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Oh my godness, it's being Frank right where the only way to be is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome to being Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank. I'm your host, FRANKL. Bona, and i'd like to thank you for joining us on what we like to call the Intelligent Conversation Podcast, where no conversation is out of bounds and all points of view are welcome. Those who are familiar with our program know that we record live to tape, and I give you the date so you
have some context and relevance. It is the twelfth of November. You know, it's hard to believe that within about two weeks of this taping, the legendary Jimmy Hendrix would have turned eighty three. Like so many other influential people that died young, the image that lives in our minds is of a dynamic young man, So it might be difficult to imagine what he might have accomplished in where he might be today fifty five years after his untimely and
tragic death. Well, we welcome back a man who has dedicated much of his adult life to discovering, sharing, and documenting the man who became a legend. Over the course of the last thirty years, he has created a fourteen part series that attempts to capture the man and the myth by interviewing some of the greatest names in music. He also has a big birthday bash planned at Sony Hall to celebrate Jimmy's birthday, as he's done many times in the past. Here once again to join us from
Intelligent Conversation is mister David Kramer. David, thanks joining us once again. It's great to see you.
Good to see you, Frank David.
As mentioned, you've been on before, but it's been about a year, so let's kind of refresh people's memories a little bit that you know, what led you to this point and the beginnings of this whole project with Jimmy Hendrix.
How did you get there? How did the project start?
You mean, yeah, what brought you to and why Jimmy Hendrix? And you said, we devoted thirty years, most of your adult life to this man. What is it that attracted to you this is project in the first place.
Okay, that's a good question. I have a very unconventional answer, but uh, what happened was, uh I got into computer graphics. I started working in television, and computer graphics was a brand new field in the in the early eighties, so I did that. And I always loved Jimmy Hendricks music, and I thought, if he was still alive, he would be doing the most incredible music videos on MTV, because
that's what was happening at that time. And I started doing images of hendricks graphics because that was my job doing graphics for television. So they started doing some images of Handricks. And every time I put together my demo tape with my graphics, I'd use Hendricks music because it just seemed so cutting edge his music that it just went perfectly with the graphics. And then there were these guys that were doing a they were trying to do MTV on New Jersey cable MTV version, so they knew
about me. Somebody told them about me, so they approached me and asked me if I would do graphics for their show. They said they were trying to get a budget and if they did that, I would be the art director and if I could just do a couple of things on spec, then they'd have that to pitch to some potential investors. So I did a few images of Hendricks. This is like later on towards the I
guess mid to late eighties. I did some images of Hendricks with music and a few different things, some bumpers and teases coming up next, stay tuned, that kind of thing. And then I invited them over to the to the production house I was working at and showed them and they were blown away and they said this is great. And I said, okay, well, if you get the deal, let me know. And I guess they wanted to take some of it with them, but I wouldn't let them.
I said, you know, you could bring your potential investors here to see it, because I got as an artist people always asking me to do free stuff. Doe.
That never happens to me as a photographer. Would you like to come to our party? You bring in the camera.
So yeah, I've been burned before with that, you know. Can I just take a copy of it? And then you know, they end up taking it and using it and they disappear. So I didn't give it to them. I just let them see it and they loved it, and then they tried to get investors. They weren't able, they were unsuccessful in getting investors, so I was left with these graphics and then I guess probably around eighty
nine ninety one, somewhere in there. I was sitting with these graphics for about three years or something like that, maybe two or three years, and I was happy with the way they came out, so I said, you know, I can't let this go to waste. They got to do something with this. So I had just I had just done a music video for my master's degree and I won an Emmy Award, a College Emmy Award for it,
and it was premiered on MTV. Had a lot of graphics, cutting edge stuff, and I started thinking about what's going to be my next project. I gotta do something, you know, big, because like I got an Emmy, so I gotta do I gotta top that. So I started thinking about the graphics I did of Hendricks, and I said, and I kept thinking, these can't go to waste. I got to do something with it. And that's how I came up with the idea to do the documentary on Jimmy Hendricks with David.
With that in mind, if you will, kind of humble beginnings, I ask for lack of better words, you know, making something out of out of well, not nothing, but something that was repurposed, if you will. That became a thirty year project and a continuing project, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more detail. At that moment, could you have it visions that it would grow to fourteen parts? And I want to talk a little bit
about you. And as I mentioned in the preview, you got to interview some of the greatest names, not only rock and roll but in music. When you were crystallizing the idea in your head, did you have any vision of that?
No idea I thought. I thought at the beginning when I started, I thought this would take a year or two, a year or two and then I'll do another project. But it just kept snowballing and growing and finding out more information and then finding out different things, like he was kidnapped and that his manager was was m I six British Intelligence, and he stole all his money, and it just kept I just kept finding out all this
controversial stuff. I just wanted to know more and more and more, and I'd interview somebody and then they'd say, oh, did you interview so and so? Did you talk to so and so I said no, and then they said, oh, you got to talk to him, you got to talk to her. And it just kept growing and growing and and that's how it became this this multi year project. I had no idea it was going to take this long. But uh, like I said, the joys in the journey.
So I got to meet all my heroes and and out of out of doing this project, that's how I got into producing concert events. That just that just kind of happened out of the out of meeting all these people. Because I never said, oh I want to be a concert promoter or produce events or anything. I just it just kind of evolved like naturally organically, like everything with this project.
Right, we're all going to talk about that in more detail as our conversation continued. But you said something, and it's on my list of questions too. As you continued your research, so I said, I'm certainly not as extensive as the thirty years you've done. But before every program, I do my research, and of course I researched Jimmy Hendrix and the first thing that surprised me is that's not his true real name. His real name is Johnny Johnny Allen Hendrix. So that was a surprise to me.
And you mentioned as you were going along you found some outrageous like the Mi sixter thing and the kidnapping and all the crazy tell us some of those stories. What are some of the things that you found out about Jimmy Hendricks that surprised you?
Sure? Well. The first thing that you mentioned his name was changed. That's because when Jimmy was born, his father was in the military and his mother was seeing a guy named Johnny because she didn't even know if Jimmy's father would come back alive, so she started seeing this guy named Johnny, and uh, that's how the Johnny name came.
She named him after this guy. And then when Al Hendricks, Jimmy's real father came back from the military, he got he got he got Johnny and changed the name back legally to Jimmy James after him that Al Hendricks's real name, first name is James, his middle name is al And that's how that happened. And uh, let's.
See, what are so many other things you had that pop up? I mean, you're talked even a little bit about the man. I mean, we know about his his as a guitar virtuoso, uh, cutting edge, et cetera. But what about the person? Is there anything that you found out within that that whole rock and roll mystique that what was Jimmy the man?
Like everybody loved him. Uh, he was a he was a really good guy. He was he was kind of shy, which I you know, which I learned about, which I was surprised because of itself.
His stage performance is so outrageous that he was actually a shy person. See, then I find that fascinating.
Yeah, his father was pretty uh strict and uh he pretty much raised him and his brother by himself because because Jimmy's mother left that's a whole other story. I mean they they were big drinkers, the parents, the father and he got the mother into drinking and it just got a little abuse of the relationship, so she left and then al Jimmy's father raised raised Jimmy, and he was really strict and that's that's why Jimmy was so and quiet because if he said the wrong thing, he
gets smacked in the head. So he was abused as a child. So he's really shy and quiet, which I found really surprising because, like you said, on stage, he's pretty wild.
Well, do you think that was like an alter ego away for him to express some things that might have been you know, not trying to play Joe psychologists here, but you know a lot of people, especially performers, you know, there are a lot of when you meet them, and I used to photograph on red carpets and some of them are shy people when you actually meet them, but yet they're public personas that take on a whole different Do you think that's Could that have been a defense
mechanism or just another way to express things that were suppressed?
Yeah, it could have been. I mean he had a really good sense of humor, and he was very funny. He wasn't good It's weird because he wasn't good with the crowd of people unless he's on stage. Wow, But one on one with people, he was very engaging and talkative and interesting and funny a few people. You know, being around a few people, he could be like that, but not more than a few, he'd be very quiet.
He wasn't comfortable going to parties too much, you know, because she didn't like being around the whole crowd of people unless he's on stage.
Yeah, Yeah, again kind of again contrary to the image the rock and roll lifestyle, if you want to call it that, the continual parties, and that was not really what he was about.
Well, he liked the party, but usually with a girl or two, I was gonna.
Say privately, not not in the outrageous sense.
But occasionally. I mean when he in nineteen sixty eight, the Jimmy Hensick's Experience, rented a house in Benedict Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, and uh there was a pool in the backyard and they'd have people over all the time and they jam and and uh go swimming, and uh they found he found out uh Cream was doing their their farewell concert out in La a deep purple opening, and he wanted to throw a party at the Benedict Canyon house for them. So that was a pretty wild party.
All the all the musicians were there, and it was pretty wild back then. Like all all the musicians back then in the sixties, they all hung out, a lot of them. It's like every weekend out there, and in uh Los Angeles and San Francisco there were parties and a lot of these musicians were there, so it was pretty wild.
Well, you know, and that brings another question to my mind. You know, many people often when they think of Jimmy, they do think of the West coast. We spent a lot of time on the East Coast, particularly in New Jersey. And the Isley Brothers, if I remember correctly, had a strong influence on him. Talk a little to that, David.
Yeah, that was before he became famous. He played in a bunch of famous bands. The iSER Brothers was one of them. He also played in the King Curtis Band, Joey Dean and Starlighters, Curtis Knight and the Squires, and the Little Richard Band, and that was in the mid you know, sixty four to sixty six. He played with all those bands, and the Isley Brothers were We're living in t Neck, New Jersey, so he stayed at their house there for a while and did gigs with them.
And there's a segment in the documentary about the Isley Brothers. They did a segment on one of these famous bands of notoriety that he played in, and it's it's really interesting because they they a lot of them, tore the uh Chitlin circuit down south and played in these little clubs and stuff like that and uh that's where he really got his chops and R and B chops and learned how to be a showman, playing with people like little Richard. He was a major showman, right what you know.
Again probably rhetorical question, but what do you think he may have accomplished had he lived to today? What could he have done?
And where we've done some amazing things. Uh, he was he was starting to uh improvise more and and and lean more towards jazz and jamming with people like Larry Corriel and uh getting together with Miles Davis, you know, and they jammed in Jimmy's apartment once with no microphones or anything, just Smiles and Jimmy and they met a few times and they planned on going into the studio,
but it never happened. A producer named Alan Douglas who ran in the Hendricks of State from seventy four to till about ninety ninety three, something like that, he was he was involved with different jazz musicians, so he was trying to hook Jimmy up with different jazz musicians. And Larry Young, the keyboard player, great keyboard player, jazz keyboard player.
He came down and jammed with Hendricks a bunch of times, and some of those things have been released on nine to the Universe, which is the name of the album. It's just all jams. It's probably out of print now, but you might be able to find the bootlego or get it on eBay or something like that. But just some real cool jams on there. And yeah, I think it would have been amazing what he could have done. That's the sad part of the whole thing, because he
was only around for three and a half years. It's Jimmy Hendrix and just he was just spreading his wings, you know, he was just he was as a songwriter. He was just starting to write incredible songs. He was only twenty seven when he died, so we'll never know what he could have done, but I'm sure it would have been some amazing stuff.
What would you say his ultimate legacy is to musicians and to people who listen to him, Well, what is he left behind in your mind?
The ability to play with that freedom to improvise and play differently. Play the same song and it'll sound different every time. He never played the song live the same way twice. It was always different improvising and that was The thing about his playing it was always it was always different, and he'd stretch it out or shorten it, or play a different style or on a different guitar. They just always had a different, unique sound to it.
And that's what some of his contemporaries say, some of the other musicians, they talk about how it was he played with such freedom. So I would say that's the main word for him.
Freedom implies to certain restlessness. What would you say to that like that, that constant improvisation, always reaching. What was it about that and about the man where he connected on that level.
I think a lot of it has to do with his childhood. You know, he listened to all these records when he was a kid from some of his relatives and his father's blues collection, and he got turned onto Muddy Waters and BB King and all those great blues players when he was just a little infant. You know, he'd hear all that stuff and then he just kept hearing more, and just the way he grew up, he wanted to get out of Seattle because of the way
he was grown up. You know, there's a lot of abuse in the house, and he was basically pretty poor, so he didn't have, He didn't have a lot of clothes, he didn't have a lot to eat. It was kind of tough growing up the way he did. So he wasn't happy in Seattle. So his big thing was he wanted to leave. And when he was, when he was pretty young, six seven, eight years old, he used to say, when I get big, I'm going far far away.
And never he did leave, you know, and he did literally and figuratively musically. I mean, he went far far away and he never went never looked back.
Yeah, he said I'm never coming back, you know. He he's a pretty sad kid. Yeah.
Interesting for such a dynamic and joyful. His performance is always I think it's fair to describe him as joyful, energetic certainly and in his own right because he enjoyed playing so much it became obvious, I think.
And he wanted to make people happy with his music. That was that was his thing. He wanted people to be happy and he was. That's why everybody loved him because he there was no drama with him, you know, everybody loved him. All the musicians idolized him at first before they they met him. When he went to England, there were some musicians that were jealous and and uh, fearful, like Eric Clapton was the guy in England. He said that Clapton's God, and he pretty much was the top
guy for a while. But then when Hendricks came, he scared the crap out of all these guys because they were blown away by him when he came.
Yeah, and and and and still does. That's what's amazing, you know, that's amazing.
Well, they got to know him, you know, once they got to know him, they all loved him and they all became friends with him. So he was just a good guy. It's funny. And then everybody wanted to be his friend. Women wanted to be his lovers, Guys wanted to be his friend, and fans wanted to be his friend. They just wanted to be around him because he's just a really good guy.
Well, that's great segue into the documentary series. As you mentioned fourteen parts that you have created. Tell us a little bit about that. You know, what is the what are you looking to accomplish with the documentary? Break down a little bit why fourteen different episodes? Tell us a little bit about that.
I started doing interviews and I think, like I said before, I thought it would take about a year or two. I thought it would be like an hour and a half two hour documentary. But then the more I found out and the more people I interviewed, the more interesting stories came up. The more it kept growing in different parts and became a series because there's so much information and it's so interesting. Is the childhood, like I was just talking about, and then he leaves to go into
the military right after. You know, he dropped out of high school to go in the military because, like I said, he had a tough childhood. So he was having problems at home and he didn't want to be there. And when his mom died, he was like fourteen, and his father wouldn't let him or his brother go to the funeral. So he was really upset about that because the father was so bitter that she left that he just didn't even want the kids to have any contact with the mother.
So when she died, you know, some of the relatives and aunts said that Jimmy just he went off. He was just really upset about it, and he just wanted to get the hell out of the house. So he started he did a few things that he got arrested for with a couple other people taking a car out on a joy ride, stolen car, and uh he did he did. Uh he got caught for shoplifting once. But then he put the he put the uh close back
that he stole that he got caught. So he's just he's just a good guy and so humble that you know, he didn't want to do anything wrong, but uh, he might have been looking for attention when he did that, and he got it. So when he got arrested, the judge said, either you go into the military or you're going to jail. So he he chose the military, and uh he did that, and and uh he got an honorable discharge. But uh he did this uh military thing, and and uh he wasn't interested in that at all.
He was playing his guitar. And they they complained about him and wrote him up a few times, said he's not interested, he's not doing his job, he's a terrible he's a terrible soldier, and all that.
Very good story. But he had a great guitarist but not a very good soldier. But somehow that touch its surprise.
So they so they they wanted him out, so they gave him a honorable discharge and then he went to UH. He went to Kentucky first, and then he went to Nashville. He settled in Nashville and Billy Cox, the bass player UH in the military. They became friends. So when when Billy got out not long after Jimmy, they met up
in UH Nashville and they formed a band. So I do a whole segment on Nashville and UH all the I interviewed all the musicians that met him in Nashville and played there and played opposite him in clubs, and they just described, you know, what it was like seeing him and UH. They didn't get what he was doing because he was doing stuff that was way ahead of his time. He was doing feedback, and he was doing UH.
He was doing fuzz sounds because he realized that if the amp, if the amplifier UH had low power, it would it would create this sound. And there's all different things like that that he was he was experimenting with and and nobody understood what the hell he was doing. And they didn't like it. They had a problem with it. You know, you know how creative people are, or any people human nature, they don't understand something that they might
resent it. It's like what I'm doing this documentary. I came across people that resented it because I've been working on it for a really long time. So I get people to say, oh, you're still working on that thing. Well, you've been working on that for a long time, you know that kind of stuff. It's like instead of you can tell you real friends because they say, oh, I can't wait to see it, and when can I see something,
of come over the house and check it out. But then there's the so called friends that say, oh, you're still working on that thing. You've been working on that forever, and then they make these negative comments to other people and then it comes back to me. So instead of appreciating what I'm trying to do, maybe because they don't have anything going on in their life and they're not doing a lot, they're resentful that I'm doing this and that I'm taking a long time.
You know. But when you think about it, though, David, it's just what an extraordinary experience, an extraordinary life. You know, Hendrix, as you mentioned, just three years basically as Jimmy Hendricks and only twenty seven years old, but yet worthy of this multi level documentary because he influenced so many people. That's extraordinary, and you know within that you interviewed some of the greatest names in music, some people that are really hard to get to but always seem to be
willing to talk about Hendrix. A why is that? And B of those people who left the real strong impression on you and particularly with their Hendrix connection.
There's so many great I interviewed close to four hundred and fifty people on camera. Four hundred and fifty. It's a lot of interviews. So, you know, I started it had a good time because most of these people have passed away now, so I was lucky that I started when I did, because nobody else ever attempted something like this to interview all these people, and a lot of these interviews, you know, they didn't they didn't happen right away. I had to talk to managers and some people took
five years to get now. Johnny Winter took about five years, you know, Stephen Stills took a few.
Years country do a little name dropping. I think it's important that people realize, really, David, you know, and as a journalist myself, I know how difficult even booking sometimes guests onto this program has its challenges. Some of these people are not easy to get to, so please, I think it's your time to drop some of those names, because it's impressive. You mentioned Stephen Stills, Johnny Winter.
Leslie West, Corky Lang, BB King, Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley, James Cotton, the Isley Brothers, Don Covey, Eric Burden. There's just so many of them. Larry Corriel, the Vanilla Fudge, the whole band, sly In the family, Stone, the whole band except for his brother Breddy. I got the whole band and just sly Stone. That took me about fifteen years to get him.
No, yes, that's what I'm saying. People don't realize how difficult it is to get these people to speak. So it's a really an accomplishment day.
Yeah. I never gave up, you know, I never said I'm never gonna get him. I always kept trying and trying and trying, and I pretty much got everybody I wanted except for a handful of people, maybe five people. I pretty much got everybody else I wanted.
Who of them? What did Is there one or two or a couple of really stick in your mind that were, you know, really solid and really provided you with a really good insight as to Hendricks, the one, as I said, somebody a person a personality that really you know you were impressed with.
Well, Stephen Stills is one because for a few reasons, he spent a lot of time with Hendricks and they jammed a lot, and they were good friends and asked Hendricks played on Steven's first solo album, and he still's dedicated the album to Hendricks, and there's still a few things that they did together that they haven't that he hasn't released yet with Hendricks. And uh, I'm a big fan of Stills and I've always been a major fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and that was one
of my first concerts back in seventy four. I got to see them, and they were always one of my favorite groups and still is to this day. Is my favorite living artist. So that was a big deal for me to get him and that was exciting. You know, it took me a while, But.
Would you say, yeah, were you ever starstruck? I mean, you know some of us, I said, I've done photographed a lot of celebrities and stuff and I'm generally non impressed, but every once in a while there's one person that you say, wow, you mentioned Steven Stills, anybody else that you said, wow, I'm talking to so and so.
Yeah, Well, Still's is the one guy that I guess. I was walking on eggshells when I interviewed him because it was such a big fan. I didn't want to piss him off. But it went really well, and he thanked me. He said, uh, you did a great job. He said, you're very meticulous, and I know this is going to turn out great. And then he uh, he gave he gave his road his tour manager an autograph picture to give to me. And then the tour manager told me that he really he goes. He really liked you.
You know, he's not like he's not usually liked that with with most people. Because I made him remember stuff that he forgot, you know, like for example, the song Wouldstock that Crosby, Stills, Nest and Young recorded on dejah Vous album Before Crosby Stills A, Nest and Young did it. Still's brought it to Hendricks and they jammed on it and I have a recording in that Wow and uh, you know I brought that up in the interview. He seemed like he forgot all about that. And uh so
that was cool. And there was a bunch of things like that. That and I gave his manager a tape a jam that he did with Hendricks was before we did the interview. It's like that was one of the things I think that his manager, when I gave it, he got me the interview. That was one of the things that helped get the interview, because uh, I was coming up with a lot of stuff that you know, he didn't even have it and his manager said, Steven said, he remembered that jam, So that was pretty cool. And yeah,
it was. It was that was a big thrill for me because he was he was still is. You know, he's my hero music. You know, I love I love his music. And they were close, so so he was probably one of the musicians that were closest to Hendricks. Interesting and then I got people, you know, like I said, I think I mentioned before, you know, I got into the concert business from all this.
Yeah, we're gonna talk about that in some detail, David that you know, we're approaching the break, but before the break, I want to get in one kind of more detailed and deep question too. This has been a journey for you. I want you to talk about the journey. You know, the challenges you've mentioned getting these people money, I'm sure to travel, you know, so we know those are the obvious ones. We talk about some of the other challenges, and then, of course, then what are the rewards? Why
do you continue to do it? You know, I'm sure it's easy and it's not. Hopefully that makes sense to people, but if anybody's been in our situation, they realize, you know, it's it's kind of a hackneyed phrase, a labor of love, but that's really what it is. So talk a little to the one of the greatest challenges, and therefore, what are the greatest rewards from doing this?
Well, when I first started, I interviewed Jimmy's father, Al Hendricks. I went to Seattle, I met with him, I spent a few days with him, took him out to dinner and launched and stuff. And then we hit it off pretty good. And I told him, I said, I want you to be involved in this project. I said, I want to meet with your lawyer and I want you to benefit from this. I want you to profit from this. I want you to beat my partner. And he said he said okay, And so We met with his attorney
while I was out there, and everything was fine. But then they still hadn't won the estate back. It was in the hands of that guy Alan Douglas and Leo Branton, an attorney, and they were fighting. They were trying to fight it in court. And then they got money from Paul Allen Partners with Bill Gates from Microsoft, and he put up six million dollars for the illegal fees. But at the time they were just starting to go into court,
they didn't it didn't happen yet. And once they did win the estate back, Al Hendricks was no longer involved in it. I mean he was the guy, he was the figurehead. But his adopted stepdaughter, Janie Hendricks, she took over and she was running everything. So she doesn't want anybody to do anything regarding Jimmy Hendricks. She doesn't want anybody to do a movie, doesn't want anybody to do
a documentary or a book or anything. And she tries to intimidate everybody that will sue you if you do this, and even photographers, you know, savvy photographers that know the business. They know that they own their photos and they could
do whatever they want with their photos. But there's photographers that don't really know anything about business, and she'll tell them, oh, you got to sell your photos to us because she can't do anything with them or we'll sue you, and then they get scared and they sell them to her. So I've been involved in some of those conversations with photographers that ended up selling everything to her, thinking that they had to and I was trying to buy them. But I got a lot of great stuff that nobody
else has. Also, I bought a lot of films super eight millime to whole movie films of him. I got a lot of stuff like nobody's ever seen before. So there's a lot of cool stuff nobody's got.
But continue, damn go ahead.
But anyway, yeah, that was that was one thing at the beginning, So you know, that was that was a surprise because I thought this is great. You know, I hit it off with Jimmy's father and we're gonna work together and I'll have access to the music and all that stuff. But then once they won the estate back, she didn't want anything to do with with me or anybody else trying to do a project. You know, a lot of people were saying, oh, you got to deal
with her. You got to deal with her, And I tried for a while, but then I came to the realization this is never gonna happen because she's you know, she's like the female version of Donald Trump too much as never and she's made millions off of this, and she's cut out Jimmy's real family members. She's not even blood related, you know, she's an adopted stepsister, but she was raised in the house by Jimmy's father. But she only met Jimmy a couple times when he came back
to Seattle to play concert. She might have spent two three hours with Jimmy and her entire life right, but she talks, she gives interviews as if they grew up together. And I think she's afraid that, you know, I'm gonna blow her cover or anybody else who tries to do a project is gonna blow her cover because she wants the world to believe that she's Jimmy's sister, and she
always says stuff like that. Well, it's funny though, because she spent time living in the same house with Al Hendricks and Jimmy's brother, Leon Hendricks, but she doesn't acknowledge Leon and Leon was cut out of the will, but she talks about Jimmy as her beloved brother. But I wonder why Leon is not her beloved brother because he's not earning her millions of dollars. So that's part of the whole equation here.
So with with you know, challenges like that in mind, what are the rewards? Why do you keep why do you keep doing it? What? What is it? What does it bring to you?
Well, at this point, there's no turning back. I put in so much time and money and uh effort over the years and getting all these interviews, you know, there's no turning back. I'm not going to say, oh, forget it. I gotta you know, I got to see it through. So that's it.
We're gonna yead.
I was just gonna say, you know, it was there. There was a lot of joy in the journey besides what I just said. I mean, I got to meet all my heroes. I got to start producing concerts from meeting all these people, I got to travel all over the world and I learned a lot and I met a lot of great people, and I became friends with
a lot of these musicians that I interviewed. And I also interviewed cultural icons besides musicians, people like Timothy Leary, Tommy Chong, Bobby Seal, the head of the Black Panther Party. You know, so many great interesting people. I got to spend time with these people and become friends with a lot of them, so it enriched my life.
Cool. No, we're going to take a break. But you mentioned also your new life as a promoter, one that you necessarily didn't plan on but became a reality for you through this project. You got the big birthday bash Hall again. You've been doing it for a while, involved bb kings, et cetera. So there's a kind of a history to it. I want you to go over that and bring us to where you are today with the big Bash at Sony Hall. We'll take a quick break.
When we come back, we'll talk about that with Hendrix's biographer, mister David Kramer. All of that and more are coming up on being Frank. Right after these brief commercial messages, I'm your host, Frankleborno. Don't go anywhere yet. We'll be right back.
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All right, everybody, We're back with Hendrick's biographer and now rock promoter concert promoter as well, David Kramer, and we're going to talk about the latter his role as a rock Impresari always wanted to say, I don't know if it's actor which wanted to say that. Anyway, David, talk a little bit about you mentioned as kind of an offshoot of this project. You got into producing concerts, and you've been doing it for a while, and some of them on some pretty big levels at bb King's and
now one coming up at Sony Hall. Talk a little bit about your history in that area.
Okay. So I started the documentary and I interviewed Buddy Miles, and he wasn't doing that great, you know, financially, wasn't doing a lot of gigs. And I felt maybe I could help him, you know, and then I could get closer to him so I could know more about Jimmy Hendricks and help him out. You know. It seemed like he wasn't getting a lot of help. So I decided to do a concert, my first Hendricks tribute concert. It was a charity benefit, and Diane Hendricks, Jimmy's cousin, did
it with her. When I met Al Hendricks in Seattle, he gave me her number. He said, she's in New York. Give her a call. She'll probably do an interview. I said, great, thanks, He said, that's Jimmy's first cousin. He never mentioned Jane. I didn't even know Jimmy had his stepsister. He never even mentioned her. But he didn't mention Diane. So when I got back to New York, I called Diane and we became friendly, and she didn't want to commit to an interview right away, but she didn't say no. Figured
eventually she'll do it. I found out later Janie was pulling the strings there, and Janie was telling her not to do an interview. So anyway, I didn't know that till later, but at the time, Diane told me that her friend was a teacher in the city in New York City, and she wanted to bring some of her students, her kids, young kids to Africa to learn about their heritage. So she she said she wanted to do some kind of charity benefit and maybe I could help her, so
I said sure. So then she wasn't sure what she wanted to do, so I said, why don't we do a concert, Why don't we do a Jimmy Hendrick's tribute concert. She said, oh, that's a great idea, and that's how that started. So we had Buddy Miles, I got Richie Havens, I got Randy California from Spirit, I got Larry Corriel, I got I got the two Kunga players that played with with Jimmy at Woodstock and a few other gigs, Juma and Jerry Vealez, Gerardo Vlez and a bunch of other people. You know.
Ware where did the concert take place.
That was at sobs it Sounds in Brazil downtown. Yeah, down on Barrack Street in the city. And that was my first Hendrix concert. That was in ninety four, I think nineteen ninety four, And yeah, that was my that was my introduction to the whole thing.
So how was it about in the twenty years since then? How was that evolved?
Yeah? So Buddy, So I had Buddy at the show, and he was impressed because we had a sold out house, you know, and it was all for charity, and everybody was excited to see all these people, especially Buddy because he he hadn't been around in a while. I didn't I didn't even know if he was alive, you know, until I get to interview him. So people came out to see these guys. I think Buddy was a big draw, you know, Larry Coriel, just In Hendrick's name was a
big draw, you know, anything related to Jimmy Hendricks. It wasn't a lot going on there in the late eighties, in the eighties and nineties as far as Hendricks, So we had a we had a full house. It was an expensive ticket because it was charity. It was like two hundred and twenty five dollars, and Buddy was impressed, so he asked me if I could uh booked some
more shows for him. So that's how that started. And then I became his manager for about five years, from like ninety five to two thousand, and I booked him all around the Tri state area. Chicago Blues club that used to be down on Eighth Avenue just south of fourteenth Street. He played there all the time, played there like four New Year's East in a row, and played there at least four times a year. And I was booking him around the Tri state area, Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut,
New York. And that was that was how that was my introduction into the music business. And but he was it was difficult to work with because he had some substance abuse issues. So I always say, you know, if you could work with him, you could work with anybody. And he was the first guy, so it came easy after that.
And he's not the only one. I won't I won't drop names, but a few others that yeah, into that category as well.
Yes, yeah, so you know I was so naive at first. I thought, you know, he's just grouchy in the morning. He wasn't grouchy. He was Jones. And so anyway from there story yeah, and then bb Kings opened up, uh, around two thousand and one. It was it was really weird the way things happened because Chicago Blues, the club where I booked Buddy all the time, they club, they sold the place right before a nine one run attack. It was so weird, as if they knew it was
going to happen. They sold the club. Then the attack happened. Then Uh, bb Kings opened up, and uh, I went down there and I talked to people and I started booking shows there. My first show was Terry Reid. Well, I don't know if you're familiar with he's kind of obscure, but he was a big name in for a short time in the late sixties. You know, he tore the opening for the Rolling Stones, and he toured with Clapton, and he opened up for Blind Faith, and he played
all the major festivals in the late sixties seventies. He played the Isle of Wight, the biggest festival ever. You know, that was like six hundred thousand people played that when he was like twenty years old. So he was another interesting character who I learned a lot from, similar to Buddy in some ways. And you know, it was these guys that had a taste of fame and success and then they lost it due to alcohol or substance abuse
or whatever or both. And they weren't the easiest guys to work with, so they were bitter because they weren't a big star anymore. So it was pretty rough working for some of these guys, but I learned a lot from it. And he was the first show I did at bb King's Terry and the day of the show, it was my first show doing there, and I had a great band. I had Cornell Dupree and Chuck Rainey, the guitar player and the bass player from the King Curtis band that played with Hendricks. And you know, these
are top guys. They're more like they're very well known for studio session work. They've played with everybody from Steely Dan to you name it. I mean, Cornell Dupree played with Aretha Franklin for years and he he's on respect you know, that's him on guitar anyway. So I had this big show, was you know, my first one there, and I was a little nervous, and then Terry came in and and and uh he lost his voice. It was it was rainy, snowy, slushy, damp, crappy weather, and uh,
he lost his voice. The day of the show. He'd had total laryngitis and uh, you know, drinking like he did didn't help either, so he probably caught a cold and everything. And he said, this happened to me once before, when I was in Hong Kong. I said, what did you do? He said, I got it. I got a steroids shot in my vocal chords. Wow, that doesn't sound like fun, So I said, I said, do you know where you could get that? And he started making phone calls.
Took a few hours, and then he found a doctor on Park Avenue, I think it was somewhere in midtown, and we went there right before the show, right before load and soundcheck. He got the shots and then he was able to sing. But the problem was, you know, the club was happy because we had a good crowd. It was a Tuesday night and we had like a really good crowd for a Tuesday because Terry hadn't played in New York in a long time, so because he got that steroids shot and because we had such a
good crowd, they said. The waitress came in and said, you know, what would you like to drink? You know, you could, you could have a bottle whatever you want or you know, be or whatever you want. So he chose a bottle, I forget what it was now, something really expensive. He started drinking that and because of the steroid shot, it had a bad effect on his you know, he just kind of lost it at the show and
just had a real bad effect on his temperament. And then he started yelling at this at the sound person and it was crazy.
But well, apparently, David, if you've had your challenges throughout the years. But let's go up and keep an eye on our time here. And I rarely want to talk about the show coming up at Sony Hall. You got a great line up. Let's talk a little bit about that. Let's bring people up to the present. Now that's all behind us hopefully.
Yeah. So well, I started doing the Hendrix show there at bb King's and I ended up doing the Hendricks show for ten years there, and each year I tried to get people that had a connection with Jimmy Hendricks. They either played with him, jammed with him, recorded with him, toured with him, friends with him, family members, just a real connection to Jimmy Hendricks. That's what I wanted to do.
I didn't want to have like new guys that you know, young twenty year old guitar players like Kenny Wayne Shepard or anything like that, even though he's a great guitar player. I wanted to do the authentic Hendricks show with the guys that were his contemporaries. So, like the first year I did it there, I had Larry Corriel and Johnny Winner and Buddy Miles, and I had Honey Boy Edwards,
the Delta Blues legend who played with Robert Johnson. Had Cornell Dupree, Chuck Rainey, Harvey Brooks, all these amazing players that played with Hendricks. I knew him, and it was great. It was a packed house, and so every year I tried to do that right, have have a connection to Hendricks.
I had Jimmy's brother Leon, The next year I had Frank Marino of Mahogany Rush, who's a major Hendricks influence in his playing, and I had Vinnie Martel from Vanilla Fudge, and you know all these great players, Randy Hansen from Seattle who plays like Hendricks, and I had Robbie Krieger from The Doors, Michael Hampton from p Funk. So as we as we get older. Now that's where we're twenty years later now from when I started doing these shows at bb King's, and a lot of these people have
passed away. Now they're gone. And I was good friends with love one of these guys, Larry Corrielle, great jazz usion guitarist, you know, Cornell Dupree, all great great musicians, and they're gone. So it's it's gotten harder and harder to do these things. So now this year we're doing it at Sony Hall, about twenty years later. I gotta get younger guys that are alive, that have energy, because most of these guys that I was talking about are gone.
So this year I got Blackbird McKnight from p Funk, the lead guitar player from p Funk who's phenomenal, and Michael Hampton, the other guitar player from p Funk. I don't know if you're familiar with p Funk. But but they got a you know, George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelics. They got a huge Hendrick's influence in their guitar players always They've always had a huge Jimmy Hendrick's guitar player influenced in their songs and everything. So I got those guys.
And then I got Captain Kirk Douglas from the Roots band, and The Roots is a hip hop band with Questlove, who's real famous for not only his band, The Roots, but everything he's done as far as documentary movies. He did the movie on sly Stone, done a lot of great stuff. So Captain Kirk Douglas is in that band, The Roots. I got a couple of guys. I got Corey Glover, the lead singer from Living Color, who was great, great singer. He's he was voted as one of the
top fifty greatest rock singers of all time. I think he's number forty five on that list. And I got an older guy who played in a band with hen Jicks. He was in the Curtis Knight in the Squire's Band with Jimmy Henjicks in sixty five sixty six named Lonnie Youngblood. Also known as the Prince of Harlem. He plays saxophone and he's a great singer and saxophone player, and he recorded with Hendricks in the mid sixties when he was in the Curtis Knight in the Squire's Band, and then
he recorded later on with hendrickson sixty nine. So yeah, Lonnie Youngblood, he's eighty four years old now, but he's phenomenal. I had him the last Hendricks show I did at bb Kings Jimmy Hendricks seventy third Birthday Tribute ten years ago, twenty fifteen. That was with Larry Coriel in the Eleventh House as the headliner, and Lonnie Ungblood stole the show. He was incredible. Larry Coriel's eleven thousand right also can't compare the two. But Lonnie Youngblood was like seeing Otis
writing the way he sang and played saxophone. So he's amazing. And they got him on the show this year at Sony Hall that's November twenty sixth, Thanksgiving Eve, and then I got a lot of the great local New York guys that are playing on the bill. My musical director Andre LaSalle, who's been the musical director for me for all the most all these Hendrix shows. He's a phenomenal
guitar player. And Angel Recca, longtime Hendricks player who played with Buddy Miles and with Curtis Knight, and who else. We got a drummer Gabe Gonzalez who was in a drummer in p Funk also, So it's gonna be an amazing show this year, and I hope everybody comes out to see it.
Right again, place Sony Hall in New York City, So right.
Sony Hall, two thirty five West forty sixth Street between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, and through the time Paramount Hotel, the Basement Ballroom, and at seven thirty to eight we're going to show a half hour segment of the documentary and eight to ten we're going to show we're going to have the musical portion of the show. So that's Thanksgiving Eve, November twenty sixth.
How can people get tickets in advance? How can they do that?
You get them online through the Sony Hall website Sony Hall dot com. That's the that's the venue. You can buy them right there, or you can buy them at the door the box office. You get them now at the box I think box office is open from eleven am to five pm Monday through Friday, possibly on the weekend too. I'm not sure about the box office on the weekend, but it probably is all week Yeah.
We could call Sony Hall for more information.
Yeah, the number for Sony Hall is two on two nine seven five one two three.
David, I want to thank you for being frank with us in your intelligent conversation. Always fascinating to learn more about the legend who is Jimmy Hendrix. Thanks David, appreciation, Thank you, and of course we offer special thanks to our listeners who take a time to give us a voice in their lives. Remember we offer fresh topic just about every week. Catch us wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcast. Check us out on the Hudson River
Radio Facebook page. Like us and leave us a comment too, you know, always leave you with two last little things bonus if you will, a slogan and some great original music. And the slogan comes from the man himself, Jimmy Hendricks, probably his most famous when he said, when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace beautiful. And we'll close with some music from my good friend David Snyder, who said I love Hendricks.
He's my number one influence and you'll hear it in this song called Funk Sweet.
Can I mention one thing?
Go ahead?
Yes, you got a local legend from NYAK that's going to be on the bill as Joanne Ledeger, who sings all over the area.
We know her well and she is quite brilliant. All right, that'll be the last word for our engineer, the male man, mister Neil rich Ter. I'm your host, Frank Lobono. When you hope to have you join us on the next being Frank, We're the only way to be is Frank.
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