Ronnie Wood, the legendary guitarist and bassist, claims that Jimi Hendrix “never liked the sound of his own voice.” Wood, of The Birds, Faces, and Rolling Stones fame, used to share an apartment with Hendrix in London and says that he had to reassure Hendrix on a regular basis that his singing was okay.
Wood said on his Absolute Radio show: “Jimi never used to like the sound of his own voice. I used to say, ‘How was the gig tonight?’ and he would go, ‘Oh, the guitar was okay, man, but my voice’, he said, ‘I really can’t sing.'”
“I said ‘Look, you’re not doing a bad job, man, don’t worry about it’, you know, and he used to sort of worry about it, and I’d say ‘Look, it’s all part of the side effect’, I said ‘I think it goes great with the way you strum and play amazing guitar.'”
Wood says he is “honoured” by the time he spent with Hendrix and described him as a “well-mannered boy.”
On the night Hendrix died of a heroin overdose – at only 27 in 1970 – Wood spoke with him at Ronnie Scott’s legendary jazz club in London’s Soho.
Wood had this to say: “Jimi was really laid-back to live with, didn’t say much because he was always in the clouds a little bit. Jimi was a really sweet, well-mannered boy, and I’m very honoured to have shared a little space of time with him back in the late 60s. I was with Jimi the night he died at Ronnie Scott’s, and he was walking down the stairs with his arm around this girl and I said to him, ‘Jimi, say goodnight’, and he didn’t turn round.”
“I said, ‘Jimi! Say goodnight’, and he turned round really slowly, out of his brain, and just gave me a little stoned wave, and that was the last the world saw of him. Very sad, very sad departure.”
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