One Giant Leap

“I was just foaming at the mouth to see Hendrix,” said Craig. “I couldn’t get close enough to get a decent shot. All the sudden I was at the edge of the stage. It was easy to do. I took off. It was great. I could have probably touched him. I was probably about five or six feet from him. I kind of circled around him and tried to get another shot. But the guitar was still in his face. It was my only window of opportunity. I was being chased. Someone came out of the wings...”

Standing Next to Your Fire, Craig Petty, Page 56

Lost Interview

“Although we were in the same room with Jimi, the music editor of the paper was a guy named Marvin Hohman. He later became the editor of Down Beat magazine. He got wasted. Most of us were into a little pot. He was into the sauce, and so he got himself sick drunk and before we were actually able to do an interview, he threw up on the pink suede boots of Jimi Hendrix’s manager, some English guy, a very prissy kind of fellow. That was the end of that episode. We were very quickly escorted back out into the great unwashed.”

Xanadu, Pete Rothschild, Page 37

Addendum: Marvin Hohman greeted me at the second book signing in December of 2009. He corrected the assertion that Pete Rothschild made about their encounter with Jimi's manager. “I was drunk because Jimi was screwing my girlfriend in the next room in the hotel suite,” Marvin insisted. I did NOT throw up on the manager's shoes. I threw up in a potted plant!”

Spot On

That night, in such close proximity to Hendrix, Wiseman’s photographs portrayed the icon in a way that a select few photographers were able to achieve. He attributes part of that to the atmosphere of the stage and his own sense of timing. “I liked the lighting I had with Hendrix – and often with the Dead – where you had just a single follow spot. You can get some really dramatic lighting and you can isolate the subject. That meant most of the rest of the stage was dark. I could hide and not be a hassle to the people watching the show.”

The Decisive Moment, Jim Wiseman, Page 59