JIMI HENDRIX drew a crowd of 200 when he played at Darlington’s Imperial Hotel on February 2, 1967, and he left – famously without his guitar – with his 5ft 11in frame crammed with his two bandmates and manager Chaz Chandler and a girlfriend and all his gear in a Mini van.
When King Alfonso XIII of Spain stayed at the Imperial on July 3, 1928, it was a very different story. His was a surprise visit, and the following morning, a crowd of 500 well-wishers and press men gathered outside the hotel to raise their hats as he left, saluted by the doorman, in his large chauffeur-driven car.
His Majesty was taken to Darlington Forge on Albert Hill where he spent seven hours watching steel being made. A keen metallurgist, at the end of his visit, he was presented with an ashtray pressed out of the steel he had seen in its molten state.
So perhaps this, and not Hendrix’s visit, was the biggest date in the Imperial’s history.
READ THE FULL STORY OF THE KING OF SPAIN'S SECRET VISIT HERE
The 34-bedroom hotel was built in the 1870s as the Trevelyan Family, Commercial and Temperance Hotel. In 1890, it was bought for £4,000 by Cllr Edward Wooler, a noted Conservative, who changed its name to “Imperial” to fit in with the jingoistic nature of the times.
In 1966, the Blue Pad Rhythm and Blues Club was formed in the first floor ballroom. The Darlington supergroup, the West Coast Promotion – made up of members of the town’s Beat groups, The Vipers and Three Pin Square – was the resident band, and it looks like the only notable outside booking was Hendrix himself.
We are told that at the end of the gig, drummer Mitch Mitchell threw his drumsticks into the crowd and they are definitely still in town – we’d love to hear from you if you have them.
After the show, Hendrix went down into the cellar bar, called Bolivar, where he was informed that his guitar had been stolen. “Well, I hope the dude can play,” he said, which as Memories 673 told, has given author James Vasey the title of his new novella which imagines what really happened on that historic night.
“Reading about the Bolivar brought back memories of drinking down there when I was 17 (underage I know),” admits Trevor Jones. “One Saturday in 1970, down the steps came some police officers and because I was underage, I legged it to the far end and hid under a pinball table until they left.
“There was a barmaid, Jean I think, who had behind the bar a pair of scissors. If any one had a tie on, she would cut the long front part off and pin it above the bar where there was a long line of cut-off ties.”
Fred Pole tells a very similar story. “I and my friends used to visit the Bolivar bar before crossing the road to the La Bamba nightclub, which was upstairs in Grange Road, where you to wear a tie.
“The lady behind the Bolivar bar – Joyce or Jane, I think her name was – would cut off your tie, hence preventing you from going to the nightclub, and pined the ties to the bar top.
“We, though, always had a spare tie around our waists!”
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