"The
feeling
remains...
Even after
the glitter fades"
Stevie Nicks
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Jimi Hendrix recollection from Stephen Shady
A little true story here about my friendship with Jimmy Hendrix. I
met him before the band, Shady Lady ever existed. It was kinda pretty cool how
we first met though because I was just walking down the street one night in
Greenwich Village
. I hear this guy
yelling out, "hey there....hey wait up" (or something of that nature).
I look across the street to where the voice was coming from and I see it's Jimmy
Hendrix. I stop walking, glance around and realize that he's talking to me. So,
he comes trotting across the street and says, how are you man and starts
chattering away. He said they had recently got into N.Y. and were playing at the
Cafe A-Go-Go and they were having a party over at his crib tonight. He asked if
I wanted to come and hangout. I said thanks but that I couldn't make it as I was
on my way somewhere and that I had to go home soon anyway because I had to work
the next day. He asked me where I was working and I told him the Shed House,
which was this hip little clothing store in the village. Hendrix says, okay
man, we go through the long hand shake stuff that was the thing amongst all the
young dudes back then. He looks back and says while walking away that he'll stop
by my work tomorrow. Well, the next afternoon sure enough he was sitting in
front of the store in his baby blue corvette. Somebody in the store recognized
him and said hey that's Jimmy Hendrix parked outside. I was waiting on a
customer and glanced out the window and said yea it's Hendrix, he's waitin for
me I guess. I knew the others in the store prolly thought I was joking. So,
after I finished up with my customer I went out and sat in the 'vette with him.
I know that must sound queer but believe me it wasn't. I guess he was just like
looking for a pal he could talk to without all the bullshit. And you must
understand I wasn't exactly a wall flower...I stood out in a crowd.....not
unlike Jimmy himself. Anyway, we just sat there and chatted for awhile. I guess
we sorta became brothers in a way. I used to run into him once in awhile after
that but I never went to any of his parties or hung with his crowd of people. We
mostly just kept it to light conversations while walking around or sitting on
stoops of buildings in the village area. In fact it was kind of odd as we never
even talked about music that I can remember. I saw him play a few times at The
Scene though. I remember once seeing him jam with Jeff Beck there, Hendrix
played bass and Mitch Mitchell was on drums. That was pretty interesting
to say the least. Then of course Jimmy's star kept shining brighter and
brighter. So, anyway time goes on and I hadn't run into him for quite sometime
as he was traveling, touring, recording, being a superstar, etc and I was
doing my own thing. Anyway, I had started putting what was to be Shady
Lady together and had mentioned at some point that I knew Jimmy to my guys. I
knew they prolly didn't believe me...not that I wasn't in the know and all
but.....hey Hendrix was like this "huge" superstar now. So, some more
time passes and we had just come to
L.A.
and had
been rehearsing at a house in
Laurel
Canyon
where these
groupies Susan Stewart, Poochie, Pamela (not miss Pamela another Pamela) and
some other girls all lived. There was quite a few people there one night
and we were all partying when this dude shows up and he has Jimmy with him.
Hendrix walks in and looks around and spots me...makes a beeline straight over
and is hugging me, slapping five and saying man, "What the hell are you
doing here, blah-blah-blah" At some point I glance over at my buddies
in the band.....their eyes are wide open and all which made me laugh. Leonard
who wasn't a band member of Shady Lady just yet was there and was sitting in a
big circle with Bobby Paine and some other dudes and chicks in another room of
the house. They were all sitting there and passing around an acoustic guitar
each taking turns playing. Jimmy walks in there at one point and Bobby jumps up
grinning, snatches the guitar out of Leonard's hands and thrusts it at Jimmy
saying, here, your turn. So, Jimmy turns the guitar upside down does his thing
and hands it back to Leonard. Leonard promptly hands it to the person sitting
next to him as he wasn't gonna follow Jimmy's playing....no way. lol Leonard
still has that same old Martin guitar to this day (which is a lot more beat up
looking now) with a story to tell. That was the last time I ever saw Jimmy
as he died shortly thereafter....oh I'd say it was only a couple to three weeks
later at most. And man was I really sad over his death.......and I was also
bummed that Jimmy never even got to see me perform or hear my band play.
Stefen Shady
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