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Noel Redding


bonzodog

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Good article....from all the reading I've done, I also believe that this is more likely than the official line. Very shady. 

Re the Woodstock release - its a great gig (Gypsy Sons And Rainbows) but in their continual revisionism of the JH history, it isn't complete. They have removed covers of The Impressions 'Gypsy Woman' and 'Aware Of Love'  and an original sung by guitarist in that line up, Larry Lee ('Masterplan'). 

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3 hours ago, discreet said:

...Of course if you're in your twenties, taking a lot of acid, meeting nubile young women and generally living the life of a rock star on tour, the money side of it would most likely seem irrelevant, or at least unimportant.

Yes, I found that, too. :|

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Noel on how he got involved with the JHE (from our interview in 2000).

"I saw this ad in Melody maker that Eric Burdon was forming the New Animals. He’d sung with my band from Folkestone called the Loving Kind about six months before. We’d played in a club in London and he’d come up and sung a couple of tunes, and said 'You lot are good'. Basically in September ‘66 I thought I’d audition for Eric in case he might remember me. Did he? No, and that was my bit of good luck!

"I played a couple of tunes on guitar and that was when Chas Chandler wandered over to me. He was like a star to me,  I was only 20 years old. He said 'Can you play bass?' I said 'No, but I’ll try it.' I was handed a bass, and played three songs with this American gentleman, a drummer, myself and a keyboard player. Three songs with no vocal at all. Then the American gentleman said 'Can I have a word with you?'

"There was a nice little pub next door to the place and he discovered he liked best bitter. He talked about music, I asked him about the American scene, had he ever seen Sam Cooke, that sort of stuff, Booker T, and he was asking me about the English scene which at that point was the Small Faces, the Move, the Kinks. Then he said to me 'Do you want to join my band.?' And that was Mr James Hendrix."

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I really don't know what to say about Noel. I was a big Experience fan as a youth. I saw them at Symphony Hall in Newark New Jersey the night after Martin Luther King was killed.

 

I guess I'm in the camp that feels Noel was lucky the opportunity came his way.

Blue

Edited by Bluewine
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OK, so he wasn't a Jack Bruce but I saw Hendrix in local clubs a couple of times and if a Jack Bruce style player was on bass that band would have been the biggest mess ever, and no one would be fondly remembering any of them.

Just like Adam Clayton, Dusty Hill and many others, Noel Redding was exactly right for the band he was in. His job was to hold it all together and give the others a solid platform for their frantic playing styles. And after all, someone in the band has got to be playing the songs. . . . so it might as well be the bass player!

Edited by chris_b
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Wife and I went to Ireland quite a few years back and ended up one lunchtime having a snack in a little pub.

Up on the wall was an A4 sheet of ordinary paper, inscribed in messy felt tip, advertising Noel Redding was playing there on the Friday.

Seemed to really hi-light how unlucky he'd been after the Experience split.

Still, he got to go down in history, and 99.999999% of us won't.

Edited by leschirons
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15 hours ago, Bluewine said:

I really don't know what to say about Noel. I was a big Experience fan as a youth. I saw them at Symphony Hall in Newark New Jersey the night after Martin Luther King was killed.

Mark Boyle, the lighting man on the tour, recalls the night Martin Luther King was killed,  after which Jimi played an improvised lament, he describes as harrowing.

It's about 1/3 down on this page.

http://www.boylefamily.co.uk/boyle/texts/beyond.html

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Saw The Experience on Guitar Heroes at the BBC t'other night & did a bit of Noel-cam in light of this thread.

He looked knockout for the times but I thought his playing was very limited (Voodoo Chile - E root/octave & a few attempts at clunky pentatonic runs now & again) & there seemed to be a point towards the finale where he completely dropped out & looked/sounded knackered. Rather than keeping things grounded, I got the impression the guy was hanging on for dear life.

From this single performance I'd have to agree with those who say he wasn't much cop. I'd be interested to see footage of him tearing it up though, if such a thing exists.

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On 1/13/2018 at 13:31, leschirons said:

Wife and I went to Ireland quite a few years back and ended up one lunchtime having a snack in a little pub.

Up on the wall was an A4 sheet of ordinary paper, inscribed in messy felt tip, advertising Noel Redding was playing there on the Friday.

Seemed to really hi-light how unlucky he'd been after the Experience split.

Still, he got to go down in history, and 99.999999% of us won't.

Was that De Barras in Clonakilty,went to a few of those gigs. 

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8 hours ago, oxfordchris said:

Was that De Barras in Clonakilty,went to a few of those gigs. 

To be honest, this was 15 odd years ago and we were doing a bit of sightseeing from Cork to the Ring and back again so honestly can't remember. There was Guinness involved😂

Was not that long before he passed away in fact.

Edited by leschirons
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9 hours ago, roceci said:

I thought his playing was very limited & there seemed to be a point towards the finale where he completely dropped out & looked/sounded knackered. Rather than keeping things grounded, I got the impression the guy was hanging on for dear life. I'd have to agree with those who say he wasn't much cop.

I have to agree, unfortunately. He always seemed as though he'd be much happier playing guitar and that bass wasn't his passion or his first instrument. From what I've read, this was likely true. His reputation is largely based on the recordings, and he wasn't always playing on them, IIRC.

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Seem to remember reading or watching something where Noel Redding suggested his departure was soon after he started asking too many questions about money 

Re Chris Squires video , Noel may well have had a hard time learning parts from that kind of communication, but that doesn't mean (and didn't in this case) that once you know them you don't play them fanatically well 

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2 hours ago, lojo said:

Seem to remember reading or watching something where Noel Redding suggested his departure was soon after he started asking too many questions about money

Last weekend I was working with a keyboard player who was fired by his 60's - 70's Top 40 band for asking too many questions about the money. Very few bands weren't being ripped off by their management back then.

Edited by chris_b
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1 hour ago, fleabag said:

Didn't Noel end up with one of JH's strats ?  I think he kept it in a vault and ended up selling it at auction due to mucho skintness

I could be imagining it all though

That was Mitch. He had to sell Hendrix's white Woodstock Strat as he couldn't afford to keep it insured anymore.

An article is here: http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/jimi-hendrix-week-i-played-jimis-woodstock-strat-178118

I know Noel had to flog the Jazz bass he'd used in the Experience due to money troubles.

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NR played at the pyramid centre in Portsmouth some years ago, and I think it was organised by by Nevada the local music store.

He played guitar with a local drummer, and if my rotten memory serves me right, Eddie Alan who used to write for guitarist and worked for fender, and possibly Roger Newell on bass.

My mate and I went, but didnt stay long,  they reminded me of an average local pub band, not someone who had played at that level.

 

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18 hours ago, discreet said:

I have to agree, unfortunately. He always seemed as though he'd be much happier playing guitar and that bass wasn't his passion or his first instrument. From what I've read, this was likely true. His reputation is largely based on the recordings, and he wasn't always playing on them, IIRC.

Yes and I think that was the point I was trying to make in my original post. I feel sorry for him. He didn't want to play bass and years later no-one is even sure what recordings he is even playing on. Some might say he was lucky but who knows what he would have done if he had followed a different path on guitar.

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On 1/10/2018 at 23:46, bonzodog said:

I've always been a fan of the music of Jimi Hendrix but only recently read in depth about the band history and specifically Noel Redding. 

Can't help feeling a bit sorry for him

From what I've read from various sources -

He wasn't a bass player and initially auditioned as rhythm guitar but they decided to go with a 3 piece and Noel was asked to switch to bass as they liked his big hair and image! Many of his parts were over dubbed or completely replaced on all 3 albums by Chas Chandler early on and then Jimi himself on Electric Ladyland.

I'd be very surprised if that was true about Chas Chandler, he never had a high opinion of his own playing, point blank refusing the play in front of Jimmy Lea during the dozens of Slade recording sessions that he produced.

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6 hours ago, chris_b said:

Last weekend I was working with a keyboard player who was fired by his 60's - 70's Top 40 band for asking too many questions about the money. Very few bands weren't being ripped off by their management back then.

Wouldn't surprise me. I remember reading an article about The Who which contained the eye-opening fact that for most of the '60s they were only getting something like 2% of the royalties their record company was collecting...which they later negotiated up to a princely 4%!

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