In spite of the would be 'chumminess' with Jimi Hendrix...
...The Rolling Stones initially did things to thwart his career, even before he left New York. Keith Richard's girlfriend at the time(summer, 1966), teenage model Linda Keith(who is a cousin of Free's Paul Kossoff), was the person who truly 'discovered' Hendrix, encountering him in a Greenwich Village club. She, in turn, dragged Chas Chandler, who she knew from Swinging London rock and roll circles and was in NY on an Animals tour, down to see him. Now, I'm not entirely clear if she knew Chas was done with the band and was looking for an artist to mentor, but he was extremely keen on finding someone to record a definitive version of "Hey Joe", a tune that had popped up in the repertoires of countless bands that year. The very first song that Hendrix played(with his band that included the teenage Randy California, later of LA band Spirit)was indeed "Hey Joe". Chandler, knocked out by that serendipity and Jimi's guitar work, immediately moved in to make an offer to Hendrix. Chas had to finish the tour and get back to Manhattan to firm things up, but in the meantime, Linda had become bit of a 'den mother' for Jimi, taking care of him, and supposedly turning him on to Dylan and acid. When the Stones breezed through town on their summer tour, she took them to a gig where Jimi was merely in a backing band(Curtis Knight?)and they actually came away unimpressed. Keef started to smell a rat, and when he caught wind that Linda had loaned Jimi one of his guitars that he had left behind, he contacted her parents back in the UK, and told them that she was cavorting about with some wild heroin addict blues musician(oh, the irony!). She was ordered back to London, but Chandler nevertheless did hook back up with Jimi, and the rest is history. The connection with the Animals was far more positive; beyond the Chas Chandler involvement, Eric Burdon was a fan and supporter once Jimi arrived in England, occasionally jamming with Jimi on stage(Hendrix's last public performance moment was sitting in with Burdon/War in a London club). Noel Redding came to the Experience by just missing out on an audition for Burdon's new Animals line-up("sorry, position's filled, but our old mate is looking for someone for his own project"). The first people that Hendrix jammed with in the UK, literally just after landing at the airport, were keyboardist Zoot Money and guitarist Andy Summers, who were in the Animals social/musical orbit, and both eventually joined the later 'psychedelic' version of the band(Summers, of course, going on to The Police). Once Jimi became the phenomenal guitarist of the London club scene, I'm sure the Stones had an "oops" moment and pivoted into a 'we knew him when' stance. Brain Jones, introducing him at his US debut at Monterey, and so on.
