“Down on the scene”: The New York Club that inspired Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’
It’s easy to shrug off nightclubs as nothing but sweaty venues built only for nights people can already barely remember by the time the sun comes up, but throughout musical history, there are really no places as sacred or important as them, especially in the lore of Jimi Hendrix.
There are several vital clubs that are of huge importance in Hendrix’s history. Club Del Morocco in Nashville is one of them, as the place where he played his first residency. Cafe Wha? was just as essential to Hendrix as it was to Bob Dylan, as the club was where he was first spotted by his future manager. The favoured club of the swinging sixties set in London, The Scotch of Saint James, became the place where he met and played with his heroes when he moved across the Atlantic.
The list goes on, as the majority of Hendrix’s career was spent playing in clubs, not big venues or stadiums, like his legacy might suggest. Before his tragic death at only 27, Hendrix honoured that. These clubs were sacred to him as not only places where his career was made, but spots where his life gained excitement or inspiration, where new characters wandered in, new loves were launched, and new stories were written.
When it comes to his personal history, no spot was as important as The Scene, the favourite New York spot of the music and art world combined.
Opening in 1964 by Steve Paul, one of the city’s most powerful music men, the spot on West 46th Street was bound to be a success. Not only did it have Paul’s reputation behind it, but it was perfectly positioned right in the middle of Manhattan. It was a perfect mid-way point between the posh spots the biggest bands would be staying at, like The Beatles being put up at The Plaza, and hubs like The Hotel Chelsea, where the city’s beatniks hung about.
So naturally, The Scene brought in a bit of everything: Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick and their whole crowd would be found there, but so too would Buffalo Springfield or West Coast bands on tour like The Doors, while Allen Ginsberg put money into the venue to help it stay open, and BB King played a two-night residency, and on both nights, in the front row, there was Hendrix.
During his New York years, Hendrix was a regular. He would go down early to watch the shows but then stick around until after hours when the venue hosted its infamous jam night. Perhaps the most infamous of them all actually includes Hendrix and a strange night where he found himself playing with a drunken Jim Morrison, who ended up passed out with Janis Joplin’s glass smashed over his head.
But it seemed to be moments like that which made Hendrix love the spot for all its wild and eclectic beauty. Naturally, as a young man in the city, he also loved the beauty of the crowd and wrote The Scene into his most seductive tune, ‘Foxy Lady’.
“I see you are down on The Scene,” Hendrix sings to the song’s inspiration. There are a few rumours about who the muse of the song might have been, but really, the true influence behind it was simply his favourite night out spot.
