Over the years I’ve heard quite a few bands cover the Jimi Hendrix tune “Fire.”
As you would expect, none of them could capture Hendrix’s blazing guitar playing. At the same time, though, no drummer could match Mitch Mitchell’s frantic percussion, demonstrated in this live version at Woodstock or this version at Royal Albert Hall.
Like Keith Moon from the Who, Mitchell was a wild drummer, who treated the drums as a lead instrument. Known for his fast snare work — “percussive ferocity,” as the U.K. Guardian newspaper called it – anyone who tried to play a Hendrix song like Mitchell would inevitably wind up with sore forearms.
They might not even make it through the entire song without a break.
The former child actor who played drums on “Manic Depression,” “Voodoo Child” and more died yesterday at 61.
As I noted in this blog entry in July, Mitchell was one of my top five favorite drummers. You can imagine how difficult it would be to support a guy like Hendrix. But Mitchell did it with authority.
Picture having a guy who can solo like this playing behind Hendrix, and you get a feel for how great the Jimi Hendrix Experience was. Sadly, no member of that power trio is living. Bassist Noel Redding died of liver disease in 2003, at 57, and Hendrix overdosed at age 27 in 1970.
Mitchell’s career outside the Hendrix Experience was pretty quiet. (He actually auditioned for Paul McCartney’s band Wings in the 70s, but didn’t get the gig.) But recently I re-watched “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,” a TV special that never aired, which featured a very short-lived super group called Dirty Mac, featuring Mitchell, John Lennon, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton.
Incidentally, that special was reportedly pulled because Mick Jagger felt the Who had upstaged a road-weary Stones in their own show. It was the last public performance for guitarist Brian Jones, who died in his swimming pool a few months later.
Given the number of rock stars from the 60s who died young, Mitchell, by comparison, lived to be an old man.
Photo: www.drummerworld.com
Posted on November 13th, 2008 by Pat
Filed under: Music
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