The Blue Thumb Acetate

Recorded on 8-track at Studio One (aka Studio A)
Olympic Sound Studios, Barnes, London, UK
Tuesday 17 March 1970
Engineers: Keith Harwood, Jeremy Gee

Love is:
Arthur Lee - lead vocals / rhythm guitar
Gary Rowles - lead guitar
Frank Fayad - bass
George Suranovich - drums
with:
Jimi Hendrix - vocals / guitar
Remi Kabaka - percussion, drums on Loon
Lasisi Amao - percussionist and conga player on Loon
 

There were 16 takes recorded of The Everlasting First,
2 takes recorded of Easy Rider and 1 take of Loon (an instrumental jam)

1 The Everlasting First - take 16
2 Easy Rider - take 1
3 Easy Rider - take 2
4 Loon

The Everlasting First written by Arthur Lee
The Everlasting First arranged by Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee
Easy Rider written by Jimi Hendrix

From Gary Rowles Aug. 12. 2009:
Nooney Rickett is NOT on those sessions. He wasn't in the UK with us.
George played on the EZ Ryder cuts, and Everlasting First - the other guy jammed on the 2 chord riff tune only.
Arthur played on that jam also - that's the 3rd guitar.

Here is the complete entry from the recent Ultimate Hendrix live/sessions book:

Tuesday, March 17.1970
Olympic Studios, London, England
Engineer: Keith Harwood

Invited by Love's Arthur Lee to contribute to his band's album, Hendrix returned to Olympic Studios, the recording facility where he had recorded Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love. Hendrix and percussionist Remi Kabaka joined Love in recording "The Everlasting First", which came out in December of 1970 as part of Love's False Start. The three musicians recorded sixteen takes of before a basic track met Lee's approval. Two clean, complete takes of Hendrix's own "Ezy Rider" followed next. Hendrix then took part in an extended instrumental jam session before departing.

Some comments:
the book appears to be wrong about Ezy Rider; the acetate has just two short incomplete takes. The jam is OK, I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of Jimi's many jam recordings.

Love were touring the UK/Europe in Feb/March 1970, so presumably most of the band were available and present at this session. Clearly it is more than three people. I doubt there are any overdubs on Ezy Rider, and besides Jimi I hear another guitar, bass, and drums. The jam has Jimi, two other guitars, bass, drums, and percussion.

Presumably the core band is Jimi, Gary Rowles - guitar, Frank Fayad - bass, and George Suranovich - drums. On the jam they are joined by either Arthur Lee or Noony Ricket on guitar, and Remi on percussion.

The released version of "The Everlasting First" has been padded with ~31 seconds of another take (the middle section just after the vocals end) grafted onto the start, preceded by the faint sounds of a deck rewinding. The last ~2 seconds have been replaces by a snippet apparently from some other song. Weird.

The acetate version has just a few of Arthur's vocals double tracked, while the released version has most of them doubled. Otherwise the two sound generally similar, no big change to the final mix.

As for Remi Kabaka, there is no mention of him on the False Start album liner notes. At the time he was a member of the band Osibisa which recorded a couple of well received proto-prog albums that mix African sounds with rock music. He would later work with Ginger Baker's Airforce, and the resurrected 1970s version of Traffic.

As for the song "The Everlasting First", it seems to be a song about original sin (I think that is what the title refers to), and the pain and suffering that has brought to man. In particular, it may be a blues to the death of Martin Luther King, maybe partly inspired by the year old hit Dion song "Abraham, Martin & John".
---
Scott.

From http://crosstowntorrents.org/ august 2009:

entry by "Roland Stone"
Re: The lost Jimi/Love session has surfaced
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just had a nice visit with Remi Kabaka. He came over and I played him the entire False Start sessions.

Remi says this was the first time he'd ever heard playback of the session. He says they finished around 5 am and he never heard any playback until this afternoon. He'd never even listened to the lp version of Everlasting First.

Remi says that in addition to the musicians who played on the session, also in attendance at the studio were Steve Marriot and Monikka Danneman.

Remi says that although George Suranovich is playing drums on the two false starts of Easy Rider, its Remi playing drums on Everlasting First and the Jam! Remi described sitting at George's drum kit but with additional percussion instruments added to the kit. He says he alternated on the Jam between using sticks and playing with his hands. He says Jimi was directly in front of him and a drugged out Frank Fayad sporting a long beard was on his left. He said Frank wanted him to play real slow.

Remi says there was an additional percussionist and conga player on the jam named Lasisi Amao who at the time was playing with Steve Marriot and later was in Osibisa.

Remi says that the guitarists on the Jam are Jimi, Gary Rowles and Nooney Rickett. Arthur Lee was in the control booth during most of the Jam.

Remi says that Ezy Rider wasn't finished because Jimi and the bass player, Frank Fayad were too high and wanted to go do some more of whatever they were doing.

Remi was quite pleased to hear himself with Jimi after all these years. Of course I gave him a copy to take home. He says that Jimi left the session with Monikka and that was the last time he ever saw him.

Re: The lost Jimi/Love session has surfaced

Univibes Interview With Arthur Lee

UV: How did the Olympic recording session [17 March 1970] with Jimi come about)

AL: Because I knew Jimi Hendrix: ... and we became real good friends. In England we'd hang around together, going to different places, riding up and down the countryside in England, having a good time ... plus we both mysteriously had the same girlfriend [laughs] ... Devon Wilson was my girlfriend first...that was one Dolly Dagger ... Anyway, when I went to London I was surprised to see Jimi, of course.

I met him over here [Los Angeles] now and again ... he was one of my best friends. We were a lot alike, we had the same following, the same crowd and the same trip ... and we became real good friends, and when I was in London we were at the 'Speakeasy' and I told him "neither one of us gonna be around very long, so while we are here we might as well do something together". He fell for that [laughs]! So we got together. I tried to book something over there, but Stephen Stills had booked all the studio time [at Island studios] ...

UV: They were fully booked?

AL: Well fully booked by one person, Stephen Stills ... he wouldn't even give me a day man, you know, not one fucking day man [laughs]. So I got that Olympic studio ... and he (Jimi) and Remi Kabaka (played percussion with Ginger Baker's Air Force group from early 1970] and these other two Africans [came], they're playing tabla, I don't know who they were, but I met Remi Kabaka. He's the drummer on this jam of "The Everlasting First" [unreleased version] and another song that I never got to put a vocal on ... We never got a chance to play [again as] he died ... we were gonna start a band together ...

UV: Yeah, the Band-Aid?

AL: Yeah! How did you know that? ... He said he wanted to try and get Steve Winwood, Remi Kabaka and myself But it never materialised. And that's why I put Band-Aid on that Vindicator [LP] as a tribute, an inside tribute to Jimi, you know.

UV: But Jimi played on "Ride That Vibration" as well?

AL: Well if he did ...

UV: That's what you said during a radio interview for the BBC on 4 July 1980!

AL: No! I said that he asked me what were the words (laughs). I said he asked me what are the words of "Ride That Vibration" [sings a few lines] and then he had to split...

UV: Did you do any other tracks with him during that day, because I understood ..

AL: Maybe that's the understanding, you wanna know the truth? I did "The Everlasting First" with him, I did "Ezy Ryder", I did a jam, and I did a couple different versions of "The Everlasting First", and that's about it ... I mean "Ezy Ryder", that never came out either

UV: Is that Jimi's tune?

AL: That's Jimi's, but he's playing with my band ...

UV: So Jimi is definitely not playing on "Ride That Vibration"?

AL: No, that's Gary Rowles ...

UV: What happened to all those tapes from the Olympic session?

AL: I don't know where they are. Bob Krasnow [head of Blue Thumb Records in 1970] who is whom I gave them to, I haven't seen him or the tapes since than, so that's that. But there are a couple versions of "The Everlasting First". I gave the tapes [to Bob] and I'd say "hold it for me" and when I went to another company I forgot to get the tapes ...

Released albums (excluding compilations) between 1966 and 1974: Love (early 1966); Da Capo (early 1967); Forever Changes (late 1967); Four Sail (08/1969); Out Here (late 1969); False Start (12/1970); Vindicator (1972); Reel- To-Real (1974).

1. Anne Bjorndal was present during the Olympic sessions (which lasted well into the next morning) and says, "They felt very related and they were in a very good mood together. making a lot of jokes." Jimi told Anne on 2 September 1970 in Arhus, Denmark, that he would have liked to do more projects with Arthur..

2. Here's what Arthur actually said during that interview, "We did a long jam, you know, as well as we did "The Everlasting First". We did about three versions of that. We did "Ezy Ryder". We did "Ride Thar Vibration". And we did this long jam and we did a couple of other things." It appears now what Arthur really meant (but in reality didn't say) during that BBC radio interview was that Jimi asked him about the lyrics for "Ride That Vibration" ..

3. The release of "Ezy Ryder" (spelled as "Easy Rider" in the 8 June 1970 issue of Crawdaddy magazine) was planned as a Love single on Blue Thumb [USA] in June 1970.