Sometimes you just happen to be present when the heavens align just right and you get to witness a one of a kind event that no amount of money could recreate. One of those events happened on the evening of May 5, 1966 at the Prelude Club in New York City.
One of the greatest collections of future Rock and Roll hall of famers were gathered under one roof to celebrate the arrival of a newcomer to the Atlantic Records family and it was a show for the ages.
The event was an Album release party for Percy Sledge, whose single "When a Man Loves a Woman," was burning up the charts. Also present that fateful night were Esther Phillips, Don Covay and the one and only Wilson "Wicked" Pickett.
Representing the brain trust at Atlantic Records were Jerry Wexler and Nesuhi Ertegun as well as other staffers at the label. William "PoPsie" Randolph was the main photographer for Atlantic and most of the historical events of their label were captured in his images. This was no exception.
The backing band that night was led by "King Curtis" Ousley who, with his group, The Kingpins, backed up many of the soul singers on Atlantic Records at that time. Sitting in with the Kingpins also that night was a wild haired guy who happened to play the guitar upside down.
As I reviewed the negatives for this session, I noticed that he looked vaguely familiar and I took a closer look at the negatives. I was shocked to see Jimi Hendrix smiling and wailing away alongside one of the greatest soul bands as a sideman in a tuxedo, no less.
To say that you could knock me over with a feather would be an understatement. This happened to be one of his last gigs before he flew across the ocean in September of 1966 and became Jimi Hendrix, the legend.
All told there are over a hundred shots of this show and I'm currently trying to put together an article or book on this event so that the rest of the world can see exactly what a supernova looks like when it happens, but that's another story for a another time.
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
Wow! Pictures dont get a whole lot cooler than that do they? Hopefully you will have much more to come Mr. Malloy.
-Glen
2 - Al Barger
This is a bunch of shit. You lured me in to see a picture, and then you purposely fuck the pictures up with crappy copyright notices right across the middle of the picture. If you're going to be like that, then don't bother putting up the goddam pictures at all.
By any rights, 40 year old pictures should long since be absolutely in the public domain anyway. If you're that concerned with not wanting "your" pictures circulating then don't put them out in public at all. You can keep the motherfuckers locked up in your basement.
3 - Eric Olsen
that was an extreme overreaction Al - I'd hardly call the pictures "fucked up" - I think they're astonishing.
4 - Al Barger
Those pictures aren't fucked up? There aren't BIG RED LETTERS SPLASHED PURPOSELY ALL ACROSS THE MIDDLE OF THESE PHOTOS? Maybe there's a problem with my monitor.
5 - Cliff Malloy
Hey, Al... Thanks for your concern and the reason the BIG RED LETTERS are across the picture is that is the request of the Estate. They have been getting it RAW for over 25 years from the likes of Frank Driggs, most record and TV companies and people who have been using the images for over 60 years without compensating them one thin dime. The estate is only letting me use the images for my stories because I built up enough trust with them by helping promote the collection in return for my access to them.
This is clearly a case of "Hobson's Choice" where it's either the letters or NO images at all... and in the immortal words of Mr. Spock, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few".
Lastly, if you REALLY need to see the images without the "nasty red letters", please go to PoPsiephotos.com and click on any of the images for sale. As you go through the engine, the photos appear sans lettering.
Thanks for your feedback on this project and please keep an eye out for new pictures and stories.
6 - Phillip Winn
Absolutely incredible. Simply beautiful pictures, Cliff. Thank you.
7 - Al Barger
Alright Brother Malloy, you got me- but you're not fighting fair here. I come in all pissy, and you respond with a reasonable answer- and a conciliatory tone on top of that. How am I supposed to respond if you're going to be like that?
Still though, I particularly hate seeing purposely desecrated photos like this. I've got issues. I'd just as soon not see a photo at all as one that's screwed up like this.
Also, I would argue that you don't need their damned permission to use one or two pictures like this that you're not even selling. It'd be something else if you were printing these images on t-shirts and they wanted a cut, but this isn't that. You may have ongoing professional dealings where you need their goodwill in your particular case, but I would understand such a thing to be well within fair use provisions.
US copyright law is way stilted at this point, but simply magically uttering the word "copyright" still does not amount to magically saying "(non) open sesame."
8 - Cliff Malloy
I feel your pain on this, Al... But trust me, the Estate is in the catbird seat here. They had all of these negatives in a bank vault for the last 28 years and were under NO obligation to share any of them.
To this day, I still can't ask certain questions or publish things about "PoPsie" because of family issues and things that are still sore between members of the Estate. I finally got them to offer some of these prints for sale on their site just to make sure that they don't end up in the bottom of some collectors file cabinet.
It's a daily battle sometimes with the Estate, but I feel that I represent the "music geeks" here by quitting my job and spending full time working with the Estate to make sure that someone is digitizing this work for future generations.
This is a labor of love for me and I'm not currently being paid to do it... So if they want to protect their brand and try to get me some bucks down the road as a thank you, I can't get mad at it.
Just like PoPsie did back in the day, we have a handshake agreement just to get the job done. It's not perfect, but it works for me...
9 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Great to see these photos in whatever form and by whatever understandable conditions. Looking forward to next installments.
10 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Addendum: It's an added bonus that these photos are in great form--wonderful to see.
11 - chet
Great picture, an awesome piece of rock and roll history. I don't think the text across the image was an issue at all. I'm just thankful that Jimi's face wasn't blurred out or something! RIP JIMI
12 - Chris L
I take it this show wasn't recorded?? Dosn't look like the photos are for sale on the site either...
13 - Cliff Malloy
Actually it's not known if the show was recorded, but the photos are for sale at the site. You have to go to the "view photos" section and click on the rock category. Then from there you can order the photos under Jimi's name. You may want to wait a bit tho, because the photo prices may be coming down very soon. Good luck and thanks for commenting on the shoot.
14 - MCH
Re comments #2 and #4;
Sounds like someone lifted up a rock and sorehead crawled out. Either take your hate somewhere else or slither back under your rock, brother Barger.
Hey Cliff...GREAT PIC! Keep up the good work.
15 - duane
Fabulous. Look at Jimi smiling. More, please.