- 46
Jimi Hendrix
Description
- The Forgotten Contract with PPX Enterprises, 1965
Literature
Condition
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Catalogue Note
By the summer of 1965, Hendrix had quit touring the Chitlin Circuit with The Isley Brothers and Little Richard (by “missing the bus” in both cases) and living in a cheap Times Square hotel without even his own guitar. He was gaining an unfortunate reputation for unreliability (once he learned what he wanted from a headliner, he quickly grew bored and left) and his chances for a next backing gig looked slim. Hendrix met bandleader, reputed pimp and Harlem scene veteran Curtis Knight, then recording in a small studio in the hotel lobby. After a demonstration of what the young guitar player might bring to Curtis’ band The Squires, Jimi was presented with a Fender Duo-Sonic and a featured role on stage with Knight. Curtis also brought Jimi to the attention of his manager, Ed Chalpin, and his company PPX. Chalpin usually recorded knock-offs of the hits of the day, but he wasn’t one to overlook the potential of such a ferociously talented musician and showman as Jimi (then “Jimmy”) Hendrix. In short order, Chalpin had “Jimmy” signed to an exclusive three year deal, for advance of a single dollar.
While Hendrix was hungry to be an attraction in his own right, the full reasons behind his signing what in hindsight seems an incredibly exploitative contract with Chalpin’s company, PPX, are still unknown. In later years both Knight and Chalpin claimed their intention was to make Hendrix a star and he did in fact receive some arranging and song credits on a handful of Knight releases. Perhaps most telling is an episode in 1967, two years into the contract terms, and while Hendrix’s career was very much on the ascendancy and under new management. Hendrix had reconnected with Knight and recorded a few sessions to touch up old recordings he had made with Knight and Chalpin previously, in a misguided attempt to calm the lawsuit that Chalpin had filed against Hendrix’s UK label Track and Polydor in the wake of the Experience’s success. In response to Hendrix’s naïve request to “…don’t use my name on this, okay?” caught on tape, Chalpin’s reply “Don’t worry about it” turned out very much the opposite.
Whether he thought it simply an extension of his work backing Knight or if he really, as he once claimed, “never read it” the 1965 contract bound him to a number of terms, but most crucially for the sum of one dollar, “That Jimmy Hendrix will produce and play and/or sing exclusively for PPX Enterprises, Inc. for three (3) years…” and “That PPX shall have exclusive rights to assign for all masters produced in conjunction with Jimmy Hendrix.”
Such cavalier behavior to contracts was apparently not an anomaly for Hendrix. Girlfriend Faye Pridgeon later remarked, “He would sign a contract with anybody that came along and they had a dollar and a pencil.” Once Chas Chandler “discovered” Hendrix in the Village in 1966, quickly becoming his manger and determined to make him a star in England, he assiduously bought up every hastily signed agreement that his client made him aware of, no matter how old or seemingly insignificant. The unmentioned Chalpin PPX contract would cost Hendrix enormously, both financially and psychologically, throughout his short career.
The reaction to the Jimi Hendrix Experience during their mesmerizing appearance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and subsequent record-breaking concerts did not escape Chalpin’s attention, nor did the Experience’s album on Warner Bros. He sued Hendrix and Chandler (along with Mike Jeffery, Chandler’s partner) in New York.
Warner Bros. became more than interested bystanders once they determined that Hendrix was not in fact signed directly to the record label, but to Yameta, a Chandler/Jeffery holding company. With sales of the Experience debut, Are You Experienced outpacing anything Warners/Reprise had previously released, the record company knew where their future lay. To have Hendrix’s management, Yameta, lose to Chalpin was to go back to issuing Sinatra and Dean Martin when young record buyers wanted something completely new. And Jimi, the American sensation from England, promised that and more.
Warners president Mo Ostin put 14 lawyers to work on then PPX suit, but no real avail. A resolution was swift (though another suit brought in England would drag on for a year, heavily weighing on Jimi’s mental health). Chalpin received a payout of $1,000,000 and a share of future royalties, all from his initial investment of one dollar. In the interim he was also able to capitalize on Hendrix’s popularity by releasing four albums of shoddily recorded albums of Jimi-backed Curtis Knight jams (including the sessions mentioned above) subpar music that did nothing to add to Hendrix’s reputation and drove the guitarist, so concerned with controlling his art, to distraction.
Warners/Reprise PPX settlement was of course not free to Jimi, but he was expected to pay it back. Any royalties that Hendrix would have received were frozen and placed in escrow. With no money coming in from any of his three hit albums Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland, the only way to recoup the loss was through concert appearances (and it should be noted that Hendrix share of royalties from these under the terms of his new contract were not overly generous). And so the tour schedule for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, already intense, became relentless. In the midst of these huge financial pressures, the spiraling costs of building his Electric Ladyland recording studio necessitated additional debts in the form of advances from Warners to cover huge cost overruns. But there were still more hurdles to clear from the PPX agreement.
The settlement with Chalpin also stipulated an album of new material be produced, the proceeds to go to PPX. The eventual solution was a live “jam” album, featuring Jimi’s new group, Band of Gypsys (on top of the legal wrangling haunting him, Jimi had grown dissatisfied with the Experience’s playing and their share of the meager royalties and so parted ways with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, enlisting instead drummer Buddy Miles and an old Army buddy, Billy Cox on bass).
The eponymous Band of Gypsies was recorded from four concerts over two nights at the Fillmore East on December 31, 1969 and January 1, 1970. It featured (in addition to plenty of singing from Buddy Miles) at least one bona fide Hendrix classic, “Machine Gun.” The album was released on Capitol records six months before his death in 1970. It was the last release he authorized (though albeit, under some legal duress). It made the top 10 in both the US and UK.
While the financial pressures resulting from the fallout of the PPX lawsuits are obvious, less so is the considerable psychological toll the constant worry over debts took on Hendrix. Most biographers note that his drug use (and the strength of drugs used) increased during these tumultuous years, a time of frustration over not money alone, but the circumstances of not having complete control of his music. “Instead of woodshedding, instead of working on his musical growth, instead of a measured, deep reflection and a consolidation of direction – he would have to work, work like a [slave].” (Henderson).