Karl Schaefer was 17 years old, sitting in row 33 and clinging to a Super 8 camera when Jimi Hendrix walked out onto the Red Rocks Amphitheater stage in Morrison, Colo. It was 1967.
“You just knew you were seeing someone special,” Schaefer says. “[Jimi] was able to give himself to everything he was doing.”
Each ribcage-rattling riff, coated in crunchy feedback, ricocheted off the ancient rock formations.
“The air was so thick with music during ‘Voodoo Child,’ it was hard to breathe,” Schaeferhe recalls.
He has relived that concert countlessly over the past 50 years – and wonders how many thousands have had remarkable Jimi experiences at venues all over the world. Monterey County Fairgrounds, site of the 1967 Pop Festival and Hendrix’s rendition of “Wild Thing,” ranks as one of many stamps left on audiences’ minds; other notables include 10-plus minutes of “Red House” at the San Diego Sports Arena and one-handed guitar artistry with the fuzz-filled “Ezy Ryder” at Isle of Wight.
Now Schaefer pays homage to all these amazing moments – and the active energy that lingers in every venue he played.
The retired engineer has spent the last year and a half – authorized by the Jimi Hendrix Foundation – crafting a piece of the Guitar God that’ll live on beyond photographs, recordings and video.
“We all fade away, but bronze and stone don’t,” Schaefer says. “The only art we recover in the earth from ancient civilizations is usually made of stone and bronze.”
Since there aren’t any records of Hendrix’s facial measurements, Schaefer researched every photo and video he could find. After dozens of mock-ups, he came across a photo of Hendrix sitting in the audience in the Fairgrounds’ main arena, gazing at the stage. That was the Hendrix he was looking for, and the wax study for the sculpture – a bas-relief of Hendrix’s face and hair at 1.25 scale that will be cast in bronze and fashioned to hang – will be unveiled on Wednesday at Hotel 1110 in Monterey.
Schaefer wants to see his bronze Hendrix sculptures hanging in all the venues he played, including the Fairgrounds.
“We’re going to try to populate the world with these,” he says.
Joe Rosignolo, CEO of the Jimi Hendrix Foundation, will attend the unveiling, along with local rock photographer Tom O’Neal, who was stage right as Hendrix burned his guitar in 1967.
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