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Jimy Bleu remembers the exact moment he became transformed by Jimi Hendrix.
It was 1968, he was a student at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan—made famous as the location of the movie “Fame”—and was already obsessed with another famous musician of the time, James Brown. He was hanging out with a group of friends who were already in thrall of Hendrix, one of whom’s father did the camera work for the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. When he came home early from work one day, he showed the raw footage to the kids gathered at his house.
“I was looking forward to seeing Otis Redding because I was into soul,” Mr. Bleu recalled. “But when I saw Hendrix, I said, ‘That’s what I want to do with my life.’ I switched my major from trumpet to guitar, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Mr. Bleu is now the longest running Hendrix tribute artist in the world, having started the same year he saw that footage. He has developed a reputation as the best, not only for his ability to play the guitar, left-handed, in near the exact style as Hendrix, but also for mimicking his distinct mannerisms and style of dress. Mr. Bleu’s show, Kiss the Sky, is coming to the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor on Saturday night, April 7.
The show features Mr. Bleu and members of his band with full replica wardrobe and instruments, and Mr. Blue performs Hendrix’s signature stage moves. Mr. Bleu’s skill in replicating Hendrix’s sound and style has been so effective, in fact, that he’s been invited by Billy Cox, Hendrix’s former bass guitarist, to perform with Mr. Cox’s band, Band of Gypsys. The concert also features a Joshua Light show, which was originally used at Hendrix’s shows at the Fillmore East. Kiss the Sky completed its first national tour in 2016, and recently returned from the Flower Power Cruise, where it was one of several featured acts from that era, including The Monkees.
In an interview last month, Mr. Bleu described the immediate effect seeing that raw footage of Hendrix so many years ago had on him.
“I’d never seen nobody play guitar with their body like that, and the way he moved, the swag he had,” he said. “The way the guitar would just bump off his body, and the sounds, of course. I was really into the movement; to see somebody do that with a guitar was amazing.”
Mr. Bleu explained that there was a specific reason he was hanging around with Hendrix fans at a time when he was still primarily interested in soul.
“There was a girl—I would say it was my junior year—and she was a groupie of all the English bands at the time, like Zeppelin, Yes, and a few others,” he explained. “One day in school she was wearing a button that said ‘Official Jimi Hendrix Fan Club.’ To get close to her, I joined the club.
“I never did get with her,” he added, laughing. “But we were friends.”
Though Mr. Bleu got his start as a Hendrix cover act in the late 1960s, he took his skills to the next level when he formed Kiss the Sky along with producer/manager Mike Gotch in 2016. Prior to that, Mr. Bleu fronted his own Hendrix cover act, Voo Doo Child Review, while Mr. Gotch also produced his own Hendrix show with different musicians. Kiss The Sky is an improvement on those previous iterations, according to Mr. Bleu, who says the show is more than just a performance of Hendrix’s top songs; it gives a complete picture of Hendrix’s life, complete with videos and storytelling.
“We had the same vision of presenting Jimi in a way he’d never been presented,” Mr. Bleu said of his collaboration with Mr. Gotch. “When you go to Broadway and see ‘Beatlemania’ or ‘A Night With Janis,’ you see the complete story, and nobody had ever done that with Jimi.”
When he was a high school student, Mr. Bleu had several encounters with Hendrix, meeting him on more than one occasion and chatting with him, an opportunity that came about because Hendrix and his friends haunted some of the same Manhattan hotspots as Mr. Bleu and his peers—including Manny’s Music Store on 48th Street, as well as the prestigious high school Mr. Bleu attended, located in the heart of midtown Manhattan and world-renowned for producing actors and musicians. Hendrix and other famous friends, such as Buddy Miles, would hang out on the steps, giving some cherished attention to the fan club. Mr. Bleu said that Mr. Miles was, at the time, dating the mother of a student at the school.
Mr. Bleu made it clear that those encounters were brief, and he was never close with the famed guitarist, but says that Hendrix made a strong impression on him. Mr. Bleu even chose to attend Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts on Hendrix’s recommendation.
Another recommendation of Hendrix’s has stuck with Mr. Bleu, and proves to be particularly apt for the gig that has been his life’s work for decades.
“Jimi was always into us finding out who we are, and not just trying to be him,” Mr. Bleu said. “He was very adamant about that. I’ve come to find out who I am through his music. Oftentimes I’m asked, ‘Do you get lost doing it?’ and I say, ‘Never.’ I’m very happy with who I am, spiritually. I’m like an actor; I play the part, and when I’m not playing, I put it in the closet.”
Kiss the Sky: Jimi Hendrix Re-experience is Saturday, April 7, at 8 p.m. at Bay Street Theater, and tickets are $30. Call 631-725-9500 or visit baystreet.org.
Cailin Riley on Apr 2, 2018