The American guitarist and his band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, played at the Bath Pavilion on February 20, 1967. They were standing in for Chuck Berry, who had cancelled.
Before the show two local girls, aged 15 and 16, went to the backstage door for an autograph. Hendrix stepped out to meet them but said he had no blank paper, so he tore out a page of an p exercise book, ripped it in half and signed both pieces.
Fellow band members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding also gave their signatures.
When the girls turned over the paper they found handwritten lyrics headed “51st Wedding Anniversary”. Three weeks later, 51st Anniversary was released as the B-side to Hendrix’s Purple Haze.
Last year the girls got in touch and found they’d both kept their paper intact.The lyrics are expected to fetch five figures when they are sold by Tracks Limited at a date to be set. Paul Wane, of Tracks, said: “There are extremely few Jimi Hendrix manuscripts in existence and even fewer that have been signed.”
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