The forgotten guitarist who played Woodstock 1969 with Jimi Hendrix: “What you doing?”
If there is any two-hour period that perfectly encapsulates the counterculture age of the 1960s, it is probably Jimi Hendrix’s set at Woodstock Festival; the defining moment of the festival that cemented hippiedom in the public consciousness, and affirmed the performer’s position as the greatest guitarist in the history of rock and roll.
As the rest of the inarguably stacked line-up on that fateful weekend in 1969 can attest to, competing with Jimi Hendrix was an impossibility. Despite incredible performances by the likes of Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, and The Who – to name only a handful – the image of Hendrix’s tripped-out body worshipping his burning Stratocaster is probably the most enduring image both of that festival and the hippie era in general. Everybody else at Woodstock was overshadowed by the psychedelic master, including the other members of his own group.
Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were given a pretty raw deal when you think about it. Despite being inarguably essential in determining the sound of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the pair had to be content with the fact that it was the Jimi Hendrix Experience. At the end of the day, the rhythm section were never going to call the shots, because it was the wild stylings of their bandmate that soaked up much of the spotlight.
By the time that the guitarist made it to the rolling green fields of Woodstock, The Experience had imploded in dramatic fashion a few months prior. While there was no doubt that Hendrix could go on alone, he was tasked with recruiting some new musicians to flesh out the sound of that festival slot.
So, he called upon an old friend and fellow guitarist to help him out, in the form of Larry Lee, with whom he had forged a friendship during his time as a jobbing R&B guitarist on the chitlin’ circuit earlier in the decade.
Within the space of a few years, the two guitarists had followed very different paths: while Hendrix was spotted by Chas Chandler and brought over to the United Kingdom for his artistic reinvention, Lee was drafted to fight in Vietnam, where he eventually received a bullet wound to the head and a ticket back to America. Jobless, rudderless, and undoubtedly suffering from the trauma instilled by his surroundings in that conflict, when Lee came home in 1969, one of the first people that got in contact was Jimi Hendrix.
“Jimi had my mother’s number and Billy [Cox] called me from New York City,” the guitarist told Guitar World about his return from the forces. “I had been home from Vietnam about two weeks. I’d come back from the unemployment office when the phone rang, and it was Billy.” Little did he know, at that time, that the phone call would see him participate in the biggest countercultural event of the era.
“He said, ‘I’m in New York with Jimi.’ He put him on the phone,” Lee continued. “He was the same Jimi, no change. He said, ‘Hey, what you doing? We’re gonna try out a few things up here. We’d like for you to come up and join us.’” Although Hendrix didn’t think to mention that the gig he was offering up was, in fact, Woodstock Festival, Lee saw no reason not to travel up to New York and spend a month rehearsing with his old buddy.
Then, when that fateful Sunday rolled around, Larry Lee performed onstage with Hendrix, backing up that unforgettable set that went on to define the entire festival. Although the memory of that set is often reduced to the guitarist in isolation, it was the backing of old friends like Lee that made the performance so special, at least in the eyes of Jimi Hendrix himself.
