Page 10 - February2021

At the front of Dimbola (aka Cameron House) in the tiny seaside resort of Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Wight, there stands a statue. Dimbola was the home of Julia Margaret Cameron, a pioneer photographer of the Victorian era, who settled here in 1860. Today, the building houses the Isle of Wight Museum of Photography, with its galleries, shop, and tea room. The statue -that now stands on what was once part of Mrs Cameron’s lawn- is neither big nor particularly imposing, but the man it represents was undoubtedly larger than life.
The Isle of Wight is a small island off the south coast of England. `Roughly diamond-shaped, it is thirteen miles from north to south, twenty from east to west. In 1853, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, arrived here, moving into Faringford, a large mansion -now a hotel- a few hundred yards up the road from Dimbola.
As Victoria’s poet laureate, his poetry with it’s high moral tone, sentimentality, patriotism, and fervent religious longings, exactly suited the Victorian psyche. Something of a dilettante, he had a keen interest in the arts, sciences, theology, politics, and social concerns of his time. Consequently, he drew, many thinkers, intellectuals, artists, and celebrities, to his door. Here they discussed the great matters of the day. He also drew into his circle Mrs Cameron -and her camera.
Today, the walls of Dimbola are adorned with scores of photographs depicting the‘great and good’ of Victoria’s reign -many of them taken by Mrs Cameron herself. With this in mind, the reader could be forgiven for thinking that the statue referred to earlier would be a study of one of these personages. In fact it is a representation of late sixties guitar genius, Jimi Hendrix.
Anybody wishing to know what a statue of one of rock history’s foremost icons is doing standing hard by an environment steeped in so much Victoriana, must look to the plunging white cliffs to the east of the hamlet -and the green downland that rises above. Here, in August, 1970 (eighty eight years after Tennyson’s death) was held the third Isle of Wight Rock Festival, one of the largest gatherings of human beings ever recorded.
Often referred to as the British Woodstock, the three day event attracted huge numbers to the festival site on Afton Down -outnumbering the Island population many times over. The list of performers constituted a veritable ‘who’s who’ of seventies rock talent: Supertramp, Black Widow, Tony Joe White, Lighthouse, Chicago, The Who, John Sebastian, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Ten Years
JIMI HENDRIX'S PENULTINATE SWANSONG
By Rob Atkins
After, to name but a few. The audience were also looking forward to the appearance of Jimi Hendrix, who, though a US citizen by birth, had first found fame in the UK with his band, the Experience.
Strange to tell, the event that was later to be looked back upon as one of rock’s most poignant and defining memories, began tamely enough. Jimi had a new band, which was possibly under-rehearsed. He had not played in Britain for a year, and, as a result, was probably nervous. Just before his set was due to begin he did a vanishing act. He finally appeared on the stage some 90 minutes late.
Hendrix and his band were slow to recapture the magic and exuberance of his earlier performances with the Experience, and the 600,00 strong crowd -who had been waiting for an hour and a half in the chill night air- responded with applause that was merely ‘polite’ and, on occasion, non-existent. The great man’s guitar work was described by some observers as ‘stiff’, his vocals distorted. Suddenly, Hendrix appeared to become aware of all this: “Ok,” he said, “let’ start again.”
Gradually the old style and energy began to re-emerge. As if recovering from a dream, the wizard broke, with renewed vigour, into the familiar catalogue of his blues- based ingenuity. Displaying his unique prowess, he forced from his guitar the sublime, tortured sounds, that were his hallmark. Tempered with subtle nuances of tone and mood, and soul-bending emotion as song followed song, the music pierced the dew-damp air of the summer midnight. The crowd came alive. The people roared. The guitar-god had returned.
Three weeks later he was dead, succumbing in his sleep it is alleged, from an accidental drug overdose.
For many, that ‘happening’ on the Isle of Wight was Hendrix’s swan song. But the term ‘penultimate swan song’ would be a more accurate label. On September 6th, he played the Open Air Festival Of Love And Peace, on the island of Fehmarn,off Germany’s Baltic coast. Despite the festival’s name it was marred by violence- from both the weather and gangs of Hell’s Angels. Unless you count the two songs he sang ten days later at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club (in London) with ex-Animal, Eric Burdon and his band, War, it was to be his last performance.
The island of Fehmarn must hold the distinction of being the site of Jimi’s last concert -but the Isle of Wight has his statue.
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