How Jimi Hendrix saved London, according to Eric Clapton
Stick with me here – there are some artists that seem spiritual British while being American, and some Brits that feel spiritually American. Eric Clapton explained this notion well.
Allow me to toss a clear example into the ring. Despite being from the UK, and specifically being true London boys who came up in the capital’s jazz and early rock and roll scene, there is something about The Rolling Stones that just feels American. It could be the band’s fierce adoption of the country and its sound, borrowing heavily from blues and country music. It could even just be their commercialisation and their mass amounts of merch feel like a very American business-like approach to art. But either way, a person would be forgiven for believing Mick Jagger to be a yank before he opened his mouth.
But the example Clapton gave speaks to the flipside – to an American who felt British. In this case, a person would be forgiven for believing that Jimi Hendrix was a Brit, given how essentially he felt to British music, and how much of a passionate fan of British music and culture he was.
Hendrix loved the UK. Despite being born in Washington and raised in Nashville, London became his adopted home. He was first brought to the city in 1966 by Chas Chandler, the ex-Animals bandmember who was now beginning to focus on managing acts. He saw Hendrix play in New York and instantly knew he needed to get him to the UK.
From there, he filled his band with Brits, got an English girlfriend and started gigging around the London scene, absolutely wowing the British acts. They talk of him as a kind of revelation, or a rejuvenation that dared them all to be better. Clapton definitely felt that.
“The stage was set for Jimi, really. I mean, it could have been anyone. But, it had to be him, you know,” Clapton said as if Hendrix was some second coming they were all waiting for, and needed. In his eyes, Hendrix saved them as the UK crowd seemed to be losing some spark.
“London was just coming into a kind of really heavy soul thing. The blues movement was dying, and it needed someone to bring it all back to life and cement it together,” he explained as the mid-1960s were threatening to push them all into a lull. Then Hendrix arrived, revitalising their love for rock and roll but pushing them to take it further and make it louder.
Hendrix also pushed them simply by being a fan. He was a regular feature at other people’s gigs as he was just as much of a music lover as he was a maker. He’d regularly cover songs by British acts, like when he covered ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ literally the day after it was released. So with the threat of Hendrix potentially being at the back of their shows, or the chance that he might show them up by playing their own song better than they could, it’s as if the stakes stepped up for all the British bands now that this American had landed to show them how it’s done.
