No. 720 – Wild Thing

Performer: The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Songwriter: Chip Taylor

Original Release: Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival

Year: 1970

Definitive Version: The Monterey International Pop Festival, June 16-17-18, 1967, 1992, or any other that includes the feedback intro.

There are probably not five more famous performances in rock history than The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing Wild Thing at Monterey: Elvis on Ed Sullivan; The Beatles on Ed Sullivan; Hendrix playing The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock; maybe Michael Jackson breaking out the moonwalk at the Motown anniversary gala—and that’s it.

The other week, Laurie and I watched the documentary that accompanies the Hendrix box set, West Coast Seattle Boy. It was interesting but all too predictable in that Hendrix’s daughter and the suits at Experience Hendrix are all about whitewashing Hendrix’s life.

There was no mention of the drugs that killed him, no mention that the reason he formed Band of Gypsys was that he had been under pressure from the Black Panthers to have an all-black band and certainly no mention that Hendrix himself worried that his work would be exploited in death as it had been in life.

And I was particularly aggrieved by the recounting of Hendrix’s performance at Monterey and that The Who were ticked that Hendrix “stole his act” by smashing his guitar at the end. Pete Townshend has offered a slightly different accounting. Maybe Townshend sugarcoated his reaction in interviews after the fact, but Townshend isn’t one to sugarcoat. He’ll tell you how he feels and doesn’t care what you think.

He said that when Hendrix wound up his epic set at Monterey, Mama Cass said to him while he watched from the side, “Hey, he’s stealing your act,” whereupon Townshend said “Yeah, but he’s so effing great, who cares?” and had Hendrix autograph a piece of his burned and smashed guitar for him. The truth was that although Hendrix and The Who had a rivalry, there was no animosity.

All of the above was included in the original Hendrix documentary that came out in 1973 and I saw as a midnight movie at Ohio State in 1980. And when Hendrix lit his guitar on fire at the end of this song at Monterey, it was all over for me. I pledged undying allegiance.

I had to have the soundtrack album, but I had trouble finding it for awhile, so I ended up going to the Lane Road Library to feed my savage Hendrix beast.

The Lane Road Library was the second library in the Upper Arlington library system. It was built not long before this time, and it was cool to have it close to home. But it was ridiculously small—not much larger than the library at Hastings Junior High—so I didn’t go there much.

By 1980, they started to lend records, and one of the records in the collection was The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two, which was a compilation that followed up Volume One. (No kidding, right?) But whereas Volume One was all studio stuff, Volume Two had a side of live stuff, including songs from the movie: Machine Gun from the Band of Gypsys; The Banner from Woodstock and, of course, Wild Thing from Monterey.

I must have played that side—side 2—a dozen times in a row. I even remember going back to the library the next day after returning the album and reborrowing it before I finally found the movie soundtrack, probably at Record and Tape Outlet, which was fast eclipsing Buzzard’s Nest as the indispensable record store in town.

Around this time, Scott and I went to many Columbus Clippers baseball games. Now that I could drive, the Clippers, who moved to Columbus in 1977, were an obvious and frequent choice of entertainment. They were close and cheap, and you could make a game-day decision on attending, whereas my beloved Reds were a commitment. And what the heck: Going to Clippers games got me and Scott out of the house. We went at least once a month and usually twice.

Columbus had planned a freeway that connected the west side of town with the airport—I-670—but the state ran out of money or priorities changed, I don’t know which, and the freeway literally came to an end at Grandview Avenue, which we usually would take to get to Franklin County Stadium (later renamed Cooper Stadium).

But one part that had been built was a long entrance ramp that connected Riverside Drive with I-670. Of course, it led to nowhere and was surrounded by nothing but wetlands and trees. Scott and I called it the Nothing Stretch, and we took it all the time—usually while trying to get either the Fart or Mom’s new Jetta up to 100 mph. (I don’t think I ever succeeded.)

About 20 years later, the highway project was revisited and finally completed, but the Nothing Stretch—now elevated to a fully functional highway entrance and exit ramp—always will be the Nothing Stretch as far as Scott and I are concerned. A few years ago, Scott told me he’ll always think of me playing Hendrix in the car while we drove it. Me, too, particularly this song.