Road: Road (1972)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s resident grump, Noel Redding frequently lobbied for more credit and respect over the years (especially after he stupidly sold his royalties in perpetuity for a measly $100,000), despite his paltry musical contributions to the legendary power trio’s oeuvre.
A guitarist himself, who only picked up the bass when recruited into the Experience, Redding was, however, given the odd chance to strut his stuff, mumbling his way through “She’s so Fine” on Axis: Bold as Love, and taking control of Electric Ladyland’s “Little Miss Strange.”
Raise your hands if you can hum either one from memory ...
And then, after parting with Jimi, he promptly fell flat with roots rockers Fat Mattress, who released a pair of hit-deprived LPs in ‘69 and ‘70 (the latter without Redding’s involvement), before moving out to Los Angeles in search of new professional opportunities.
This, as things turned out, involved laying low for much of ‘71 until he “made peace” with the bass and formed a new power trio, the simply named Road, with former Fat Mattress (future Stray Dog) associate Leslie Sampson on drums and Rare Earth guitarist Rod Richards.
Their sole, eponymous product emerged 50 years ago this month and saw all three musicians taking turns at the microphone in what my All-Music Guide colleague Sean Westergaard accurately described as “little more than warmed-up post-Hendrix hard rock, heavy on the wah pedal.”
What’s more, Richards’ songs were the cream of this rather poor crop -- at least when it comes to the convincing “I’m Trying” and the urgent “Space Ship Earth” (which recalls Sir Lord Baltimore), if not the dazed and confused “Mushroom Man,” or the near-ten-minute jam bearing the band’s name.
And while these sound interchangeable with countless hard rock bands of the early ‘70s, they easily bested Redding’s lame impersonation of The Band on “I’m Going Down to the Country” (seriously?) and the Fat Mattress leftover “My Friends,” both of which proved that the hapless Noel was playing second fiddle even in his own group!
To be fair, his lysergic (borderline narcoleptic) “Man Dressed in Red” struck upon a clever twist of phrase by replacing its title with “Mandrax and reds ... kept me in my bed,” to the delight of stoners everywhere.
But to quote Westergaard once again, there was no disguising the fact that Redding “couldn't write good songs if his career depended on it” -- which it obviously did!
So after Road’s inevitable collapse, this “criminally uncredited contributor” to The Jimi Hendrix Experience fled his latest failure for Clonakilty, Ireland, where he formed The Noel Redding Band with erstwhile Thin Lizzy axeman Eric Bell, and carried on slowly sinking into bitterness and oblivion until his death in 2003, at the age of 57.
In retrospect, one can’t help but wonder if Redding’s life and career wouldn’t have turned out better, if only he’d contended himself with his minor but still never-to-be-forgotten role alongside one of rock ‘n’ roll’s all-time greats?
I’d think so.
More Jimi Hendrix Associates & Disciples: Black Merda’s Black Merda, Electric Sun’s Firewind, Mahogany Rush’s Strange Universe, May Blitz’s May Blitz, Ramatam’s Ramatam, Space Farm’s Space Farm, The Third Power’s Believe, Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather.
