The Night Greencastle Experienced Hendrix in 1965
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
By JARED JERNAGAN, Assistant Editor
Photo: Not yet the long-haired gypsy in psychedelic colors that international audiences came to know, Jimi Hendrix played DePauw's Bowman Gym on Saturday, Oct. 9, 1965 as a guitarist for the Isley Brothers, who split headlining credits that evening with Booker T & the M.G.'s. Even as a supporting cast member, the charisma and unique style of the virtuoso guitar player shone through that evening, as Hendrix pulled a couple of his trademark moves, including playing with his teeth and behind his head.
(DePauw University Archives)
Local men recall guitarist's 1965 DePauw show with Isley Brothers
A Purple Haze didn't exactly envelope Bowman Gym at DePauw University on Oct. 9, 1965, but it was on that Saturday evening that arguably the greatest guitarist of all time graced a small, temporary stage in the old gymnasium.
Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Derby Day festivities at DePauw, which concluded with a concert by national recording acts Booker T & the M.G.'s and the Isley Brothers.
But for all the excellent music made by the evening's headliners, a couple of local men remember a then-unknown guitarist who stole the show. A sideman for the the Isleys, James Marshall Hendrix put on a show that night with his one-of-a-kind brand of guitar playing.
Although the guitarist was still 19 months away from the release of "Are You Experienced?" -- his debut with the Jimi Hendrix Experience -- Rod Kersey and Steve Michael knew they were experiencing something unique that night in the old gym.
Both men recall the evening vividly, although the thought that it's been half a century was a bit shocking to Kersey.
"Fifty years? I guess that's about right," Kersey told the Banner Graphic this week. "It doesn't seem that long ago. The fact that it's 50 years, that's kind of blowing my mind at the moment."
A pair of 16-year-old students at Greencastle High School, Kersey and Michael (who were bandmates in more than one local band, most notably the Average House Band) arrived at the show separately.
Kersey was there from the beginning, having delivered a speaker for the show from his dad's music shop, Kersey Music.
The setup of the show was with two stages, one at each end of the gym, with the Isleys at one end and the M.G.'s at the other. The idea was "to ensure continuous dancing," according to a preview article in The DePauw. Kersey remembers the Isleys' backing band, featuring Hendrix on guitar and vocals, doing some songs before the featured performers came out.
"We were interested in both bands," Kersey recalled, "but before the Isleys came out, there was a little four-piece that did a few numbers.
"He didn't look like himself yet," Kersey said of Hendrix. "His hair was straightened and he was wearing a Beatles jacket."
In spite of this, there was no mistaking the man's virtuosic talent and showmanship. Besides remembering him singing the R&B hit "Walking the Dog," Kersey said Hendrix played a guitar solo with his teeth, a signature move in his solo career.
When his friend arrived later, Kersey impressed upon Michael the gravity of what he had seen. Michael regretted missing Booker T and the M.G.'s, particularly their guitarist, Steve Cropper.
"I got there after the first double set," Michael told the Banner Graphic. "When I got there I found Rod, who was sitting there watching and I said, 'I can't believe I missed Booker T.' And Rod goes, 'Forget about that. You've gotta get down there and watch this guy playing guitar with the Isley Brothers. Booker T is great, but the guy playing with the Isley Brothers -- it's unbelievable."
Michael soon learned his friend was right.
"So he (Hendrix) played and he did all the playing behind his back and all that stuff," Michael said. "He was a great guitar player, even then. He had everything going for him."
Kersey also recalls that his bandmate Michael wasn't the only guitarist studying Cropper's playing that night.
"So after the Isleys had played, Jimi went down and just watched Steve Cropper," Kersey said. "And Cropper was just sweating bullets. It was funny to see somebody who was considered one of the best in the world sweating like that because this guy was watching him so close."
That could've been the end of the brush with fame for Kersey and Michael, but the unassuming youths hung around afterward, just to see if they could catch another glimpse of the musicians or maybe even have a conversation with one of them.
That's exactly what they got from Hendrix, who had yet to rechristen himself with his better known stage name.
"We asked his name and he said 'James,'" Kersey said.
"He just had this quiet voice, kind of like when you hear him talk," Michael said. "I couldn't tell you that I recognized his voice after seeing him as 'Jimi Hendrix.' He was very polite and very soft-spoken. I said, 'I'm a guitar player too,' and he said, 'Oh, cool,' or something like that."
After that night, the story of Hendrix at DePauw could have, simply passed into local folklore if not for a picture in the DePauw yearbook.
However, there on page 32 of the 1966 volume of the Mirage is a picture that's unmistakably Jimi Hendrix. The hair is too short and too straight and clothes aren't Hendrix' preferred gypsy look of later days. He's also playing a Fender Jazzmaster, rather than his trademark Fender Stratocaster.
On the other hand, any rock fan of the era knows that face, that look of determination as Hendrix played a solo, and even the backward guitar neck of the left-handed Hendrix playing a right-handed ax, as always.
Rumors of the appearance by Hendrix and the photo sparked the interest of a younger Greencastle rock fan, who started investigating the reports years later.
Randy Albright is a South Putnam High School graduate and a lecturer in the IUPUI School of Music, where he began teaching a first-of-its-kind course on Jimi Hendrix in 2001.
Albright had heard rumors of the Hendrix performance in Greencastle, but hadn't substantiated anything until he talked to Kersey about it.
"One day I just brought it up to Rod and he said, 'Yeah, I was there,'" Albright said.
"My jaw dropped!" Albright wrote in a 2002 article on the subject.
Albright subsequently spent time researching the subject, obtaining a copy of the 1966 Mirage and reviewing microfiche of The DePauw at the Putnam County Public Library.
A 2002 article by Albright in the international Jimi Hendrix magazine Univibes titled "Jimmy (pre-Jimi) plays Indiana 1965" as well as a lecture at DePauw on the subject are the reason the story is more than just an oral tradition.
"I spent quite a bit of time trying to chase down the photographer who shot the photograph," Albright told the Banner Graphic. "There were three or four photographers listed for that yearbook. I reached all but one of them, so I assume it was him."
Albright said the man behind the camera was most likely Daryl E. "Chris" Christianer. He added that the identity likely doesn't matter, unless Christianer happens to have the negatives of several other pictures of Hendrix.
Also notable in its absence is any identification of Hendrix in the yearbook. Instead, the caption simply reads "Let's see now -- the instruction manual said...", which in hindsight is a laughably dismissive thing to write about a picture of Hendrix.
While the editors of the Mirage would not have known who Hendrix was even by the spring of 1966, Albright noted that the caption almost reads as if Hendrix is just a DePauw student.
Albright's research also uncovered a write-up of the event from an ensuing edition of The DePauw, but the story is more concerned with the social scene and who was crowned than with the R&B heavyweights who had graced the twin stages.
"They weren't really rock critics back then," Albright said with a laugh.
The closest people to rock critics in the audience were likely the two budding musicians in the crowd, Kersey and Michael.
Even for these two, it took a while to realize exactly who they had seen and talked to that night. Michael didn't recall the specific moment he realized that the softspoken guitarist James later became Jimi Hendrix.
"I remember when we got the first Hendrix album and later it dawned on everybody that it was the guy we saw," Michael said.
Kersey, though, remembers a distinct moment of realization, and Michael was the first person with whom he shared the discovery.
"The weird thing was, a couple of years later, Steve and I were down at IU at a record shop on Kirkwood (Avenue) and I picked up a record of the Isleys that put Hendrix front and center," Kersey said.
With Hendrix now an international sensation, the Isley Brothers were capitalizing on their association with the young star, making his photo on the album cover more prominent than their own.
Kersey immediately made the connection.
"I took the album over to Steve and I couldn't even speak," Kersey said. "Here was this guy we had been worshipping for more than a year and we had spent 15 minutes talking to him just a couple of years earlier."
For Michael, the distinct memory comes not from the moment of epiphany that they had indeed met this luminary of psychedelic rock, but the simple discovery "Are You Experienced?" several months earlier. Michael and his friends had heard some of the songs on the radio, but hearing the full album blew their minds.
"When the first Hendrix album came out we got the album and went down and listened to it at a friend's house because he'd gotten a new stereo," Michael said. "We put it on and because there was so much distortion on the guitar, we thought his speakers were blown."
Nearly a half century later, exactly whose house it was is unclear. Michael remembers it as Steve Pritchard's house, while Kersey thinks it was Craig Terry.
Either way, the reaction was undeniable.
"He said, 'Whoa! What's wrong with my stereo?'" Michael recalled.
"There's nothing wrong with it, man. That's just the way it is."
By JARED JERNAGAN, Assistant Editor
Photo: Not yet the long-haired gypsy in psychedelic colors that international audiences came to know, Jimi Hendrix played DePauw's Bowman Gym on Saturday, Oct. 9, 1965 as a guitarist for the Isley Brothers, who split headlining credits that evening with Booker T & the M.G.'s. Even as a supporting cast member, the charisma and unique style of the virtuoso guitar player shone through that evening, as Hendrix pulled a couple of his trademark moves, including playing with his teeth and behind his head.
(DePauw University Archives)
Local men recall guitarist's 1965 DePauw show with Isley Brothers
A Purple Haze didn't exactly envelope Bowman Gym at DePauw University on Oct. 9, 1965, but it was on that Saturday evening that arguably the greatest guitarist of all time graced a small, temporary stage in the old gymnasium.
Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Derby Day festivities at DePauw, which concluded with a concert by national recording acts Booker T & the M.G.'s and the Isley Brothers.
But for all the excellent music made by the evening's headliners, a couple of local men remember a then-unknown guitarist who stole the show. A sideman for the the Isleys, James Marshall Hendrix put on a show that night with his one-of-a-kind brand of guitar playing.
Although the guitarist was still 19 months away from the release of "Are You Experienced?" -- his debut with the Jimi Hendrix Experience -- Rod Kersey and Steve Michael knew they were experiencing something unique that night in the old gym.
Both men recall the evening vividly, although the thought that it's been half a century was a bit shocking to Kersey.
"Fifty years? I guess that's about right," Kersey told the Banner Graphic this week. "It doesn't seem that long ago. The fact that it's 50 years, that's kind of blowing my mind at the moment."
A pair of 16-year-old students at Greencastle High School, Kersey and Michael (who were bandmates in more than one local band, most notably the Average House Band) arrived at the show separately.
Kersey was there from the beginning, having delivered a speaker for the show from his dad's music shop, Kersey Music.
The setup of the show was with two stages, one at each end of the gym, with the Isleys at one end and the M.G.'s at the other. The idea was "to ensure continuous dancing," according to a preview article in The DePauw. Kersey remembers the Isleys' backing band, featuring Hendrix on guitar and vocals, doing some songs before the featured performers came out.
"We were interested in both bands," Kersey recalled, "but before the Isleys came out, there was a little four-piece that did a few numbers.
"He didn't look like himself yet," Kersey said of Hendrix. "His hair was straightened and he was wearing a Beatles jacket."
In spite of this, there was no mistaking the man's virtuosic talent and showmanship. Besides remembering him singing the R&B hit "Walking the Dog," Kersey said Hendrix played a guitar solo with his teeth, a signature move in his solo career.
When his friend arrived later, Kersey impressed upon Michael the gravity of what he had seen. Michael regretted missing Booker T and the M.G.'s, particularly their guitarist, Steve Cropper.
"I got there after the first double set," Michael told the Banner Graphic. "When I got there I found Rod, who was sitting there watching and I said, 'I can't believe I missed Booker T.' And Rod goes, 'Forget about that. You've gotta get down there and watch this guy playing guitar with the Isley Brothers. Booker T is great, but the guy playing with the Isley Brothers -- it's unbelievable."
Michael soon learned his friend was right.
"So he (Hendrix) played and he did all the playing behind his back and all that stuff," Michael said. "He was a great guitar player, even then. He had everything going for him."
Kersey also recalls that his bandmate Michael wasn't the only guitarist studying Cropper's playing that night.
"So after the Isleys had played, Jimi went down and just watched Steve Cropper," Kersey said. "And Cropper was just sweating bullets. It was funny to see somebody who was considered one of the best in the world sweating like that because this guy was watching him so close."
That could've been the end of the brush with fame for Kersey and Michael, but the unassuming youths hung around afterward, just to see if they could catch another glimpse of the musicians or maybe even have a conversation with one of them.
That's exactly what they got from Hendrix, who had yet to rechristen himself with his better known stage name.
"We asked his name and he said 'James,'" Kersey said.
"He just had this quiet voice, kind of like when you hear him talk," Michael said. "I couldn't tell you that I recognized his voice after seeing him as 'Jimi Hendrix.' He was very polite and very soft-spoken. I said, 'I'm a guitar player too,' and he said, 'Oh, cool,' or something like that."
After that night, the story of Hendrix at DePauw could have, simply passed into local folklore if not for a picture in the DePauw yearbook.
However, there on page 32 of the 1966 volume of the Mirage is a picture that's unmistakably Jimi Hendrix. The hair is too short and too straight and clothes aren't Hendrix' preferred gypsy look of later days. He's also playing a Fender Jazzmaster, rather than his trademark Fender Stratocaster.
On the other hand, any rock fan of the era knows that face, that look of determination as Hendrix played a solo, and even the backward guitar neck of the left-handed Hendrix playing a right-handed ax, as always.
Rumors of the appearance by Hendrix and the photo sparked the interest of a younger Greencastle rock fan, who started investigating the reports years later.
Randy Albright is a South Putnam High School graduate and a lecturer in the IUPUI School of Music, where he began teaching a first-of-its-kind course on Jimi Hendrix in 2001.
Albright had heard rumors of the Hendrix performance in Greencastle, but hadn't substantiated anything until he talked to Kersey about it.
"One day I just brought it up to Rod and he said, 'Yeah, I was there,'" Albright said.
"My jaw dropped!" Albright wrote in a 2002 article on the subject.
Albright subsequently spent time researching the subject, obtaining a copy of the 1966 Mirage and reviewing microfiche of The DePauw at the Putnam County Public Library.
A 2002 article by Albright in the international Jimi Hendrix magazine Univibes titled "Jimmy (pre-Jimi) plays Indiana 1965" as well as a lecture at DePauw on the subject are the reason the story is more than just an oral tradition.
"I spent quite a bit of time trying to chase down the photographer who shot the photograph," Albright told the Banner Graphic. "There were three or four photographers listed for that yearbook. I reached all but one of them, so I assume it was him."
Albright said the man behind the camera was most likely Daryl E. "Chris" Christianer. He added that the identity likely doesn't matter, unless Christianer happens to have the negatives of several other pictures of Hendrix.
Also notable in its absence is any identification of Hendrix in the yearbook. Instead, the caption simply reads "Let's see now -- the instruction manual said...", which in hindsight is a laughably dismissive thing to write about a picture of Hendrix.
While the editors of the Mirage would not have known who Hendrix was even by the spring of 1966, Albright noted that the caption almost reads as if Hendrix is just a DePauw student.
Albright's research also uncovered a write-up of the event from an ensuing edition of The DePauw, but the story is more concerned with the social scene and who was crowned than with the R&B heavyweights who had graced the twin stages.
"They weren't really rock critics back then," Albright said with a laugh.
The closest people to rock critics in the audience were likely the two budding musicians in the crowd, Kersey and Michael.
Even for these two, it took a while to realize exactly who they had seen and talked to that night. Michael didn't recall the specific moment he realized that the softspoken guitarist James later became Jimi Hendrix.
"I remember when we got the first Hendrix album and later it dawned on everybody that it was the guy we saw," Michael said.
Kersey, though, remembers a distinct moment of realization, and Michael was the first person with whom he shared the discovery.
"The weird thing was, a couple of years later, Steve and I were down at IU at a record shop on Kirkwood (Avenue) and I picked up a record of the Isleys that put Hendrix front and center," Kersey said.
With Hendrix now an international sensation, the Isley Brothers were capitalizing on their association with the young star, making his photo on the album cover more prominent than their own.
Kersey immediately made the connection.
"I took the album over to Steve and I couldn't even speak," Kersey said. "Here was this guy we had been worshipping for more than a year and we had spent 15 minutes talking to him just a couple of years earlier."
For Michael, the distinct memory comes not from the moment of epiphany that they had indeed met this luminary of psychedelic rock, but the simple discovery "Are You Experienced?" several months earlier. Michael and his friends had heard some of the songs on the radio, but hearing the full album blew their minds.
"When the first Hendrix album came out we got the album and went down and listened to it at a friend's house because he'd gotten a new stereo," Michael said. "We put it on and because there was so much distortion on the guitar, we thought his speakers were blown."
Nearly a half century later, exactly whose house it was is unclear. Michael remembers it as Steve Pritchard's house, while Kersey thinks it was Craig Terry.
Either way, the reaction was undeniable.
"He said, 'Whoa! What's wrong with my stereo?'" Michael recalled.
"There's nothing wrong with it, man. That's just the way it is."
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