-realised supergroup involving Jimi and Arthur Lee together with Steve Winwood.
Afterthought
During their friendship, Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee played together many times but almost always informally in jam sessions. There are a number of bootleg recordings of the two playing together and some which claim to be of the two, but which most probably aren’t. They were both remarkable characters and excellent musicians who influenced a whole generation and each other without being formally connected through membership of the same band.
 |
