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Listen: Steve Miller unearths live tribute to Jimi Hendrix from 1970

Taped at the Steve Miller Band’s gig at Pepperland on the day of Hendrix’s death.

Photo: Brad Barket / Getty Images

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Steve Miller has unearthed a live tribute to Jimi Hendrix recorded on 18 September 1970, the day of the legendary guitarist’s death. The performance of Peppa Sauce was recorded during the Steve Miller Band’s gig at Pepperland in San Rafael, California. Take a listen above.

Miller and Hendrix were friends and would jam together on occasion. Both artists shared the bill at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967, during which Hendrix famously set his Fender Stratocaster aflame, and destroyed the instrument onstage.

The theatrics were not appreciated by Miller, who told the Washington Post in a 2019 interview.

“I thought that was pathetic,” Miller said. “When I saw Jimi Hendrix stop playing the music he was playing and get down on his knees and pull out a can of lighter fluid and squirt it on the thing and light it, I went, ‘Boy, this really fucking sucks.’ ”

In Hendrix’s own words, the decision to destroy his beloved instrument onstage was spurred by the excitement of finding his artistry greatly received in the United Kingdom.

“I felt like we were turning the whole world on to this new thing, the best, most lovely new thing,” he said. “So I decided to destroy my guitar at the end of the song as a sacrifice. You sacrifice things you love. I love my guitar”.

Meanwhile, a feature-length documentary entitled Music, Money, Madness . . . Jimi Hendrix In Maui was announced this month to be released this November. The film documents Hendrix’s visit to Maui, and how he and his bandmates got involved with the ill-fated film Rainbow Bridge, thanks to controversial manager Michael Jeffrey.

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