Starting At Zero

by Jimi Hendrix

  BLACK IS GOLD IS PURE

  AND THE TRUE KINGS OF THIS EARTH,

  SO I SAY IT’S UP TO US TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THIS MESS.

  WE GOT TO GO THROUGH HELL, AND THEN

  THAT’S THE LAST OF THIS MISERABLE TEST.

  BUT THE SUN KNOWS, AS THE WIND BLOWS,

  AND THE FIRE GROWS

  TOWARDS THE FAR SHORES, AND THE WATER FOAMS,

  TO MAKE STEAMED BONES OF ALL THOSE

  WHO DON’T BELIEVE

  THAT BLACK IS GOLD IS THE KINGS OF THIS WORLD.

  LET’S PRAY WE ALL AGREE,

  WE’VE GOT TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THE FAMILY TREE.

  LIFE IS FOR YOU AND ME TOGETHER,

  THAT’S THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE.

  WHITE MAN, WATCH YOUR MOUTH,

  BECAUSE OUR DRUMS THEY FACE THE SOUTH.

  YOU BETTER ADJUST YOUR PLACE IN THIS WORLD

  BEFORE YOUR HAIR IT STARTS TO CURL,

  AND THE YELLOW, RED, AND BLACK OF THIS WORLD

  WILL TEAR YOUR ASS AND SOUL APART.

  {ON MAY 3, 1969, THE EXPERIENCE ARRIVED IN CANADA FOR A PERFORMANCE AT TORONTO’S MAPLE LEAF GARDENS. ALTHOUGH EVERYONE HAD BEEN WARNED TO TAKE EXTRA CARE BECAUSE OF TORONTO’S REPUTATION FOR STRICT CUSTOMS CHECKS, A JAR CONTAINING PACKETS OF HEROIN AND A METAL TUBE STAINED WITH HASH RESIN WERE FOUND IN JIMI’S FLIGHT BAG.}

  I’m innocent, completely innocent. It must have been a frame, or it was just a very bad scene, because it ain’t anything it was. I really don’t see how anyone can put a needle into themselves. I had pneumonia when I was young, and I used to scream every time they put that needle in me.

  Anyway, half the people don’t know what drugs and everything are nowadays. You’ve got winos and drunkards out in the streets begging for money, and nobody seems to care about this. Some people will kill for a few cents to buy a drink. Matter of fact, they have big picnics where you can carry your cans of beer, go out there and get stoned sloppy drunk. And your mind is completely numb, and you don’t think of nothing but how stoned you are.

  One thing I am sure of, it’s wrong to classify all drugs under one heading. Pot is completely different from hard drugs. And smoking marijuana is way better than drinking. As a matter of fact, it’s helped a lot of people. I think smoking pot will probably be legalized in five or ten years. This is just the beginning of the cold war between those who want pot and those who don’t. It seems to me to be silly to be sent to jail for smoking a natural plant. They should carry out a big inquiry into the effects of pot, just to see how harmful it really is.

  There’s a lot of drugs that slipped into the music scene from the simple fact that a lot of musicians think different than other people, they live different than other people, so therefore they have different releases than other people. But everybody can’t dig it, because some people’s minds just aren’t that way. It’s nice for the people who have minds for it.

  It could be entertainment for some people and something really groovy for somebody else. And I think some of the drug scene seeped in through the music because everybody wants their own identification in some way or form. Some people believe they have to go into LSD or what-have-you to get into the music. I have no opinions about that at all. Different strokes for different folks, that’s all I can say.

  THIS I REALLY BELIEVE, that anybody should be able to think or do what they want as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else. It’s your own private thing if you use drugs of any kind. It’s nobody else’s concern. Drugs are, in general, a very hip and mysterious experience. I just used them for a certain thing, as a step towards seeing it both ways, if you like. All Indians have different ways of stimulation – their own steps towards God, spiritual forms or whatever.

  The trouble starts when people let it rule them, instead of using it as a step to something else. I see a lot of people who just sit around and get stoned. It’s up to them not to make it into an escape.

  {JIMI WAS GRANTED BAIL AND A HEARING WAS SET FOR DECEMBER 8, 1969. THE EXPERIENCE WERE ALLOWED TO GIVE THEIR PERFORMANCE AT MAPLE LEAF GARDENS, AND THE TOUR CONTINUED ON TO NEW YORK, THEN CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA. ON JUNE 20, THEY GAVE AN UNEVEN PERFORMANCE AT THE NEWPORT POP FESTIVAL.}

  I’ve been having kind of a hard time over it all. People are starting to take us for granted, abuse us. It’s that “what-cornflakes-for-breakfast?” scene. Pop slavery, really. I feel we’re in danger of becoming the American version of Dave Dee, Dozy, Mick and Tich.

  Sometimes, no matter how badly you play, people come up to you and say you were fantastic, and that really hurts, especially when you are trying to progress. That’s too much burden on me. It hurts me inside, because you know the truth in yourself and sometimes people don’t really try to understand.

  We’ve been working solidly for about three years. It’s the physical and emotional toll I have to think of. You go somewhere, the show is a bit under what it should be and you are told you are slipping. But it’s the strain. It’s the strain of the moral obligation to keep going, even when you don’t feel that you can manage even one more show.

  I’m as human as anybody else, and it’s impossible for me to work on and on without ever needing to take a break and forget and rest for a while. After this tour is over I’m going to take a long vacation, maybe in Morocco or Sweden or way out in the Southern California hills.

  Maybe I’ll never get to take that break. All I know is that I’m thinking about it most of the time now, and that doesn’t help create the right mood. Because I get very bored, regardless of how good anybody else is. And I’m sure other people get bored too. It’s like I get bored with myself. I just can’t play guitar anymore the way I want to. Sometimes I get very frustrated on stage, and I think it’s because it’s only three pieces. It restricts everybody – Noel and Mitch, too. But then again, I think that even if there were a thousand people in this group it still wouldn’t be enough.

  {ON JUNE 29, 1969, THE EXPERIENCE PERFORMED FOR THE LAST TIME TOGETHER AT THE MILE HIGH STADIUM, DENVER. THE THREE-DAY ROCK FESTIVAL ENDED AMID RIOTS AND TEAR GAS.}

  “We see some tear gas.

  That’s the start of the Third World War,

  so pick your sides now. Besides a lot of tear gas in the air,

  suppose they put us in the air. Yeah, let’s make up our minds

  to make our own world here tonight …

  Hmm, I wish I was out there with you.

  This is the last time we’re playing in the States, and like, it’s been really a lot of fun. Noel Redding has his thing together called

  the Fat Mattress, we’ll be looking out for them. Mitch Mitchell has a thing together called Mind Octopus.

  Like to say, here’s for all the Americans who really

  feel proud to be Americans. But we’re talking about

  the new Americans, OK? Let’s stand up for that.”

  {AFTER THE CONCERT, NOEL REDDING ANNOUNCED HE WAS LEAVING THE EXPERIENCE.}

  Noel Redding is into more harmonic things, when you sing and so forth, and he went to England to get his own group together. He probably has reasons in the back of his mind, so I’m not going to down that. Noel and I are still friends, but he has his own ideas, and musically I want to go somewhere else. Plus I want to get into more of an earthier bass player.

  I’m not sure how I feel about the Experience now. I died a thousand times in this group and was born again. But after a while you have to get yourself straightened out. Maybe we could have gone on, but what would have been the point of that, what would it have been good for? It’s a ghost now, it’s dead, like back pages in a diary. I’m into new things, and I want to think about tomorrow, not yesterday.

  {IN JULY 1969, JIMI RENTED A HOUSE OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE OF SHOKAN IN UPSTATE NEW YORK, MOVING IN WITH BILLY COX AND OTHERS.}

  I FIRST MET BILLY COX when we were in the U.S. Airborne. We used to pinch parachutes. We used to play together, and since then he’s been gigging around Nashville and California. Billy plays more of a solid bass, and we�
��re doing a lot of guitar and bass unison things, nothing but a lot of rhythms and patterns. We’re starting to really make good contact with each other because we realize how important a friend is in this world.

  I’M FINDING OUT THAT IT’S NOT SO EASY,

  ‘SPECIALLY WHEN YOUR ONLY FRIEND

  TALKS, LOOKS, SEES AND FEELS LIKE YOU,

  AND YOU DO THE SAME JUST LIKE HIM.

  With the Experience there was more room for ego-tripping. All I had to blast off stage were a drummer and the bass. But now I want to step back and let other things come forward. We’re going to take some time off and go out somewhere in the hills and woodshed, or whatever you call it, until I get some new songs and new arrangements, so we’ll have something new to offer. The new thing will consist of writers too. We have this family thing we’re trying to get together, but it’s best not to harp upon us, the personalities and all that. The body of the music itself is what counts.

  That’s where we go from.

  We’re going to play mostly outside. It’ll be like a sky church sort of thing. You can get all your answers through music, and the best place is through open air. We’re going to play a lot of places, like in the ghettos, in Harlem and so forth. Free when we can.

  {JIMI’S NEW BAND MADE ITS DEBUT AT THE WOODSTOCK MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL ON AUGUST 18, 1969.}

  “I see that we meet again, mmm!

  Dig, we’d like to get something straight.

  We got tired of Experience and every once in a while we was blowing our minds too much, so we decided to change the whole thing

  around and call it Gypsy Sun and Rainbows.

  For short it’s nothing but a Band of Gypsys.

  We have Billy Cox from Nashville, Tennessee, playing bass,

  we have Larry Lee playing guitar – Yellin’ Lee!

  And Juma and Jerry Velez on congas.

  And we have a heart, Granny Goose, excuse me,

  Mitch Mitchell on drums.

  Yours truly on meat whistle.”

  Strangely, there were only fifteen thousand people left when we played. I insisted on playing in daylight, which meant waiting until the fourth day, and most of the kids had split by then. I don’t know what all the fuss was about the National Anthem. I’m American, so I played it. They made me sing it in school, so it was a flashback, and that was about it. All I did was play it. I thought it was beautiful, but then, there you go …

  I dug the Woodstock Festival, especially Sly Stone. I like his beat, I like his pulse. Richie Havens is outasight – and the guy from Ten Years After. I was just a little bit jealous when I saw him play. A festival of five hundred thousand people was a very beautiful turnout. I hope we have more of them. The nonviolence, the very true brand of music, the acceptance of the crowd, how they’d had to sleep in the mud and rain and get hassled by this and that. There’s so many scores you can add up on this thing. If you added them all up, you’d feel like a king.

  I’d like everybody to see this type of festival, see how everybody mixes together in harmony and communication. But anybody can get a field and put a lot of kids in there and put on band after band. I don’t particularly like the idea of groups after groups. It all starts merging together. It’s like the money thing of it. Everybody wants to get on the bandwagon. They don’t give a damn about those kids out there. If it rains, well, it rains.

  500,000 halos ... OUTSHINED

  THE MUD AND HISTORY.

  WE WASHED AND DRANK IN GOD’S TEARS OF JOY, AND FOR ONCE ... AND FOR EVERYONE ...

  THE TRUTH WAS NOT A MYSTERY.

  WE CAME TOGETHER ... DANCED WITH

  THE PEARLS OF RAINY WEATHER.

  RIDING THE WAVES OF MUSIC AND SPACE,

  MUSIC IS MAGIC ... MAGIC IS LIFE ...

  If parents want to love their kids they should be aware of their music. Music has so much to do with what is happening today. People have to realize that. It’s better than politics. They look up to us quicker than they’ll look up to what the president says. That’s why you had a lot of people at Woodstock.

  TALK TO THE PARENTS, the so-called other generation, because they have a way of overprotecting their young, of putting them in boxes. They put themselves in boxes too, and that’s not a right way of living. Younger people, their minds are a little keener and they can figure this out, and since they can’t get release and respect from the older people, they go into these other things, and their music gets louder and it gets rebellious. It’s just that they’re trying to find their own identification. They’re tired of joining the street gangs, they’re tired of joining militant groups, they’re tired of hearing the president gab his gums away. They want to find different directions. They know they’re on the right track, but where in the hell is it coming from?

  The flower scene was an experiment. Now it’s just a fashionable clique. Flower power will not get you up a hill if you run out of gas, will it? Why make a big issue out of it? The scene now is like bells and everything, and all those pseudo hippies running around flashing their little “Love not war” badges. Those kind won’t last because they’re going to hop onto the next train, any train that comes close to them and is easy to hop.

  I don’t like classifications, regardless of the scene. Why put yourself in a category when you can start your own little groove happening? You have to be a freak in order to be different, and those freaks are very prejudiced. You have to talk in a certain way in order to be with them, and in order to be with the others you have to wear your hair short and wear a tie. We shouldn’t have to keep carrying the same old burdens around. So we’re trying to make a third world happen ...

  AND YOU LOOK OUT OF YOUR WINDOW

  AT THE NOISE AND CRAZY BUSTLE OF LIFE –

  IT IS NOT SCREAMING FOR TODAY, IT IS NOT MADE FOR TODAY.

  AND THE VISIONS OF EARTH’S TEARS,

  THE RIVERS OF FUTURES BEING BORN.

  {AFTER THE WOODSTOCK FESTIVAL, JIMI TOOK HIS NEW BAND INTO THE RECORDING STUDIO, THE HIT FACTORY IN NEW YORK.}

  There’s a lot of groups that are trying to keep harmony amongst the people. I’ve seen Crosby, Stills and Nash burnin’ ass. They’re groovy. Western Sky Music, all delicate and ding-a-ding-ding. I like the Impressions. I like that touch. I like that flavor. It’s like an enchanted thing if it’s done properly. I almost cry sometimes when I hear Otis Redding’s stuff. You get that real good feeling, and then you get lumps in your throat, and shit – yeah, that’s when the stuff is poppin’. If they keep on going I know I’m going to be embarrassed, because I know I’m going to cry.

  See, these are classical composers. These are the people that need to be really, really respected. They give the people good-time music so they can release their frustrations and so forth, like black and white standing next to each other with hammers ready to hit each other. People really have to start learning the value of things as they’re living today. That’s what’s going to pull America out.

  Music is a universal language, and if it were respected properly it would have a way to reach people. There should be no barriers. I think it should be brought outside – almost like the evangelists.

  The other music should stay in clubs. They should just stay in their pretentious bag in clubs and cabarets and all that. There’s only certain groups trying to get across a harmony message anyway. And we’re one of them ...

  {ON SEPTEMBER 5, 1969, JIMI GAVE A FREE CONCERT AT THE HARLEM STREET FAIR IN NEW YORK.}

  This whole thing is under the benefit of United Block Association, and we hope to do more gigs for them. I think more groups that are supposed to be considered heavy groups should contribute to this cause. As a matter of fact, what we’re trying to stress is that music should be done outside in a festival type of way, because a lot of kids from the ghetto, or whatever you want to call it, don’t have enough money to travel across country to see these different festivals. They don’t even have the six dollars to go to Madison Square Garden.

  I always wanted a more open and integrate
d sound, and it bothers me that some black people can’t get into our music. But they are so hung up about other things. Sometimes when I come up to Harlem people look at my music and say, “Is that white or black?” I say, “What are you trying to dissect it for? Try to go by the feeling of it.” People are too hung up on musical categories. They won’t listen to something because it sounds completely alien.

  I wanted to release a special cut of House Burning Down for the R&B stations. We’re not played on R&B stations because we haven’t been exposed in this area as much as we have in others.

  It’s like, if a colored actress wants to make it in Hollywood she has to be ten times as good, so we have to be ten times as good for the soul people to even notice us. Not fakey good, I mean actually, naturally good.

  Color just doesn’t make any difference. Really, some people seem to think from their kneecaps! Look at Elvis. He could sing the blues, and he’s white. He used to sing better when he sang the blues than when he started singing that “beach party” stuff. And look at the Bloomfield band, which is ridiculously outasight, and they really, really feel what they are doing, regardless of what color their eyes or armpits might be.

  One time I said, “OK, let’s go, we got this white cat down in the Village, man, playing harmonica really funky.”

  So we all go down the Village and hear Paul Butterfield, and WOW, WOW! It turned me on so much.

  He was really deep into it. Nobody could touch him there, because he was in his own little scene and he was so happy. I always say let the best man win, whether you are black, white or purple.

  Black kids think our music is white now, which it isn’t. They say, “He plays white rock for white people. What’s he doing here?” It just happens that the white people can dig it all of a sudden because some of them are very freaky and have imagination as far as different sounds are concerned. But the black kids don’t have a chance too much to listen. They’re too busy trying to get their own selves together. I want to show them that music is universal, that there is no white rock or black rock. There are only two kinds of music – good and bad.