Directions and Influences - chapter 6
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Hendrix, The Who and beyond
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Jimi Hendrix
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’67 and I’ve moved to Sydney Australia experiencing the worst cultural drought of my life. I felt like I was on Desert Island Discs……here I am clinging on to my Hendrix records, Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, Dylan, in a sea of awful pop music. I finally did discover that there were some great bands playing live in Sydney. I used to go to ‘Here’ a club in North Sydney and See Max Merrit and the Meteors or down to John Huey’s wine bar in the Rocks and see The Foreday Riders blues band. I would sometimes switch on my TV only to see my future boss (John Farnham) singing ‘Sadie The cleaning lady’.
The Who and The Small Faces played at the Sydney Stadium and off I went for a bit of Brit rock. I even went back stage and had a good chat with Roger Daltry who hung out in London with Cecil McCartney (aka King Om) an old friend of mine from Bangor. My new Sydney friends were most impressed by that and I gained great kudos. Doug Parkinson’s band ‘The Questions’ were support for that concert and put on a great show. After that I used to go and see Doug’s band ‘In Focus’ with Billie Green on guitar, Duncan Maguire on bass and Johnny Dick on Drums. They were a great band and their version of the Beatles ‘Dear Prudence’ was sublime. Things were getting better but I longed for the home shores and my old friends.
NEXT: chapter 7 - Back to Van Morrison, Captain Beefheart, Led Zeppelin and oblivion |
