Mitch Mitchell
Mitch Mitchell, who died in Portland, Oregon in 2008 - just a few days
after featuring on the 'Experience Hendrix Tour' alongside Doors
guitarist Robbie Krieger and bluesman Buddy Guy - only took up playing
the drums after a promising start to his first career as a child actor,
during which he appeared in Emergency - Ward 10, and as an
'Ovalteenie'
in TV adverts.
Having taught himself to play drums, and stints with the likes of
Screaming Lord Sutch, The Tornados and Johnny Kidd and The
Pirates, he
finally ditched acting for music in 1965 when he landed a job in Georgie
Fame's Blue Flames, the most respected R&B band in London at the
time.
Fame disbanded his group the following year to concentrate on a solo
career. Five days later Mitchell received a call from Chas Chandler to
see if he fancied playing with a guitarist who the former Animals'
bassist had discovered and brought over from America.
Not for the first time, British music lovers proved far more
responsive to black American talent than the Americans themselves, and
within a few days of their first showcase gigs, The Jimi Hendrix
Experience - with bassist Noel Redding completing the trio - were the
sensation of Swinging London.
Guitar heroes such as Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and
Pete Townshend were
left agog at the newcomer's extraordinary talent, while Eric Clapton
was apparently so traumatised by the experience of jamming with Hendrix
that he contemplated giving up the guitar altogether.
A string of classic hits, including Purple Haze and All
Along The Watchtower, was accompanied by albums that broadened the
group's approach, ranging from blues rock (Are You Experienced?)
through outright psychedelia (Axis: Bold As Love) to a rich
melange of long, bluesy jams, punchy R&B, exotic space-rock and
wah-wah guitar showcases (Electric Ladyland).
Mitchell kept pace with Hendrix every step of the way, but during the
Black Power era, Hendrix's decision to involve more black musicians,
and the entourage that began to accumulate around him, left Mitch
feeling increasingly uneasy as the token honky, so he quit. He would
later rejoin, accompanying the guitarist at the epochal Woodstock
performance, the dreadful Isle Of Wight appearance, and working on the
material that would be released as The Cry Of Love.
But in the wake of Jimi's death, Mitchell's career waned
inexplicably as he struggled to find the right setting for his
distinctive talents.
The problem was his sheer percussive presence, a situation brought
into sharp relief when he failed auditions for the drum seat in Paul
McCartney's new band, Wings - on the grounds that his playing was
simply too busy. Sadly, Mitch had turned down the opportunity to join
Keith Emerson and Greg Lake in their proposed new 'supergroup' (ELM
anyone?) shortly before Jimi's death, and he may have been too proud or
too tasteful to join the lesser heavy metal acts that flourished in the
wake of Cream and The Experience.
Unfortunately, the appalling contracts that restricted Redding and
Mitchell to the role of hired hands meant that neither received due
recompense for recording with The Experience.
By 1990, Mitchell was in
such dire straits that he was forced to auction off a guitar given to
him by Hendrix. It fetched £180,000. Not bad, but nowhere near what
he deserved.
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