| Author | Message | ||
| jack
Intermediate Member Username: jack Post Number: 173 Registered: 11-2005 |
Wow. Bummer. I just caught the Experience Hendrix tour with Mitch, Billy Cox (who was excellent) and Buddy Guy. Glad I did.... Mitch was a cool drummer, with his traditional grip and going all nuts behind with what must've been a tough guy to keep up with. The Woodstock video is great. RIP. Mitch Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix's Drummer, Dies, KGW-TV Reports 2008-11-12 21:36:52.600 GMT By Chris Dolmetsch Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Mitch Mitchell, the drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was found dead in a Portland, Oregon, hotel today, KGW-TV reported, citing a medical examiner. He was 61, according to Web sites including allmusic.com. Mitchell's body was found just after 3 a.m. at the Benson Hotel, the station reported. He probably died of natural causes, KGW-TV said, citing the Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office. An autopsy was scheduled for today. Mitchell played for the Jimi Hendrix Experience from 1966 to 1969 and backed the legendary guitarist at the Woodstock and Isle of Wight festivals. He had been playing with a Hendrix tribute tour that stopped in Portland last week, the station reported. | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 7154 Registered: 5-2002 |
Wow As for many of you, his is a significant contribution to my musical and life path. The Experience. | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 7155 Registered: 5-2002 |
A clip off youtube. (Message edited by davehouck on November 12, 2008) | ||
| mike1762
Intermediate Member Username: mike1762 Post Number: 170 Registered: 1-2008 |
What a great talent. While he wasn't really underrated, I don't think he got ALL the props he deserved. He was an absolute wildman, yet somehow managed to hold it all together... a lead drummer if you will. I guess Keith Moon would have been the closest thing to him, but he's gone too. Dave, I don't know your Mitch Mitchell story... do you mind sharing it? (Message edited by mike1762 on November 12, 2008) | ||
| elwoodblue
Senior Member Username: elwoodblue Post Number: 598 Registered: 6-2002 |
We'll miss ya Mitch,...and think of you lots, Wishing you a clear path where you go from here! | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 7156 Registered: 5-2002 |
I think that for me, growing up when I did, Hendrix was a significant influence, not only musically but culturally. For me, at the time, he took the guitar to places no one else had. And culturally, it being the sixties, and me having grown up in North Carolina, in the South, in the sixties, and everything that meant, the fear, the mistrust, the segregation, the riots, the overcoming, the coming together, .. I loved that he was who he was, and where he was; that he was a cultural symbol, a face of the cultural transformation that so informed who I was and who I would become. While the first two albums were amazing, with music that was so far beyond anything that had come before, in my college years I really began to appreciate Electric Ladyland; as evidenced in Voodoo Child Slight Return, it was some place new again; it was the blues, rebirthed through the Experience of psychedelia, and heard fresh and anew deep from within a soul that had a new Experience from which they could be reborn. Then Band of Gypsies showed just where he could take that sound. And then he was gone. In the nineties, while playing with a blues group, I delved deeper into Hendrix, exploring South Saturn Delta and First Rays of the New Rising Sun. During that time I was increasing my knowledge of and appreciation for blues, and my appreciation for where Hendrix had taken the blues grew extensively. It was also when I began to realize just how important Mitch Mitchell had been to the whole story. I read John McDermott's Hendrix bio, watched videos, and listened. First Rays of the New Rising Sun was were the music was going. For the most part, it is Hendrix, Cox, and Mitchell. Freedom While I also appreciate Buddy Miles' contribution to the story, Mitchell's contribution to the music, and thus to my own story, is significant. The power of Hendrix, Cox and Miles on Band of Gypsies is wonderful, but First Rays shows the beauty of Hendrix, Cox and Mitchell. So, my "Mitchell story" is just the fact that he was so much a part of Hendrix's music, which has significantly informed my own music, and that the Experience was so much a part of the cultural transformation in this country in the sixties, which is still a part of who I am today. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 621 Registered: 11-2004 |
I hate age and the passage of time..too many deaths close to me. Davehouck..I agree with all you said, I was slightly younger when I discovered Hendrix, I was 13 years old when I was on holiday and I heard the DJ play the opening bars of Voodoo Chile Slight return..without sounding pretentious..it changed my life in the way that I wanted to play music. To me Hendrix is the greatest guitarist and musician of all time. The first two albums as you said..absolutley awesome, Electric Ladyland and the live Band of Gypsys..particulary Machine Gun. This was ground breaking stuff and no one has come close to that since. Even the younger players of today recognise Jimi and you know he was introduced to the general public by a man who was from a city just a mere 40 miles from where I live... Newcastle upon Tyne UK..we have a lot to thank the late Chas Chandler for. RIP Mitch | ||
| pas
Intermediate Member Username: pas Post Number: 139 Registered: 3-2003 |
I've been offline for almost 2 weeks & this is the first I've heard of this...very sad. He had a very jazzy, circular style...not unlike Spencer Dryden. I recall Jack Casady telling me how much he enjoyed playing with Mitch. The whole Experience has now gone off to the Great Gig in the Sky...Jimi, Noel & Mitch. Perhaps if they want a keyboard player, they can look up Rick Wright...sigh. Gosh, this is making me feel old. Thanks for the music guys...IT lives forever. |
