Hendrix

[Born2RockU]

I believe Hendrix opened up for...get this, the Monkees !!

Rock On,

Craig LeMay

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It's true. In the summer of 1968, I was too young for a concert, but I do recall hearing that Hendrix opened for the Monkees, which would have been during the height of their popularity and their TV show. This may be unverifiable teen lore, but someone said he was able to make his guitar "say" "F*** you, Monkees."

....Hendrix joined the (Monkees) tour in progress in Jacksonville, Florida on 8 July 1967, just before the Monkees were scheduled to play a couple of shows in North Carolina. One would have been hard pressed to have found a part of America less likely to appreciate what Micky Dolenz described as "this Black guy in a psychedelic Day-Glo blouse, playing music from hell, holding his guitar like he was ******* it, then lighting it on fire" and what Eric Lefcowitz termed "the cacophonic strains of Hendrix's feedback orgies mixed with his lascivious sexuality."

Matters came to head a few days later as the Monkees played a trio of dates in New York:

After a handful of gigs, Hendrix grew sick of the "We want the Monkees" chant that met his every performance. Finally, he flipped the bird at the less-than-enthusiastic crowd at Forest Hills Stadium in New York and stormed offstage.

Hendrix had had enough, "Purple Haze" was starting to dent the American record charts, and it was time for him to head out on his own and play for audiences who wanted to see him. He asked to be let out of his contract, and he and the Monkees amicably parted ways.

But one last bit of Monkee business turned an unforgettable experience into a legendary one.