Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Country Joe and The Doors--At the beginning

I love reading contemporary accounts of the birth of rock--I find it fascinating to see what people (and "critics") thought about the bands and the music as it was happening. In that light, these pages from the August, 1967 issue of Mojo Navigator Rock & Roll News are particularly interesting.

Mojo Navigator was arguably the first rock fanzine; begun in 1965 by David Harris and Greg Shaw, it chronicled the San Francisco/Bay Area rock scene, and later, the rock music scene at large. Issues are extremely rare, as it was available only by subscription and at a few retail outlets. And of course, few people kept these kind of things for long. I've reproduced here the cover of this issue (Vol 2, No. 2) and some particularly interesting pages. First, a 3 page joint review of the debut albums from The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, and Country Joe & The Fish. With benefit of hindsight, all three are today regarded as psychedelic rock classics (and in my opinion, masterpieces.) If you don't own these, and are interested in the San Francisco scene, get them (and the debut albums by Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane, and Steve Miller Band) and you'll have a pretty great picture of how important and vital the music coming out of this area was. In all 3 cases I think David Harris of the Navigator gets it right.

Next is Harris' review of the UK issue of Jimi Hendrix's debut album "Are You Experienced" (not yet released in the US, though he'd just played the Monterey Pop Festival and Fillmore.) Most fans of rock guitar and psychedelic music would agree this album is probably the most auspicious debut of all time. And Harris, most definitely, gets it right again, when he begins his review "Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell are without a doubt the most important musical, and in some ways, dramatic, happening in the world today." Yes, he was going out on a limb, considering Hendrix at this time had only had 1 single ("Hey Joe") released stateside at the time of his writing. But he was absolutely correct. This article/review is filled with interesting and little known trivia, such as Hendrix, "when asked to perform certain songs from the album, admitted he had forgotten them, and them, and stated that he had made them up at the session and had never played them since !" I've been a Hendrix fanatic and collector for 37 years, and have NEVER heard that story. Just shows why it's so fascinating to read accounts written while history was being made. This issue also features a very early interview with the Doors, but we'll leave that for another time & place.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this. If you do, or don't, or have any input as to the kinds of things you would like to see here, please write me at: Recordmecca@earthlink.net or post a comment below.