Before he became a psychedelic shaman and the most lauded guitar player or his (or, arguably, any) era, Jimi Hendrix was "Jimmy" Hendrix.
A jobbing, wandering axeman for hire, he spent lean years lending his brewing talents onstage and in the studio by backing acts like Little Richard, King Curtis, the Isley Brothers, Don Covay and even Joey Dee and the Starlighters. One of his more lasting relationships was with the Harlem-based R&B combo Curtis Knight and the Squires, with whom he both performed and recorded numerous sides in 1965-'66.
That was before ex-Animal bassist Chas Chandler whisked him away to England, where he became a sensation and the most talked-about American import since Elvis. And then returned him to these shores for Monterey Pop and worldwide success. Now, fans can finally hear a number of those cuts with Curtis Knight and the Squires -- legally, and after decades of litigation -- on the new compilation You Can't Use My Name: The RSVP/PPX Sessions (Experience Hendrix/Legacy Recordings).
"These tracks have been around forever, and we had a battle on our hands with the restoration work," says Eddie Kramer, who engineered and mixed the CD. "There was a lot of distortion, and the recordings were primitive."
Kramer is the legendary engineer and producer who has worked with a who's who of classic-rock greats from the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Peter Frampton to Traffic, KISS, and Spooky Tooth. However, he is best-known for his work with Hendrix, both on every album released while he was alive and a slew of posthumous efforts.
"I have to mention the one fact governs everything: Jimi signed a piece of paper that haunted him his entire career, and it's only recently been resolved," Kramer adds. "But we got all of the tapes back."
The crux of the matter begins with Ed Chalpin, an entrepreneur and record producer who owned production company PPX International, housed in the same building as RSVP recording studios. After working with Knight and his band as a manager/producer, he later was introduced to their new guitarist, a certain Jimmy Hendrix.
Sensing a star in the making, Chalpin presented Hendrix with a one-page contract, which he duly signed. Even though it offered a pittance of $1 fee and a 1 percent royalty on songs. And that's where the problem started.
Hendrix thought he was singing an agreement strictly for session work as a backing musician. But what the words actually bound him to was a three-year exclusive recording contact to Chalpin.
Furthermore, Hendrix forgot to tell Chandler about that contract as the latter began extricating him from other agreements and contracts he'd signed. So when the now-named "Jimi" Hendrix became an international sensation, Chalpin felt he was legally entitled to a piece of the action.
Lawsuits were filed back and forth between the parties. And Chalpin began putting out the Hendrix/Squires material on his own as well as licensed to others. Often with misleading packaging as to Hendrix's contribution to the songs.
The first release, 1967's Get That Feeling, mentions Hendrix prominently on the cover, and with a photo from his much-later appearance at Monterey Pop to boot. Not surprisingly, it confused Hendrix fans and possibly hurt sales of his own more current efforts.
"It took awhile to figure out where all the pieces were. It was like working on a giant jigsaw puzzle," Kramer notes of the material. "The songs had a lot of overdubs put on over the years, and I knew if we dug back far enough, we'd find the original sessions without the junk added on. And once we did, we found some pretty cool stuff."
Story continues on the next page.
