See Jimi Hendrix’s First TV Appearance, and His Last as a Backing Musician (1965)

After Jimi Hendrix’s dis­charge from the army, he earned his liv­ing as a trav­el­ing musi­cian on the so-called Chitlin’ Cir­cuit—the cir­cuit of venues through­out the seg­re­gat­ed South that booked black musi­cians. Hen­drix backed such giants of R&B, soul, and elec­tric blues as Wil­son Pick­ett and Sam Cooke, and dur­ing those ear­ly years with his own band the King Casu­als, the Nashville scene he’d set­tled into, and the cir­cuit gigs, he per­fect­ed the styl­is­tic quirks and stunts that would make him world famous just a few years later—playing right-hand­ed gui­tars upside down as a lefty, play­ing solos with his teeth and behind his head—often to the irri­ta­tion of his band­mates and employ­ers. He want­ed to do his own thing, but he paid his dues, jam­ming with and learn­ing from some of the top acts in ear­ly rock & roll while Eric Clap­ton and Kei­th Richards were lis­ten­ing to those same groups on the radio, painstak­ing­ly copy­ing their sound.

After near­ly two years on the cir­cuit, the rest­less and flam­boy­ant young Hen­drix, chaf­ing under the direc­tion of strict band­lead­ers, final­ly had enough of Ten­nessee and moved to Harlem to strike out on his own, but he still worked as a side­man: he record­ed with the Isley Broth­ers, toured with Lit­tle Richard, and in 1965, he made his first ever TV appear­ance with a pair of Long Island singers named Bud­dy and Sta­cy on Nashville’s Chan­nel 5 pro­gram Night Train, doing the Junior Walk­er & the All Stars top-ten hit “Shot­gun.” In the video above you can see Hen­drix (to the right of the drum­mer), groov­ing behind the fop­pish­ly-dressed vocal duo. Note how his moves are out of sync with the rest of the band, all right-hand­ed play­ers. Note how his pom­padour is slight­ly unkempt. Note, if you watch close­ly, his right hand trav­el­ing up and down the neck of his gui­tar, pulling off some killer runs—in a song that stays on one note for the duration—even while stuck behind the action.

This per­for­mance marks one of the last times Hen­drix would stand in the shad­ows of oth­er band­lead­ers. After work­ing steadi­ly in the stu­dio as a ses­sion play­er in 1966, he formed his own band, the Blue Flame (as Jim­my James), and took up res­i­dence at the his­toric Café Wha? in Green­wich Vil­lage (where my father saw him play, he tells me, and was floored, hav­ing no idea who the guy was). ’66 is the year Hen­drix ful­ly crossed over (some said sold out; some said sold his soul) from the soul/R&B cir­cuit to main­stream rock & roll suc­cess. He wouldn’t crack the U.S. until his leg­endary appear­ance at the Mon­terey Pop Fes­ti­val in June of 1967, but after form­ing the Jimi Hen­drix Expe­ri­ence in late ’66, he wowed audi­ences in Europe with his first sin­gle “Hey Joe,” and appeared on UK TV shows Ready Steady Go! and Top of the Pops. Three months before Mon­terey, the band appeared on pop­u­lar Ger­man TV pro­gram Beat Club. Check out their per­for­mance above, doing “Hey Joe” and “Pur­ple Haze.” Hen­drix doesn’t set any fires, but he does get in a solo with his teeth.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pre­vi­ous­ly Unre­leased Jimi Hen­drix Record­ing, “Some­where,” with Bud­dy Miles and Stephen Stills

‘Elec­tric Church’: The Jimi Hen­drix Expe­ri­ence Live in Stock­holm, 1969

Hen­drix Plays Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness