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This is a great story.

Chris Squire played bass guitar for "Yes."  Before that he was in band called "Syn" which nobody has heard of. In this interview, Squire tells the story of the night Syn went to play London's Marquee Club to open for a band called "Cliff Bennet & The Rebel Rousers" -- a band which never showed up.  Instead, a new act with a black guitarist replaced them.

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It's amusing how candid and honest Squire is. Hendrix was the first black man he'd met -- and he was so amicable. Squire takes a professional dig at Noel Redding (whom no one seems to have liked).  Listen through because the story gets better when he still hadn't figured out what was going on and, going on stage as the opening act for Hendrix, he met a front row audience which included Steve Winwood, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, and George Harrison -- "all of my heroes."

I found this video of Hendrix playing the Marquee Club around that time -- not the same night -- he did four shows on different dates in addition to this special filmed show -- but it's close enough in time to approximate the person whom all of Britain's "guitarati" came to see that night (this was still months before Jimi's American debut at Monterrey in June of that year).

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I can really see how Hendrix bridged the styles of Little Richard and Prince in that early clip.