More than 30 years ago, I found a record by Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison called Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead. When I went home, I played it immediately, excitedly waiting to hear the musical meeting of two giants. What a disappointment! Hendrix played well as he always did, but Jim was completely wasted and his singing just ruined the songs. Hendrix was recording the session and was initially happy to jam with him, but one could feel his growing annoyance. Famously, the night ended when (also present) Janis Joplin broke her whiskey bottle on Morrison's head to shut him up. It goes without saying that I sold that record a long time ago. Until recently, this was the only collaboration of the two that had seen the light of day. But as it turns out, there was another, much happier affair. It took a common friend of the two musicians to bring them together again after that fiasco: The Animals' Eric Burdon, who had moved to America a few years before, was Jim's drinking buddy at the time. He was in fact the one the other Doors called when they couldn't handle Jim's drunk antics, because he had a calming effect on him. Eric's relation with Jimi Hendrix went even deeper: The Animals' bass player Chas Chandler was the man who ''discovered" and managed Jimi, while the two singers remained close literally until the end: two nights before his death, Hendrix was jamming onstage with Eric and his new band, War. In '69, they talked about collaborating in a side project of some sort, and Eric wanted to bring Morrison along. The three of them tossed ideas around and had fun playing each other's songs in the studio, but the collaboration never took place. The furthest it got was a joint concert at The Troubadour club in West Hollywood; ostensibly an Eric Burdon & The Animals gig, with the other two as surprise guests. Famous artists getting on stage to jam with the band was not uncommon: in California, at least, the rock community was very tight at the time, always hanging around with each other and playing together. I'm sure that the night lived in the memories of the 300 or so people present for a long time, but it was otherwise forgotten until now. Burdon did record the show, but I suppose that he was too busy with his own career to spend energy negotiating a copyright deal with the estates of his two dead rock star pals, so the recording didn't see the light of day, even in bootleg form, until now. A promo copy just found its way to my collection, so I suspect it'll appear at record shops everywhere soon enough. Sound quality is good, although not impressive. The performance is strong, but the real draw is the camaraderie and easy connection the three of them have, the way Jim and Eric trade verses singing each other's songs and Jimi lets loose on the guitar. Their backing band is The New Animals as they appeared on Burdon's Love Is LP from the previous year, minus Andy Summers (later the co-founder of Police). They start off with a bluesy jam which segues into "Tobacco Road", a cover that they had been playing for some time but hadn't recorded yet. Eric would release his own definitive version later, with War. At this point Hendrix joins the band onstage and they launch into a hard rock version of The Animals' "Don't Let me Be Misunderstood". Next up, the audience is up for a rare treat: Jimi sings his own "Are You Experienced?", followed by Eric's answer "Yes I Am Experienced" (originally in his Winds Of Change LP) before the two join together in a -then very new- Doors composition "Roadhouse Blues". This is Jim Morrison's cue to enter. His reputation at the time was at its all-time low following the infamous Miami incident, but L.A. was still his hometown, and he got a warm greeting, if not as warm as Hendrix. Eric introduces him, and Jim makes a small speech about the blues, racism, and the Vietnam War. These are followed by a long distorted bluesy guitar solo by Jimi, which slowly morphs into the familiar arpeggios of "House Of The Rising Sun". Eric and Jim trade verses here, and it's a marvellous combination, while on "Hey Joe" Eric goes play the tambourine or something, leaving the stage to Jim who relishes the chance to re-enact the story, adding a lot of gruesome details about "Joe's" wife's infidelity, murder, and his subsequent arrest; basically he turns the song into a mini theatrical play while Jimi, who obviously had no idea this would happen, is caught off-guard and can be heard improvising in the background. Next up, Eric returns to the front where the two of them perform The Animals' anti-war classic "Sky Pilot" and finish the concert with more slogans against the war in Vietnam. The band are, of course, called back onstage for an encore, which is a fantastic 15-minute rendition of The Doors' "Light My Fire" with all three of them on vocals and Jimi trading solos with The Animals' organist Zoot Money. All in all a great reminder of a bygone era, and a huge, poignant, what if: what if Eric, Jim, and Jimi had gotten to make that album together? What if Hendrix and Morrison hadn't died at the age of 27? Which direction would they have taken and what would they have sounded like in the 70's and 80's? I'm afraid we'll never know, but this album provides a valuable glimpse in exciting possibilities never realized. Highly recommended for any fan of Classic Rock!
***** for House Of The Rising Sun, Light My Fire
**** for Don't Let me Be Misunderstood, Hey Joe
*** for Blues Jam, Tobacco Road, Are You Experienced? / Yes I Am Experienced (Medley),
Roadhouse Blues, Sky Pilot
** for Introducing Jim Morrison
