All language subtitles for vasilica

It was the first festivaI of its kind.

The first pop festivaI

that brought alI different
types of music together.

There had been jazz festivals,
bIues festivals,

and foIk festivals.

There reaIly hadn't been
a rock festival.

lt seemed like the time
to give something back to music.

So we tried to find the most talented
people who hadn't been exposed.

The theme
of the Monterey Pop festival

was music, love and flowers,
or something like that.

It was to show that music,
love and flowers

could transcend anything
and conquer the world.

Monterey was the launching pad
for Jimi in America.

Most people there, l'd say 99% ,

did not know who the heck

Jimi Hendrix
and the Experience were.

Well, it was like probably
the most important gig

in Jimi Hendrix's career.

And that made
the band in America.

Less than a year

before Jimi pIayed
Monterey,

he was playing an unknown
in Greenwich Village

when he was spotted
by Chas Chandler,

who was the bass player
in the Animals,

and was looking for his first venture
into managing a band.

l'd been out
with a girlfriend of mine,

and she played me a recording
by Tim Rose of "Hey Joe."

And l said I'm going to,
at the end of this tour,

l'm going to go back and find
an artist to record this song with.

We were in New York, of course.

Linda Keith,
who was, l believe,

Keith Richard's girlfriend at the time,
or was his girlfriend

had asked Chas to go along
and see this, this guy sing.

And she said he was, uh...

she felt he was going
to be the new thing.

And so Chas, of course, went.

I saw him in Cafe Wha?

And the very first song
he played was "Hey Joe."

I knew the only thing I wanted to do
was take this guy to England.

l thought he would change
the music face of England,

if not the world.

I knew he was going to be
a sensation in England.

I first heard
about Jimi Hendrix

when l was at Melody Maker

and my old friend,
Chas Chandler

who was formerly the bass player
with the Animals,

rang me up and said,
"Chris, you've got to come and see

this fantastic
new guitar player."

And he was telling me
all about Jimi Hendrix

who he had just brought over
to England from New York.

The first flat we had was...
belonged to Ringo Starr,

'cause Ringo had let...

it was again,
it was the old pals act,

you know, all the bands
and that there.

AlI we did was music, you know?

We'd go to a gig, we'd come back,
he'd be writing a song.

We'd be picking on it.

Pick a song to pieces
just in our flat, you know?

It was a very exciting time
to be in London in 1 966,

because not onIy were there lots
of venues for bands to play at,

there were also what were called
"The ln Clubs,"

which were nightclubs
where people went after hours

to drink and chat,
where the industry sort of met.

Chas was kind of smart
in the sense

when he first brought him
to England,

that's what he did.

He just took him around
to those clubs.

That's where
l first saw Hendrix.

He got up and started

jamming with this band,
and it was, um...

It was, like, "Uh-oh,

I think I should take up
another instrument."

He was just amazing.

It's 1 966.

Kit Lambert
and myself were partners.

We were young fiImmakers.

We'd begun with The Who

and we were very involved
in the whole sort of

rock and roll sort of thing
that was happening.

And there were, like, two clubs,
three clubs at that time

that you went to after the gigs,
that sort of thing.

We were at one of them.

Chas came in with this guy
and, you know, from word go,

when he started to perform,
we were just totally enamored.

We knew Chas and we said,
"Can we produce him?

We'd Iove to produce him."

And Chas said,
"l'm going to produce him."

We said,
"Has he got a record label?"

And of course
he didn't have a record label,

so we immediately,
you know, created--

got into the machinations of creating
the record label because of Jimi.

And we sat at the table

and literally did a deal
on a beer mat

for Jimi to be on Track Records.

We didn't even have
a band in that day.

Noel and Mitch weren't there yet.

And then we had a jam session,
um, at one club in England,

you know, and that's how Mitch,
Noel, and l got together.

Right now l'd like to introduce
the cats in the group.

That's Noel Redding playing bass.

Hello.

And Mitch Mitchell
playing drums.

Good evening.

Noel comes down, expecting
to play guitar, you know.

He was trying for The AnimaIs.

So l dug his hairstyIe,
so... l asked him to play bass.

We're going back to what,
September '66,

when l actually went
to do an audition

as a guitar player
for Eric Burdon and the new Animals,

'cause The Animals had broken up,

and at which point Chas,
he said can l play bass?

I said,
"No, but l'll give it a go,"

and l was handed this bass.
We played three tunes.

This American gentleman said,
"Do you want to join my group?"

And that was it.

l got a phone call
from Chas Chandler.

"Hey, l got this guy
coming over from America.

Do you fancy having a play
with him?"

And he was the first person
l knew, ever heard,

that knew how to pIay

that Curtis Mayfield
style of guitar

and also,
"You want Wes Montgomery?"

Without being a fIesh git.

I remember the first gig
we did in England.

They just stood there
with their mouths open,

so l said to myself,
"Damn, what happened, you know?

Did we, did we do good
or what, you know?"

And then we started doing

what we caIled
"the club scene" in London.

And then suddenly we noticed
we were filling the place.

And then suddenly you'd see
John Lennon in the corner

or McCartney or BiIl Wyman.

There was definitely
a time period where--

what was London up to?

It was tracking Jimi Hendrix.

Nobody had
much time off then,

but what were they doing
when they had time off?

They were tracking Jimi Hendrix.

The reason he took off
so quickly in England

was because of The Rolling Stones
and The Beatles.

The Beatles
and the Stones would go

to see Jimi play
anywhere,

especially in the West End
of London.

They'd talk about him in interviews,
say this guy was--

"You've got
to go to see Jimi Hendrix."

I'd put another thousand
on the door the next day

when Mick Jagger or John Lennon
or Paul McCartney was saying,

"This guy is great."

We had been tipped off,
actually by John Lennon.

He said, "You've got
to come and see this guy."

He had been signed for Europe

and the rest of the world,
actually, and the U.K.,

and all that was open
was North America.

And so we grabbed what we could

and we signed him
for North America.

As we started in '66,

things happened
so... darn... quickly.

And it was just great
because we went out at gigs,

worked on songs,
went in the studio, partied.

It was just great.

The whole direction
was just on making it a success.

It was like a jigsaw. You could see
the pieces coming together.

First of all, there was
the hit single "Hey Joe,"

and then came "Purple Haze,"

which established him
as a singer/songwriter/guitarist.

You know, the complete works.

He was accepted
by the British audience

with a reverence
that happened with The Beatles.

That happened with him.

You know, he was loved
in England immediately,

you know, and really appreciated
as the great artist that he was.

Chas now had to sort of, like,
move towards the next stage,

and the next stage
was obviously to break America.

Well, "Hey Joe" was played
in the predictable places--

the FM stations.

Very few AM Top 40 stations
would take a chance with it.

It was so off the beaten track.

They were struggling
to get a foot in the door in America.

You know, they were struggling
to get records played

and they were struggling
to get that kind of attention.

But what they did have

was the word
within the business.

They had the Beatles,
um, accreditation.

The Beatles had given them
their blessing, so to speak.

If my memory serves me,
he got a phone call--

Paul McCartney had
something to do with it,

but l know he got a phone call
from The Mamas and The Papas,

asking if he wanted to be...

They were going to do
this California pop festival

and did he want
to be part of it?

He said yes, of course.

It was intended
as a fabulous summer event

by the man who thought of it,
a man called Alan Pariser,

who went to a promoter
called Benny Shapiro.

They came to me one morning
and said they had

a wonderful idea to do
a pop festival in Monterey

where the jazz festivals
had been.

A fellow calIed me

and he said that he had been
to the Monterey Fairgrounds

and he wanted to put a 1 2-hour
show on from noon to midnight

and he wanted us
to close the show.

He offered us a huge sum
of money to do it, so...

And so, I said
l'd let him know the next day

and l thought it over
and l woke up in the middle of the night

and l thought,
"You know, wouldn't it be great

if we made it
like a three-day thing?"

And so l called Lou Adler
in the middle of the night

and he said,
"Yeah, great idea, good-bye,"

and hung up.

Next morning, he caIled me back
and said, "That's a great idea."

They had some good acts,

a couple of San Francisco acts,
a couple of blues acts.

They didn't have anyone really
to draw people in,

so they wanted to hire
The Mamas and The Papas.

But if anyone was going to run this thing,
it was going to be John Phillips,

Michelle PhilIips, and Lou Adler.

They co-opted
the idea of the pop festival,

made it a voluntary thing
for charity,

aced out Benny Shapiro,

aIlowed Alan Pariser
to be a co-producer.

I was to be press officer.

It was at that point

that the transition
started to take place,

to make it more than one day,

to make it three days,
to hire a lot more groups.

So the concept was changed
by John and Lou.

Since there had never really been

a pop festivaI
or a rock festival before,

they were kind of flying
by the seat of their pants.

Now the number one thing
that l noticed here is

that there's no clearly defined
areas of responsibility

that one can just know...
Charlie's taking care of that,

or so-and-so
is taking care of that.

That's not true at alI, man.

Then if there are
these areas of responsibility,

may l suggest, may l suggest,
that we go around,

and the guy who's in charge
of so and so,

say, "l'm in charge of art.

We are ten hours away
from completion."

"l'm in charge of security,
where this...

So when the citizens

learned Monterey
was to be the scene

of the first annual
international pop festival,

they were somewhat
less than overjoyed.

I think our position, primarily,
was that the pop festival

was brought in here
without the people of the town

realIy knowing what it was.

It bothers a certain segment
of our population without a doubt,

but to me, more frightening
than the type of people

is the sheer numbers

that we're going to,
that we expect to get.

But they were very clever
in the way that they put it together

and the way
that they presented it.

They convinced

the city council
that there would be no drugs.

That, you know, hippies
were the most peaceful

and wonderful people
in the world,

and that, a, a crowd of 200,000

was not going to affect affect
the town of Monterey,

which is about this big.

The truth is that
the more people that they got involved,

the more it started
to snowball into a reality.

The Mamas and Papas
said

Why don't you give
all the money to charity

and we'lI work for nothing?

So we said okay,
so Simon and Garfunkel

agreed to work
for nothing as well.

Then everyone foIlowed.

The first acts we had on
were obviously the Mamas and Papas.

We figured
they can close one night.

Simon and Garfunkel, we thought,
that's another night.

We got Otis Redding,

and those were to be
the three headliners,

and then we started
to fill in with those acts

that represented

all the different kinds
of pop music at that time.

Everyone was encouraged

to submit names that they thought
would be interesting.

Everybody was part of the committee.

There were some that were very active.
Andrew Oldham obviously

was very active
and whenever we thought

about the European acts
or the English acts,

we went to Andrew,
we went to McCartney.

You know,
"Who do you think we should go after?"

And it was all logical.
l mean, you couldn't...

It was The Who
and Jimi Hendrix.

And either John or Lou
said that's funny,

that's exactly
what Paul McCartney said.

Everybody in the office was quite excited

and everybody wanted to have
this little trip to California,

because, up until that point,
we'd just tour Bristol,

as they say, and Manchester,
Birmingham, so, wow.

California, here we come.

There was no major plan,
just, you know...

Jimi was an American

and naturally an American
wants to be big in America,

so we just went there.

Well, we realized
when we saw

the lineup of talent
from Monterey,

this would be
a marvelous venue for him,

to debut his American experience.

For Jimi,
it was his coming out party.

The idea of going
to America,

especially
the West Coast...

l'd just got this flavor
of West Coast America,

and it lived up to my expectations
and way beyond.

I'm seeing, like, young girls,
young ladies, putting roses

in policemen's, like, heImets...

I haven't seen anything like that

before or since.

It was so well organized
and controlled

in the sense that everyone
who paid to get in had a seat,

and then there was
the outer fairground

at Monterey
where you could just wander around

and enjoy the music.

There was no mud,
and there was no trouble with lavatories

or bad drugs
or being ripped off

or not being able
to park anywhere.

A lot of people who were at the festival
were smoking dope

and a lot of people
were taking LSD

and putting on a wonderful
three-day event.

When I showed up
on Friday morning,

there were television
from Europe,

from every major channeI.

Unheard of. It just...

It just blew our minds,
the coverage we were about to get.

It was just amazing.

We couldn't believe that it

had all come together
in such a wonderful,

and, you know, l don't think
we knew at the moment,

but in such a historic way.

We had no trouble with the police,
no trouble with the fire,

no trouble with traffic.

The place sold out

and the bands did appear
for nothing.

It's one of those
magical things that happens,

and l don't know
if it ever happens again.

I hope it does.

Because, um, from a musician
and an audience

and the tone of Monterey,
it just came out perfect.

Everyone wanted to be
the best they could

for their fellow musicians.

It it wasn't for the $1 0,000 fee
or this or that or something.

You know, it was
just a matter of pride.

The audience was making
a transition from, uh...

going to pop concerts

to something
much closer to a jazz concert.

They were, uh,

in most cases,
not listening to a record,

but were listening

to a musical performance
by the artist,

and not wanting
to miss any part of it.

One of the greatest things

was all the band's
meeting backstage.

I mean, there were tabIes

and snack places set up
backstage,

and you'd see aIl these people

sitting and
getting to know each other.

The atmosphere,
and people hung out.

It allowed the acts who may have
heard about somebody

and hadn't seen them,
and certainly hadn't

sat at the same table
and talked.

And I think it made more
of a community out of the artists,

or put them into a community

as opposed
to just independent acts.

One of my most vivid
memories of Monterey

was the first day
we were there,

and walking down the midway
and there was Brian Jones.

And to see Brian Jones there
in his cape walking around,

was just like,
you know, somebody

from Mount Olympus
had stepped onto, uh...

stepped into our town.

Brian Jones was with us

aIl the way through
from the English flight.

He was a great friend
of Jimi's and ours.

And of course,
he was introducing us.

And there was this rumor
that there was this

very exciting new artist
coming out,

but nobody had heard of him,
nobody knew anything about him.

During the course
of the festival,

his name came up
in various contexts.

I remember, l think,
David Crosby of the Byrds

had mentioned him
in passing, during,

you know,
something between songs.

Some of the musicians
that had traveled

between England and the U.S.,

um, some of them were aware
of both Hendrix and The Who.

Jimi and The Who knew
each other from England.

They pretty much knew
what kind of act they were doing.

l don't know if they had
played shows together,

but obviously they knew
that it was going to take a lot

to top the other act
once that act had been on stage.

The Who and Jimi were determined
to outdo each other.

And l'm not really
sure who really won.

There was some conflict

about whether The Who
should follow us

or should we follow
The Who.

We said, "We don't care."

We couldn't
really decide.

I said to Jimi, l said,
"Fuck it, man,

we're not going
to follow you on."

So he said,
"l'm not going to follow you on."

So I said, "Listen, we are not
going to follow you on

"and that is it.

"You know, as far
as l'm concerned, you know,

"we're ready to go on now.

Our gig is going to be there,
that's the end of it," you know.

And there was
a certain look up in his eye,

and he got on a chair

and he played
some amazing guitar,

just standing on the chair
in the dressing room.

Janice Joplin was there,
Brian Jones, Eric and me,

and a few other people
just standing around.

And then he got down
off the chair and just said,

turned around to me
and just said,

"If l'm going to follow you,
l'm going to pull all the stops."

And now the next act

is one of the hottest bands
from England.

It's Iead by an American,
Jimi Hendrix.

It felt okay.

The time of the evening,

the time of everything.

I mean, you know, the adrenaline
was definitely pumping.

And here to introduce him,

he's come all the way out
from London,

is Brian Jones
of the Rolling Stones!

Ladies and gentlemen,
Brian Jones!

I'd like to introduce
a very good friend,

a fellow countryman of yours.

The prettiest this performer,

the most exciting guitarist
l've ever heard,

The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Yeah, baby, good lovin'.

Yeah, what's happening, brother?

Here's something else
we got a little thing called "Foxy Lady."

My fingers wiIl move as you see,

you don't hear no sound,
that you hear, but dig this.

Hey, brothers and soul,
hey, baby, what's happening?

Dig, I tell you what,
let's get down to business.

All right, just give me one
second to get down to business.

I don't want y'all to think,
aw, you know...

I've got to keep people honest.
Dig this.

Yeah, dig, brother, um...

lt's really out of sight here.
Didn't even rain, no buttons to push.

Right now l'd like to dedicate
this song to everybody here

with hearts,
any kind of hearts and ears.

It goes something like this here.

Yeah!

Yeah, what I say now?

Hey!

Yes, so as I said before,
it's really groovy.

I'm about to bore you
for about six or seven minutes,

to do a little thing, you know.

Yeah.

You'll have to excuse me for a minute.
Just let me play my guitar, all right?

Right now l want to do
a little thing by Bob Dylan.

That's his grandma over there.

It's a little thing called
"Like a Rolling Stone."

Yes, l know, I missed a verse,
don't worry.

Thank you very much.

Dig this. They got a little tune
running around named,

"Rock Me, Baby," you know.

And aIl this kind of...

Yeah.

We got our own little "Rock Me, Baby"
and it goes something like this here.

The words might be wrong
but that's all right.

Dig this anyway.

Thank you.

Right now we've got a song named
"The Wind Cries Mary."

Gotta keep going real quick.

Thank you very much.

This is something else, man.
lt isn't no big story about,

we couldn't make it here,
so we go to England

and America doesn't Iike us
because, you know, our feets too big

and we got fat mattresses
and we wear golden underwear.

Ain't no scene like that, brother.
You know, it's just--

Dig, man, just, you know, Iater on,

went to England,
picked up these two cats,

and now here we are, man.

It was so, you know, groovy
to come back here this way

and really get a chance
to really play.

l can sit up here all night
and say thank you, you know, but...

I just wish l could just grab you, man,
and just, ooh...

One of them things, man,
you know, one of them scenes,

but dig, I just can't do that, so...

so I'm gonna sacrifice something
right here that l really love.

Thank you very much,
Bob Dylan's grandmother.

Anyway, I'm going to sacrifice
something that l really love, man.

Don't think l'm silly doing this,
'cause l'm not,

I don't think
l'm losing my mind.

Last night, man, ooh, God.

But anyway, wait a minute.
Honestly, wait...

Anyway, man.

But today l think is everything
all right, you know, so...

l'm not losing my mind.
This is for everybody here.

This is the only way
l can do it, you know.

So we're going to do the English
and American combined anthem together.

Don't get mad.

Don't get mad.
l want everybody to join in, too.

Now don't get mad.
This is it, man.

There's nothing
l can do more than this.

Look at those beautiful people.

Come on, man!
Come on, sing it with me!

Come on!

Jimi Hendrix!

I was in the audience,

but I was shocked.

I had never seen anything
like this in my life.

There was pandemonium,
absolute pandemonium.

People were running through--

running up and down
the aisles, yelling.

Just, and this sheer excitement
of this thing,

people were going nuts
and l was one of them.

And l remember thinking
at the time

that l had seen
history in the making.

Monterey proved to all
the music critics that were there

that this was
something special, this guy.

You know, and they'd better
keep an eye on him

and what he was
going to do next.

And l had phone calls
up in Monterey

from people in New York
who said, "What was that?

We heard about it,
people called us."

So that was a big bounce for him,

and it didn't stop after that.

At that point, we knew,

"This is big and everyone realizes it."

It was a 40-minute spot.
Yeah, 40-minute spot.

Maybe 45-minute spot.

Hey, the right place,
the right time.

One of those
darn lucky things, eh?

lt was such a good feeIing,
especially in your own home country.

And l guess they feel the same way.

Jimi was an American.

He didn't want to live
all his life in England.

The minute things started
happening in America,

he naturally wanted
to be in his home country.

You know, he was an American.