Jimi Hendrix remembered by his friend and bandmate Billy Cox
When Jimi Hendrix visited Maui in 1970 to play a concert in Olinda and take part in the “Rainbow Bridge” movie, he walked by the ocean one day with his friend and bandmate Billy Cox.
“As we walked along the shore, experiencing the moment, Jimi asked me, ‘I wonder, is this close to how paradise feels?'” Cox recalls. “We were feeling this free and at peace.”
Cox is among the celebrated musicians that will perform during the three-day Maui Music & Food Experience to benefit Lahaina, including a concert at the MACC on Sept. 7 which will pay tribute to Hendrix and “Rainbow Bridge.” Contrary to a press release this will not be Cox’s last show.
“Because this is a return to Maui celebrating the ‘Rainbow Bridge’ concert, with some of the best musicians in the world, it feels like traveling full circle,” says Cox. “Back to an acknowledgement of the concert on a level that did not necessarily happen 55 years ago. Although the (1970) concert did not have the big attendance number, it was mighty big with musician performance. When I looked out from the stage, I could see the audience was with us and enjoying every minute. When the concert was over and people were leaving, I heard someone from the audience say: ‘Now, that was something’.”
Cox says the time on Maui with the guitar icon was especially memorable. “I have fond memories of that time here. It is as if the magic of the universe made sure that it would be Maui where Jimi and I would have special and unforgettable moments before going on a European tour. Shortly after Maui, Jimi would leave us. There is a wonderful line, ‘We will always have Paris,’ from the movie, ‘Casablanca,’ starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. It will be the last opportunity for them to spend time together, however, they were aware of that. Jimi and I did not know, but now I remind myself, Jimi, Mitch (drummer Mitchell) and I will always have Maui.”
Hendrix died 6 weeks after his time resting on Maui.
While on island, Hendrix stayed at Seabury Hall, which was a private girls’ school back then. Cox returned to Maui and the school for the documentary “Music, Money, Madness…Jimi Hendrix in Maui,” released in 2020.
“I returned to Maui for a documentary, where we filmed at Seabury, and the grounds are still serenely beautiful. While Jimi was filming and staying at Seabury Hall on one side of the island, Mitch and I were on the other side. Filming halted because Jimi’s manager was called away for a couple of days. Jimi phoned me to come and get him. It was a clandestine arrangement. Driving my Mustang rental, Herbie Price, the valet and cook at the main house, where I was staying, took off to ‘rescue’ Jimi.”
By the time of their Maui debut, Hendrix and the Experience were used to playing before audiences of hundreds of thousands. The Maui audience, around 800 perched on an Olinda hill side, were treated to two sets which included a dozen new songs that had not appeared on any album.
“It still felt good, exceptionally good,” says Cox. “Before we took the stage, I asked one of the organizers what is that unique feeling, that special vibe or energy that I feel coming from the audience? I was told everyone is sitting in astrological order.” The audience had been advised to sit in groups based on their astrological sun sign.
The only surviving musician to have regularly played with Hendrix, the two musicians became friends while serving together in the Army in Kentucky. When Hendrix was invited to head to England to tour and record his debut album, he invited his old army buddy to join him.
“Jimi called me before he left for England and told me, ‘this man is going to take me to England and make me famous and I told him about you.’ He said, ‘if you can make it to New York, he will take you.’ It was Jimi’s and my plan to make it big together from the beginning. We were music soul mates. We both knew it. That is why many years later, I wrote the song, ‘Gonna Be Big.’
“I always knew Jimi was uniquely talented and cosmically inspired enough to make it. But the political timing was not right for two Black guys to try and make it in England. So, I lied. I told Jimi I had fallen on hard times. I had three strings on my bass and the fourth tied in a square knot. He said, ‘I will go to England and make it and I will send for you.’ And Jimi did exactly that. It took him two and a half years, but he sent for me. Jimi called me to rejoin him. He told me he needed me. I knew what that meant. My music soul mate was in trouble. I dropped everything and joined Jimi up until he left us.”
Teaming with Hendrix, first stop Woodstock!
“Woodstock was my first gig with Jimi on the ‘big stage.’ We had come a long way since playing together on the chitlin’ circuit. Jimi, Mitch and I were standing back stage when Jimi, looked and said, ‘that crowd out there will be sending us a lot of energy up on stage, so let’s take that energy, utilize it and send it right back to them.’ We went out and played for almost two hours.”
Among the epic moments of that performance, Hendrix played a unique version of the national anthem.
“If you listen closely, you will hear me play the first two bars,” says Cox. “Then something says to me, wait a minute, we have not rehearsed this. I had better lay out, and I did. Jimi then goes on to play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ all by himself. It was beautiful. It was incredible, a great rendition. Jimi Hendrix set the bar.”
As for Hendrix’s bigger role on our planet, Cox explains, “Jimi was a messenger. We both knew that. He experienced enough of the unexplainable where neither one of us had any doubt about that.”
Songs that were released after his passing like “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun),” “Night Flying Bird,” “Angel” and “Drifting,” signaled a musical shift for him.
“There was never a new song that Jimi did after I came on board that I was not there in its genesis or he brought to me for us to work out,” he says. “Most of those songs, we started in his apartment or on the road, in Jimi’s hotel room. Even some of the patterns that Jimi came up with before I rejoined him, we had worked out during our chitlin’ circuit days.”
Hendrix’s later songs, like “Message to the Universe” and “Earth Blues,” illuminated his spiritual depth. “I think very few understand what ‘Earth Blues’ is really all about and what Jimi is veiling,” he says.
Over the years, Cox also played with J.J. Cale, Charlie Daniels, and blues legend Slim Harpo. He was playing in the house band for “The !!!! Beat” TV show when Hendrix called him to join the Experience. Stars that he backed on the show included Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam Cooke, Etta James, and Freddie King.
As a brilliant bass player, he says, “I have always enjoyed playing around on the bottom, being so low that my bass playing thunders with the particularly needed groove.”
In September, a new box set will be released, “Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision,” which includes previously unreleased songs, all featuring Cox on bass. “I was not made privy to any plans or information,” he notes. “A friend told me that I’m on all
39 cuts. He also said just Jimi and me are playing on ‘Heaven Has No Sorrow,’ and that it is touchingly beyond tender and heavenly.”
Asked why he thinks Hendrix’s music is so timeless, he responds, “Jimi’s music is timeless because Jimi wrote in the now.”
Presented by the Hua Momona Foundation, the Maui Music & Food Experience, benefiting survivors of the Maui fires, will include a “Night at the Farm” intimate dinner at Hua Momona Farms on Sept. 5, and a “Celebration at the Ritz-Carlton” gala at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua on Sept. 6 (with an auction of a guitar signed by the musicians). A concert at the MACC on Sept. 7, will pay tribute to Hendrix and “Rainbow Bridge” in the Castle Theater and there will be music in the courtyard.
Since 2020, the Foundation has donated produce weekly to the Ka Hale A Ke Ola Homeless Resource Centers, and provided more than 30,000 meals to those affected by the Lahaina fire. More information is available at: www.mauimusicandfoodexperience.org.