When did you meet Jimi Hendrix?
In the early ’60s. I was playin’ with Sam Cooke at the time and I was also opening the show with my brothers, The Valentinos. Jimi was playing guitar for a guy named Gorgeous George O’Dell.

George would come out and open the show, and I remember Jimi would always steal the show. Blacks thought he was crazy! They use to call him a beatnick, this is before hippie. They’d say, “Man, this boy is weird.” Especially when he took out the lighter fluid and set his guitar on fire. He only had one guitar! So he’d run backstage, get a big ol’ blanket, and put it out.

So he was doing this way back then?
Yeah! And when you talk about soul concerts, they didn’t understand rock, or nothin’ like that. George would be onstage singing and taking off his shirt, and the women would be screaming, but they’d be screaming for Jimi! I remember George telling him, “Next time you take that guitar and put it in yo’ mouth and start trying to play with your teeth, you gonna be eatin’ it!

Did you ever swap licks with Jimi?
We use to sit in a big room backstage and play between shows. That’s how we became friends. I’d listen to him, but I couldn’t take him seriously because I couldn’t play like that with Sam. Curtis Mayfield would play for the artist – Jimi would overpower the artist. He was a leader, and he heard things in a different way.

A lot of people believe Jimi Hendrix didn’t start setting his guitar on fire until after joining The Experience.
No, no, no! I used to laugh at him because I thought his guitar looked like a piece of barbecue. George eventually gave it to me.

Is it a Silvertone?
I don’t know what it is, there’s no name on it, and he broke the head off. George said, “Jimi busted it up and tried to nail it back together for a gig.” George’s grandmother gave it to him – Jimi used to stay with her. I got it 25 or 30 years ago.

What kind of guitars were you using back then?
I was using the Cadillac of guitars, a big Gibson L-5 hollowbody. And sometimes a Gretsch. They were both perfect for what I did with Sam. Sam would do “You Send Me,” or “Twistin’ The Night Away.”

I was a rhythm guitar player. Eventually, I started getting into Strats and Telecasters. For amps I always used a Fender Twin. My favorite guitar, to this day, is a 65-year-old Guild acoustic.

But when I played with Sam, all you needed was a big, full, clean sound. Jimi used to tell me, “Man, you play some beautiful chords!” I said, “There’s a country western piano player by the name of Floyd Cramer who I got my style from.” Jimi said, “But he’s a piano player!” I said, “Yeah, but imagine me hittin’ the same notes on the guitar, playin’ what you’d hear on a piano. It’s different.”

So when Jimi played rhythm, he used to listen to me and Curtis Mayfield doing these riffs.

Did you honestly like his playing?
To be honest, what he was doing was foreign enough for me to say that he could never have played with James Brown. It wouldn’t work, he’d get fired. Plus, nobody could understand why a guy would love his guitar, then all of a sudden turn around and try to destroy it. He was just different.

You’re left-handed. Do you flip your stings so the low E is at the top?
Jimi would say, “You know, me and you are the only left-handed guitar players. You’re worse than me! Yo’ **** is ****ed up! Look at yo’ strings!” He used to flip his strings over, but I didn’t. I could tell what he was doing on the guitar, but he couldn’t tell what I was doing. I’ve always played this way.