Remembering Mitch Mitchell (9 July 1946 – 12 November 2008)

 MITCH MITCHELL

Photo by  Linda McCartney

"Playing with Hendrix was no second-fiddle indignity for Mitchell but a challenge to be risen to, time and again. On a track like Manic Depression, it's as if he's about to be pitched off his drum seat over the top of the kit, propelled by the sheer tsunami of his drumming. He is almost the dominant force. By 1968, as Hendrix really began to experiment, bassist Noel Redding found himself marginalised and eventually jettisoned. Mitchell, however, rose again to the occasion, holding his own in the jam session with Hendrix and Steve Winwood that gave rise to Voodoo Chile. Even when Hendrix went the way many of his black followers had hoped he would and formed the African American trio Band of Gypsys, Mitchell was never out of the loop. On the last Hendrix recordings, he was part of a trio that included bassist Billy Cox. He worked with him to the end, and beyond. For on October 19, 1970, it was Mitchell's grievous duty to go in and lay down the studio drum part to Angel, over the guitars and vocals of his colleague who had died tragically just a month earlier, aged 27. The rising swell of cymbals that concludes the track feel like a final embrace with the ascended soul of his old friend. " - Guardian