Jimi Hendrix Was Fired From Little Richard’s Band

In the mid-1960s, Jimi Hendrix transitioned from playing for the Isley Brothers to playing for various soul and R&B acts like B.B. King, Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke.

For a brief time, Hendrix toured with Little Richard as part of his backing bands, both the Royal Company and the Upsetters. Robert Penniman, Little Richard’s brother, said that, despite Hendrix’s obvious talent with the guitar, he “had a habit of being late and upstaging the main act, two things that no session guitarist should ever do.”

In an episode of VH1’s Legends, Richard said of Hendrix:

On the stage he would actually take the show. People would scream and I thought they were screaming for me. I look over and they’re screaming for Jimi!

According to Penniman, it wasn’t the showboating that made them ultimately fire Hendrix but his perpetual lateness:

He was a damn good guitar player, but the guy was never on time. He was always late for the bus and flirting with the girls and stuff like that. It came to a head in New York, where we had been playing the Apollo and Hendrix missed the bus for Washington, DC. I finally got Richard to cut him loose.

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