JOHN MAYALL

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

“I first heard about Jimi in 1966 from Chas Chandler, who had left The Animals and was now in a managerial position with Mike Jeffreys. Chas had been telling everyone about this amazing guitarist he’d seen in New York. He told me he was so good that he was going to bring him to England and make a star of him.

“The show on November 25 at the Bag O’Nails club was more than a revelation. I was just glad that I wasn’t a lead guitarist, because all the hotshots – Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend and so on – were in a state of shock. The world now knows what Jimi sounds like, so you can only imagine what it was like to hear a guitarist of that intensity and originality for the first time.

“He did a few of the London clubs, and once the buzz got around, the top rock guitarists had to rethink their positions in the hierarchy. Jimi genuinely changed the course of rock’n’roll.”

LOST RECORDING

“I’d bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder with a view to documenting all our gigs, and recorded over sixty hours of tape. These recordings included a slow blues recorded one night at the Speakeasy when Jimi came on stage and took over Mick Taylor’s guitar. Unfortunately, only a brief moment was recorded, as we weren’t allowed to acknowledge Jimi’s performance for contractual reasons. It’s tantalising to hear him play with the volume turned down to almost nothing.”

OTHER SHOWS

“We played two shows on a bill with Jimi, Albert King and

Soft Machine at the Winterland Ballroom in Los Angeles in February 1968. That whole hippie scene was an eye-opener for me. Flowers and good vibes abounded everywhere. The promoter Bill Graham was leading the way in putting Jimi on the map, and it was very impressive to see the way in which he had made his mark in America, just as he’d done in England.

“We played on a bill with him again at a very different show in Zurich, Switzerland in May 1968. It was in a huge, cycleracing stadium. There were chairs being broken and fights and scuffles with the police going on while bands including Traffic and The Move were playing. Jimi was the big, headlining star of the show. He really was most impressive.

“Those were such exciting times going on back then. We were all in the same boat, but Jimi was just about the most exciting thing there was.”