“At the end of the night, tuning-wise it was wild”: Guitarist reveals what it was really like supporting Jimi Hendrix on tour
Ever wondered what it’s like being on the road with one of the greatest guitarists of all time? As former Jimi Hendrix touring guitarist Andy Fairweather Low would have you know, things sometimes got pretty “wild tuning-wise” by the end of the night.
Speaking in a new interview with Classic Rock, Fairweather Low looks back on the memorable experience of touring with Hendrix’s band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, at the tender age of 19.
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“On tour with him in 1967, I was 19 and witnessing this thing first-hand, two shows a day,” says Fairweather Low. “Sometimes, when he got to Wild Thing at the end of the night, tuning-wise it was wild.”
Before he joined the late legend on tour, though, the pair had a memorable encounter at one of London’s popular music venues, where Hendrix once called him out for playing the bass “in the wrong key”.
“Amen Corner [Fairweather Low’s band at the time] had residencies in London at Blazes, Tiles and The Speakeasy, playing soul and R&B. If you were in a band, you’d hang out there,” says the guitarist. “One night Jimi was there and decided to play I Can’t Turn You Loose, with us. He borrowed Clive [Taylor]’s bass, turned it upside-down and took it from there. A few months later he got up and played Neil Jones’s guitar. I decided to play bass, until he turned around and said I was playing in the wrong key. I had no idea what key it was in!”
He continues: “A little later, I’m in New York, staying with our manager Terry The Pill, who worked for Hendrix’s manager Mike Jeffery. We got a call – could I come to the studio to do some backing vocals?”
“When I go over, Jimi’s recutting Stone Free and Roger Chapman’s there. So you have Larry The Lamb and Archie Andrews on backing vocals. Jimi was a quiet, lovely, polite man,” says Fairweather Low.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
