The Devil You Do or The Devil You Don't" (from "Devil's Food"), which featured a bass-heavy breakbeat; "You Gotta Learn" (also from "Devil's Food"); and "Funk Soul" (from "What's Funk?). But the sound was still a jumble of styles and tempos, none of which had been fully realized. Hendrix was also on the road, but he did have a moment of revelation when he realized that he would never have another chance to make a hit. As he told me in 1976, "During the time when I got signed by the Chess brothers, we were rehearsing in Memphis. But after a while, they said, 'Well, y'all get together with this guy that he's gonna produce your record.' Then we all came up to Detroit and got together with this producer. He used to do a lot of doo-wop stuff, so I was a little wary of him. But it turned out that all he did was write. So I just started playing my guitar with his band, and I told him, 'Man, I've never sung before.' He said, 'Well, why don't you just sing anything you feel?' So I tried it and ended up doing what I did on the first two songs on the record. And the rest of the things on it were done by all three of us. This is really the way the album started." _Band of Gypsys_ is a perfect reflection of the spirit of Detroit and the Black Power movement that was still in its early days. Detroit had been the epicenter of the American automobile industry and would soon become a home base for rap music. The album was an ode to the city itself, but it also heralded the new "white" music, and, ultimately, Hendrix's own death was to be a tragic product of that moment. As Hendrix told me: "This guy wasn't happy about some of the things we had done. And I have to say, I wouldn't be a fan of it too much, either. I think he got a little upset about the fact that we were doing our own thing. And the problem was, we just didn't take care of him well. We got into a problem with this producer because he got a little peeved about the fact that we weren't doing things that he wanted us to do. We did 'Drivin' South' and we didn't go into the studio until the last minute on 'Midnight' and 'Castles Made of Sand.' I think that the stuff that he didn't like was the fact that we didn't do what he wanted us to do. He was always telling us what to do, but not giving us enough time to think about it. He would tell us to think about something, and we'd say, 'Well, I thought that already.' He didn't have time to think. So I told him, 'Look, we got a lot of good people here who will do what you want them to do.' I just couldn't understand why he would do some of the things that he did." Unfortunately, we will never know how the new sound of _Band of Gypsys_ would have developed, because the album was cut at Electric Lady Studios, and Hendrix was killed on the road, three days after he arrived in England to begin a tour. As Hendrix's biographer, Paul Trynka, points out, Hendrix had been "working so hard that he died in the mid-summer of 1970." Indeed, he went into what is widely considered to be the most challenging phase of his career: a rigorous, creative period of musical experimentation, a period that might have resulted in a new album similar in quality to _Axis: Bold as Love._ It didn't happen because Hendrix died. The cover of _Band of Gypsys_ , which features a photograph of Hendrix standing behind his guitar, represents the album as a whole and indicates his intentions. He is not doing the traditional show-off-the-instruments cover shot. He is in the studio behind his guitar, as if he was actually making the album. The picture's composition shows us what Hendrix intended—the image conveys an element of the band's collaboration and the recording process, with Hendrix in front. It has a "natural" quality, in that we see him as part of a group. The record also features four photos of Hendrix with a woman in the background, a shot that is similar to what was considered to be a controversial image for Hendrix when he first released _Are You Experienced?_ He was using an image that was part of the "male fantasy." But the women are there only to highlight the sexual nature of the image. He is standing behind the woman, which has become his "macho" pose; he is dominating her. In the back she is bent over and her bottom looks as if it is rising toward the camera. Hendrix said in an interview that the title of the album had come from seeing some men with women in a club who were "doing just the same thing. . . . It's not only a physical thing, but in their minds they were the only ones that were doing it." So, though we are listening to an album of music, the cover image is also about Hendrix and his sexuality. The image of Hendrix looking at the woman behind him conveys his sexuality. The way he posed, it made it appear as if he was standing there with a woman—it was a natural position for him. "The way I look at it," Hendrix told _Ebony_ magazine, "I had to have my freedom to make mistakes. It's the ultimate mistake in making albums; it's like you're playing out of your head. . . . So I'll be a good producer one day—it's just that right now it has to be just like a painter; only my canvas is a recording studio. It's just me as a painting. But that's where I come from. I don't mean I want to make a big, expensive, expensive album. But it has to come from a lot of inner turmoil. It has to be strong, because, you know, if you can't let people know who you are, they'll tear you apart. I do what I want to do. I don't compromise. And when you give too much of your own identity, then you're finished." In the booklet that accompanied _Band of Gypsys,_ Hendrix was quoted as saying, "I just want to take everything to the next step and just show people what's possible." For Hendrix, the message of _Band of Gypsys_ was that he did not have to be a slave to the music business or have to fit in; he didn't have to change who he was or what he did. He wanted to move out of what was expected of him and create an album that would be unique. He was saying, as his song "Machine Gun" suggests, "You have a man with a machine gun / Put me in your gang / It will surely be sublime." But for Hendrix to do that, he had to be himself. As Hendrix said in one interview, "The trouble is, I can never really be myself. And that's because I've got to represent so many things for so long that I'm always trying to make myself fit in." A few years after the release of _Band of Gypsys,_ there was something in the news about Hendrix that made me think of this album. A group of musicians, and several new members from another group, formed a band, and they named their group after _Band of Gypsys_. The group was called—you can't make this up—The Sex Pistols. (See the note about the Sex Pistols in the sidebar.) In the same interview, Hendrix said, "I don't want to seem out of place, or just plain odd." On _Band of Gypsys_ , you don't believe Hendrix ever felt out of place. And though he is very much out of place in the new album he is working on, he knows he will work hard to make that "next step." **Note:** It was during the Sex Pistols tour of England that Sid Vicious nearly died as a result of drug overdoses and he was taken away in an ambulance. But within days of his death, he had risen from the dead and returned to perform again. To understand the story, you have to know that Sid Vicious (born John Ritchie) grew up in London, and he and his older brother, Jamie, went onstage with a song called "Birthday." The Vicious brothers performed, but were so out of tune, they had to play the opening bars of "Birthday" a thousand times before they could finish the song. That is why they were called "The Vicious Brothers." "I think people often misunderstand us," says Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious's real name. "They think that we have a problem with violence, because we're a punk rock band. But we're not the sort of band that are into violence. All we've ever done is write songs." The Sex Pistols became one of the most successful punk groups ever—at least according to their own rules, because when it came to their contracts, the band went to extremes to avoid having to pay back any royalties. But at the same time, the group was hated for its violence against women