WASHINGTON — This weekend marks 50 years since Jimi Hendrix blew the roof off the nation’s capital for five nights (Aug. 9-14) at the Ambassador Theater in Adams Morgan.
To mark the occasion, Wolf Trap is hosting a star-studded tribute Friday to celebrate both the 50th anniversary of his D.C. debut and what would have been his 75th birthday on Nov. 27.
“He just wreaked havoc on stage,” singer and cousin Nona Hendryx told WTOP. “Setting the guitar on fire, smashing it, playing it with his teeth … the guitar didn’t stand a chance.”
Hendryx, one third of the Labelle trio of “Lady Marmalade” fame, will perform live Friday alongside Fishbone and Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers, for whom Jimi played guitar.
“We had done a tribute to Jimi last December in New York and it went very well,” Isley told WTOP. “Somebody checked it out and said, ‘Let’s bring that to another venue!’ It just turned out we were able to bring that to Wolf Trap. … You can look forward to a dynamite show.”
The set list includes “Fire,” “Manic Depression,” “Hey Joe,” “Testify,” “Move Over and Let Me Dance,” “Foxey Lady,” “Spanish Castle Magic,” “Red House,” “Crosstown Traffic,” “Love Or Confusion,” “May This Be Love,” “Angel,” “Freedom,” “The Wind Cries Mary,” “Third Stone From The Sun,” “Are You Experienced?,” “Stone Free,” “1983,” “If 6 Was 9” and “Purple Haze.”
“To be starting off with ‘Fire’ and ending with ‘Purple Haze,’ that’s kind of like the ribbon on the box of chocolates of his catalog,” Isley said. “Those are signature tunes in deference to Jimi, because not only did he play them, he wrote them. We’ll be doing two Isley songs. When he first got into the studio, he was with the Isley Brothers, so we’ll be doing ‘Testify,’ which was his very first recording — he took a guitar solo on it — and ‘Move Over and Let Me Dance.'”
Isley will never forget when his older brothers O’Kelly, Rudolph and Ronald hired Jimi to play for the Isleys in 1963. After landing hits in “Shout” (1959) and “Twist & Shout” (1963), which he calls “the one-two punch of rock ‘n’ roll,” their initial guitarist quit, leaving an opening for Jimi.
“They tracked down [Jimi] who had a reputation for playing [in Greenwich Village],” Isley said. “Turns out, he didn’t have a guitar because it was in the pawnshop. Even when they got the guitar out, he didn’t have any strings on it! So after he restrung it and started playing, O’Kelly and Ronald hired him on the spot. They said, ‘We’ve got rehearsals in a few days in New Jersey.’ He said, ‘I can’t make rehearsals in New Jersey because I don’t have a place to stay.'”
So, Jimi moved in with the Isleys’ mom, who was raising 11-year-old Ernie and brother Marvin.
“They were on the way to my mother’s house and O’Kelly said, ‘That guitar you’ve got is a little scruffy looking. You’ve got to get a new ax. … What kind do you want?’ He paused and said, ‘Can I have a white Stratocaster Fender?’ … So when he came in the door, he had a brand-new guitar with a brand-new case. They said, ‘This guitar player we just hired is going to be staying in the backroom. This is Jimi Hendrix. Jimi, this is our mother.’ [He said], ‘Hello, Miss Isley.'”
Thus, Ernie had a front seat to history, growing up with Jimi Hendrix shredding in his house.
“He had a marvelous sense of humor and a healthy appetite; he loved my mother’s cooking,” Isley said. “Many a softball game was interrupted because the band was in the basement. They’d be playing ‘Twist & Shout’ and all my friends were in the backyard. We’d come running into the basement and Jimi’s playing. He’d hit a note, sustain it and look around like there’s a fly in the room, reach out with his left hand and grab it, stop, then look over at you and wink.”
While such tricks honed his stage charisma, his tireless work ethic perfected his guitar skills.
“I’d never heard anybody play like that,” Isley said. “He played all the time. I didn’t understand why he practiced so much; he was that good. … Police would come to the house: ‘Ms. Isley, we’re getting complaints from neighbors [about] hearing a guitar.’ I was like, ‘You’re hearing a guitar all right!’ … If anybody had a crystal ball, you’d run down there with a video camera.”
He’ll never forget watching The Beatles’ iconic debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in Feb. 1964.
“When he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles,’ I’m sitting on the left side of the couch, my brother Marvin was on the right side and Jimi was in the middle,” Isley said. “[O’Kelley] took the floor and said, ‘This English band has changed everything. I don’t know what it’s going to be like even for Elvis, but we’re gonna be all right because The Beatles do ‘Shout’ and ‘Twist & Shout.’ … They got two guitar players, but we got Jimi.’ … Jimi was grinning ear-to-ear.”
It didn’t take long to realize that their new guitarist had just elevated their band significantly.
“He was the star before the first rehearsal was over,” Isley said. “You put ‘Shout’ and ‘Twist & Shout’ with Jimi Hendrix playing with the brothers? Forget about it! … Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, nobody wanted to follow them, so the Isleys always closed the show. … Eventually in May ’67, Jimi made his [solo] debut and the rest is history.”
Indeed, Hendrix skyrocketed as the frontman of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, releasing three albums, “Are You Experienced?” (1967), “Axis: Bold as Love” (1967) and “Electric Ladyland” (1968), before his iconic “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock in 1969. His creative guitar riffs and use of the wah-wah pedal shattered conventions before his overdose death in 1970.
“He changed the sounds you could coax out of a guitar,” Hendryx said. “He left a huge imprint on music that still resonates to this day, so he is one of [the best]. There are other mighty guitarists in our history [like] Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck — I kind of line him up with Jimi because they changed the sound of what you can do, what’s possible with a guitar.”
The influence wasn’t lost on Ernie Isley, who grew up to join the Isley Brothers for their hit single “That Lady” (1973). He still imagines what his childhood mentor Jimi might have said.
“If [Jimi] had been around when ‘That Lady’ came out, he would have probably given me something between an air hug and a tackle and said, ‘How the hell did you ever learn how to play like that? … And I would say, ‘I was listening to you in the living room and dining room.'”
While the Isleys would go on to collaborate with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (“Tha Crossroads” sampled “Make Me Say It Again”), Ice Cube (“It Was a Good Day” sampled “Footsteps in the Dark”) and R. Kelly (climbing the charts with “Contagious”), Ernie’s favorite compliment came from Paul McCartney, who covered the Isley Brothers’ “Twist & Shout” all those decades ago.
“I ran into Paul McCartney a few years ago and gave each other bear hugs,” Isley said. “He said, ‘Ernie, if it were not for The Isley Brothers, The Beatles would still be in Liverpool.’ Very gracious of him to say that, then he went on stage and said that into the microphone! Then we performed ‘Twist & Shout’ with Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Jennifer Hudson, Usher. … It was the first time that song was performed by The Isleys and The Beatles at the same time.”
Now, you can see Ernie on stage for another star-studded roundup at Wolf Trap on Friday.
“Come and get illuminated,” Isley said. “This thing we have coming up at Wolf Trap [is] on behalf of an Isley Brothers’ house guest and employee who later on grew into an electric guitar deity. He made it perpetual. The electric guitar, once he came on the scene, was never the same. And it’ll never drift back to whatever it was before. His contribution is indelible.”
Click here for concert details. Listen to our full chats with Ernie Isley and Nona Hendryx below:
