{"id":329198,"date":"2025-12-22T04:14:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T04:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/329198\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T04:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T04:14:17","slug":"the-day-mitch-mitchell-was-nearly-fired-by-jimi-hendrix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/329198\/","title":{"rendered":"The day Mitch Mitchell was nearly fired by Jimi Hendrix"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mitch<\/p>\n

(Credits: Bent Rej)<\/p>\n

Sun 21 December 2025 18:30, UK <\/p>\n

Look around the world of rock and roll, and you\u2019ll find no shortage of musicians who would cut their own legs off for the chance to perform alongside Jimi Hendrix<\/a>. It seems ridiculous, then, that the guitar hero\u2019s very own drummer nearly flitted away his chance to be featured in the pages of rock history forevermore. <\/p>\n

Jimi Hendrix, being the otherworldly, revelatory figure that he was, tends to do something of a disservice to Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, the rhythm section of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In far too many cases, the guitarist is viewed in virtual isolation<\/a> \u2013 although, admittedly, the band name The Jimi Hendrix Experience doesn\u2019t help with that \u2013 but the musical backing of Redding and Mitchell was utterly essential to his psychedelic mastery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was manager and former Animals bassist Chas Chandler who concocted The Experience, after convincing the then-struggling R&B guitarist to up sticks and relocate to the swinging streets of 1960s London. Both Mitchell and Redding immediately impressed Hendrix with their adoration for old-school blues and R&B, and the trio seemed to gel together with effortless ease. Ultimately, though, there was never any doubt over who the star of the show was. <\/p>\n

Even Chandler himself, despite being a bassist in his own right, was keen to make sure that Hendrix had full creative control<\/a>, rather than the band being a democracy of equal votes. \u201cI wasn\u2019t concerned that Mitch or Noel might feel that they weren\u2019t having enough \u2013 or any \u2013 say,\u201d the manager once recalled in the book Ultimate Hendrix. <\/p>\n

Still, it took the young Mitch Mitchell a little while to fully understand the opportunity that had been presented to him, playing with one of the greatest rock and rollers to ever grace the airwaves. Living the archetypal life of a young musician during the height of the most exciting period in modern history, the drummer \u2013 ironically \u2013 wasn\u2019t too concerned with time-keeping or, indeed, sobriety. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe used to be late all the time,\u201d Mitchell\u2019s former bandmate Noel Redding shared in the book Jimi Hendrix and the Making of Are You Experienced. \u201cWhen times were tight, recording, Mitchell was always late.\u201d Before too long, then, the rest of the band, including Hendrix and Chandler, started to get pretty sick of Mitchell\u2019s tardiness. <\/p>\n

When, for instance, the drummer didn\u2019t appear for a CBS London session, Hendrix offered his job to the readily available John Banks, once the rhythm man behind The Merseybeats. Ultimately, though, Banks turned the proposition down, if only due to his fear of flying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, Chandler came up with a different method of putting a fire under Mitchell. \u201cChandler at some point docked him his wages for that week,\u201d Redding remembered, \u201cand he was never late again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seemingly, it was money which motivated Mitchell, rather than the opportunity to perform with an artist as revolutionary as Hendrix. Regardless, the relationship between the trio soon improved, and together they ruled the waves of 1960s psychedelia like no other. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Bent Rej) Sun 21 December 2025 18:30, UK Look around the world of rock and roll, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,23630,128683,128,128684,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-329198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jimi-hendrix","10":"tag-mitch-mitchell","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-jimi-hendrix-experience","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}