On 19 October, multi-million selling rock band Foreigner will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. The band was formed by guitarist Mick Jones in 1976, but he’d already had a taste of the big time 10 years earlier as backing musician for Johnny Hallyday, the singer known as ‘The French Elvis’. And that was how Mick got to see Jimi Hendrix on stage and got to know the man offstage.
In an interview with Outlaw magazine in 2019, Mick recalled: “Johnny Hallyday was doing a tour and we needed musicians to back him up, so we were out one night at a club in London, The Cromwellian, where [British jazz/rock star] Brian Auger was playing. Jimi got up to jam with him and he just tore the place apart.
"He was extraordinary. He had this charisma about him before he even picked up his guitar. And when he played a blues, it was unbelievable. I’d never heard or seen anything like it and nor had anybody else. So that evening, they did the deal in the club to take The Jimi Hendrix Experience to France for a month’s tour, opening for Johnny.”
As Mick remembered it, Johnny Hallyday’s fans were completely bemused by Hendrix’s performances.
"Those people didn’t know what hit them!” he laughed. “They were sitting there aghast. I’d watch Jimi every night from the side of the stage, and I was amazed. You had Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and all these great guitar players, but Jimi blew everybody’s socks off!”
Mick also recalled how different Hendrix was offstage. “He was beautiful,” Mick said. “Kind of shy offstage, very mellow and warm. He was on his own little planet, but we had a lot of fun together.”
