| Author | Message | ||
     Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 1247 Registered: 09-2006 |
...dead of natural causes, while on tour. In rock & roll, not a bad way to go. | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 2737 Registered: 05-2005 |
Goes withoutsaying how great he and the Experience were together RIP | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 371 Registered: 04-2005 |
A great musician and integral part of the Experience sound. His style always seemed much more akin to jazz players (Elvin Jones ?) than horrible rock tub-thumpers like John Bonham. I'll spin 'Manic Depression' tonight in tribute. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1825 Registered: 03-2005 |
And, not being a Jimi Hendrix fan, I'll play Riot Squad's great "How It is Done" in his honor. Prior to the Experience, Mitchell was one of the peripheral members of Joe Meek's stable of session musicians in north London. The following anecdote comes from John Repsch's biography of Meek: "As for the Tornados [famous for "Telstar"], they had all gone their separate ways, but he was keeping the name alive with a new group that included Richie Blackmore on lead guitar and Mitch Mitchell, who was later to become one third of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Rehearsals were not going well though, and the abundance of free-thinking musicians in one band was making them hard to control. In one particular session that their organist Dave Watts recalls, Joe was having problems getting the drum rhythm right: "Mitch Mitchell was playing drums and he kept doing it wrong. He was like he was with Jimi Hendrix - fantastic drummer, he was all over the place. And Joe'd come to the doorway and he'd say, 'Now do it right this time,' and stamp his foot in his silly little way. He'd go back in and Mitch'd do it wrong, and he did it about three times. Joe would come and stamp his foot in the door. Then the next thing, he come in with a shotgun with the pin pulled back. He came straight across the floor, no smile at all on his face - an absolute mad look on his face - and poked it right in his nose. He said, 'If you don't do it properly, I'll blow your fucking head off!' He really scared everyone to death. We all knew that he was a little bit unstable and it was a bit frightening 'cause he actually meant it, really, I mean, he came in and it looked like he WAS going to shoot him. Mitch really got scared of Joe and he did completely subdue and he did do it right." Joe broke the band up soon afterwards." Meek used the same shotgun one year later to kill his landlady who was evicting him from the flat he used as his studio and then he blew his own head off. I have to assume working with Jimi Hendrix was much less stressful. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 1459 Registered: 10-2004 |
Man, that makes Spector seem like such a poseur! | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 199 Registered: 05-2005 |
Great story Randy. So I assume Mitch provided the lyrical inspiration for Hendrix's first hit - you know 'Hey Joe, where you goin with that gun in your hand'? | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 1309 Registered: 01-2005 |
...I'm going to shoot my landlady, 'cause I caught her messing 'round with another tenant. |