Ronnie Wood remembers Jimi Hendrix’s quality concerns: “He said, ‘My voice is awful.’ I said, ‘I don’t think you should worry about it’”

Ronnie Wood can’t forget one of the first things Jimi Hendrix ever told him. When the future guitar icon met the future Rolling Stone in a London club that was central to the ‘60s scene, they shared a moment of frank honesty that surely helped cement their friendship.

“The Speakeasy is where I first saw him, where I first hung with him,” Wood tells Planet Rock Radio. “He came and sat in my cubicle when he’d played, and he was saying, ‘My voice is awful!’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? I don’t think you should worry about your voice, Jimi, with you playing like that!’”

Wood also remembers Hendrix’s presence, including a fashion sense that inspired imitation wherever he went. “His persona was so fantastic. When he walked into a room his clothes just set the whole deal off. There was quite an aura around him.”

Of course, that extended to his guitar playing, Wood confirms: “He changed the whole voltage – the whole way the guitar was headed. He could play the guitar right-handed, left-handed, equally well. It was just like a part of him, the guitar. He’d take his mellowness onto the stage and let his showman out of the cage – let it gradually come out and be stirred by the audience.”