“So they asked if I wanted to play drums behind them! I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Heat Wave? Dancing In The Street?’ This was 1966. “My oldest brother was asking the guys, ‘We gotta find a drummer ASAP – do you all know anybody?’ They said, ‘Yeah, Ernie.’ ‘Ernie? Get out of here.’ ‘Yeah, Ernie plays better than the guy who was playing with us!’ I started playing at around 12 years old and I played my first live gig on drums with my brothers when I was 14 in Philadelphia, because the drummer that they had had suddenly quit. You can see drummers in parades, so that’s what attracted me at first. My mom used to yell at him and make him breakfast! He was part of our household as much as he was part of the Isley Brothers band.” Drum Major “And I’d tell them that if they’d come by my house a year and a half or so before they would have seen him just about any old day. “After Jimi went to England and became ‘Jimi Hendrix’ I remember my buddies coming up to me in school and asking me, ‘You know Jimi Hendrix?’ (Image credit: Jason Moore/ZUMA Press/Corbis) Family Man

I’ve said this before, but I know that if he’d been around when That Lady came out, he would have given me a bear hug and asked me, ‘Where in the hell did you learn that?’ Of course, I would have said, ‘From listening to you.’” Prev of 9 Next Prev of 9 Next “I mean, he already had that signature E chord that he used later in Purple Haze. I really liked hanging out with him, and I could tell he really liked me, probably because I was really curious about what he was up to. That’s how I knew him, even though I was just a kid. He was already an amazing player, but I think of Jimi Hendrix as a person I knew, rather than the icon. “He wasn’t the Jimi Hendrix we all know now, he was just Jimmy.

I was a kid and when I’d hear him playing, I’d take my homework or whatever and I’d go hang out where Jimi was. “In fact, his first recording session was with the Isley brothers in ’64 on a song called Testify. When I’d hear him playing, I’d take my homework or whatever and I’d go hang out where Jimi was He was with us and lived in our home for two years. “In 1963, when I was 11 and Jimi Hendrix was about 21, he played with The Isley Brothers. (Image credit: Don Hunstein) Hendrix At Home

Guitar versions of isley brothers songs