Two days before his death — September 16, 1970 — Jimi Hendrix showed up unannounced at famed London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s and got onstage with Eric Burdon and War. Now we’re able to hear that performance — his last one ever — in a new documentary called Ronnie‘s.
The doc tells the history of saxophonist Ronnie Scott and his club, which opened in 1959 and became one of the most famous musical venues in London. The film features previously unseen and unheard performances by music icons like Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as rockers like Van Morrison.
The audio from a bootleg tape of the Hendrix performance, as well as interviews with the people who were there that night, are also included. As War guitarist Howard E. Scott relates in a clip from the film, that night at Ronnie’s, the band has started playing a blues cover called “Mother Earth” when he saw Jimi coming towards the stage, guitar in hand.
“Jimi lit into a guitar solo, I mean, me and Jimi were just cuttin’ the place up, we were tearin’ it up, just me and him, back and forth, back and forth…great night,” Scott recalls. “The next night, we got word that after the set, Jimi had died. It was a terrible, terrible thought right then, that I was the last guitarist to play with him.”
You can watch an excerpt from the movie that includes the audio at Rolling Stone. Ronnie’s opens in select theaters and on-demand on February 11.
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