http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/art ... id=1886017

RIP Noel. I really enjoyed his playing on those first few Hendrix albums.

Miss your Playing Noel, Keep Rockin' in that Great Band Beyond!!!!

It hardly seems like 8 years since Noel died,although he started out as a lead guitarist he adapted to bass like it was a natural.He also wrote great songs.Anyway I imagine he's jamming with his old bandmates right now.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Another Experience bandmate who never got is dues. It's water under the rainbow bridge now. They're all jamming in space now.

Why did he get replaced with Billy Cox? Not that Cox wasn't good....

From everything I've read in the books about Jimi's life, and the one Noel wrote, Jimi and Noel had a pretty strained relationship in '68 & '69, and Noel quit after Jimi related his desire for a bigger band in an interview. What led up to that decision were Noel's concerns about the money and where it went, his dissatisfaction about his music not getting published on Experience albums, wasted time in the studio and other issues. Jimi didn't really say much on the subject, but Billy Cox was his friend from the days before Jimi's success. They played together, and met when they were both in the Army in Ft. campbell, KY. together. The general consensus is that Jimi wanted people around him that had his back. "Room Full Of Mirrors" by Charles R Cross is a good read, and Noel's book "Are You Experienced: Inside The Jimi Hendrix Experience" gives his side of the story.

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"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

Thanks! And it seems ALL electric bass players go back to a lady named Carol Kaye, who I never heard of before today and she learned from Monk Montgomery. She's listed as the most prolific electric bass player in history--something like 10,000 cuts. Both Billy Cox and Noel Redding gave her credit as the best.

+1

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Cox and Hendrix flowed together, beautiful harmony. Seems like Noel was meant to do his own thing, especially with his Jazz background.

I lived in Denver for 26 years, and worked for Gordon Close at his store, Melody Music, for five years. While I was there, he introduced me to Carol Kaye, who had been his friend for many years. She is getting her due now, but back in the day she was unknown outside her circle of friends and employers due to the fact that she was a session player. Almost all those players were men, and we all know what a misogynistic buisness the recording industry was in those days. She played on many classic hits, influencing bassists who never knew it was a white player, much less a woman, that was laying it down on those records. She was a pioneer in many ways, but did not get what she considered fair compensation for her contribution to the soul music lexicon we all know today. In this I see a parallel between her and Noel, in that both were "hired players", and although we don't know all the details for either persons' eventual dissatisfaction, they both started out as supporting players, not the headliner. It is sad that they didn't get what they felt was their due, but I think it would be fair to say they got what they signed on for. Buisness in general, and the entertainment industry in particular, is not known for it's altruisim or it's generosity with compensation or credit for studio and backing players' contribution.
P.S.: have you checked out Chuck Rainey? how about Gordon Edwards? two classic bassists.

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"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

Yes, I'll raise a glass in memory of Noel Redding, R.I.P. one of the modern time greats.

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Yea, apparently in those expensive sessions Jimi would sometimes spend hours just tuning his guitar.

It's hard to remember what kids they were and we were. I was 14 when Hendrix played Woodstock in 1969. He died at 27, just a kid. Just a kid who was being described as divine and told he was a genius (which he was). There aren't many decisions I made in the first 27 years of my life I wouldn't want to take a pass on, and even fewer I wouldn't want to review.

Think about it: Hendrix played Woodstock 42 years ago. 42 years before 1969, was 1927--Paul Whiteman and his orchestra was the King of Jazz, and Louie Armstrong was turning 27, too, the Hendrix of the Jazz Age, and he was just getting warmed up!

Just a little perspective.

There is a plethora of info out there about Jimi now, way way more than ever before. I started playing guitar in 1969 because the first time I heard "Are You Experienced?", his sound went straight through me. I've always read everything I came across, and listened to every track I could find. It's easy to look at their band from the outside and think they all started the thing together, but the truth is that Chas Chandler took Jimi to London. When he got there, Chas put out the call, and they chose Noel and Mitch. Those two guys were hired as sidemen; it was called the Jimi Hendrix Experience, not the Jimi, Mitch and Noel Experience. Jimi and Mitch got through any issues they had, while Jimi and Noel didn't. Noel had quite a few valid complaints and issues, both with management and Hendrix himself. These things can be debated forever, and probably will be, but the only people that could clear up the mysteries have "made transition", as they say. Jimi has been gone for almost 41 years, and his was the only voice that could speak his truth. Mitch, Noel, and Chas are the other principal players, and they are out of here too. Everyone else was a peripheral player in the story, and can't really know. Neither can we.

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"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

Oh, history can always be written from the letters, papers and memories. I just finished Manning Mirable's towering biography of Malcolm X. I don't think he ever met Malcolm as he was 14 when Malcolm X died.

Historians spend their lives trying to get into dead people's heads.