Original Booklet Notes, "The Hurricane Story," for MCA's Jimi Hendrix :Woodstock CD.

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Woodstock disperses as Gypsy Sun & Rainbows head north for Liberty. Yasgur's farm looks like a hurricane has just swept through. And Jimi's clay colors look caramel, like Camille.


That morning, Dick Cavett had scheduled Hendrix and other Woodstock headliners to tape a TV show in New York. "But Jimi went missing," explained Bob Levine, aid to Jimi's manager. "Gerry Stickles (road manager) and I had no way of reaching him. I later found out Hendrix thought the Cavett appearance had been cancelled as a result of his own delay getting on stage at Woodstock."

After the concert, Jimi and Leslie Aday caught a helicopter back to Grossinger's Hotel. "The hotel was filled with people who had come over from the festival," relates Aday. "I heard a great deal of commotion in his room and peeked through the door. There were a number of people getting high who were not there in Jimi's best interests. After they left, I went back to check on him, and he had passed out on the bed with a cigarette going. It had burned a large hole through his sheet before going out."

During Woodstock weekend 5,162 people were treated in the medical tents. Babies were born and three boys died; one overdose, one burst appendix, and one tractor accident. One girl broke her back during a fall from a lighting tower. The Bethel Town Justice dealt with what was normally a year's worth of work - 177 arrests. Fines averaged $25, but most cases were dismissed. Ventures began the task of refunding 18,000 tickets sold to people who missed the show because of blocked roads.


On Wednesday, Jimi withdrew $1500 from the office account and paid his rhythm section (Billy, Larry, and Juma) $500 apiece for their contributions at Woodstock. Two weeks later, on the day that Vietnam's leader, Ho Chi Minh, died, Jimi spoke with reporters in Harlem. The occasion was a press conference to publicize a United Block Association benefit concert. It was here, at a free street-festival, that Jimi chose to debut his new anti-war song, Machine Gun, before a crowd of inner-city blacks - a population from which such a disproportionate percentage of soldiers were sent to "Soulville" (the front-lines of battle in Vietnam).

Although reporters grilled him about Woodstock's Mud Bowl, Jimi chose to speak of the meaning of politics in Mississippi, and the meaning of "Earth Arts" for large gatherings: "It just seems to me that music has a lot of influence on a lot of young people today. Politics are getting, well, you know how they're getting (laughs). A cat was talkin' on TV, and a farmer in Mississippi can't barely understand him, except when he says 'America.' So then he's gonna vote for him. But through music, it's all true, either true or false, and such a large gathering of people shows that music must mean something. It breaks down to the arts of Earth, the Earth Arts..."

500,000 Halos...
outshined the mud and history.
We washed and drank
in God's tears of Joy,
And for once...and for everyone...
the truth was not a mystery ---

Love called to all...Music is Magic.
As we passed over and beyond the walls of nay.
Hand in Hand as we lived and
made real the dreams of peaceful men ---

We came together...Danced with
the pearls of Rainy weather
Riding the waves of music and
Space --- Music is Magic...
magic is life....
Love as never Loved Before...
Harmony to Son and Daughter...man and wife.

Jimi - August 1969

Copyright © 1992 - Michael J. Fairchild



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