Jimi Hendrix

Seattle to London

Hendrix was born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle on 27 November 1942 and was renamed James Marshall Hendrix in 1946. He got his first acoustic guitar in the middle of 1958, aged 15, and the first tune he learned was the Peter Gunn theme. He enlisted in the US Army on 31 May 1961 and met Billy Cox there. After his discharge on 29 June 1962 the two formed the King Kasuals in Clarksville, Tennessee, and Hendrix worked the Chitlin' Circuit as a sideman, including spells with the Isley Brothers, Little Richard and Curtis Knight and the Squires. In February 1964 he won an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater.

In the summer of 1966 he led Jimmy James and the Blue Flames at Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Keith Richards, noticed him and sent him to Chas Chandler, who brought him to London on 24 September 1966. Chandler built the Jimi Hendrix Experience around him with the bassist Noel Redding and the drummer Mitch Mitchell, and the band played its first show at Evreux, France, on 13 October 1966. Ten days later it recorded Hey Joe at De Lane Lea studio, and the single reached number six in Britain at the end of the year.

arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1992

Three albums

Are You Experienced came out in Britain on 12 May 1967, after sixteen sessions in London produced by Chandler, with Eddie Kramer joining as engineer in February. The British edition left off the singles Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary, opened with Foxy Lady and included the slow blues Red House. On 18 June 1967 the band played the Monterey Pop Festival, the American breakthrough that ended with the burning of a guitar, and the American edition followed in August.

Axis: Bold as Love followed on 1 December 1967 and holds Little Wing. Hendrix lost the master tape of side one in a London taxi, and most of it was remixed overnight. Electric Ladyland came out in the US on 16 October 1968. It was a double album with Hendrix as credited producer, made largely at the Record Plant in New York with guests such as Steve Winwood and Al Kooper, and it was his only American number one. It holds All Along the Watchtower and Voodoo Child (Slight Return). Chandler was frustrated by the long sessions and by the crowd in the control room, and the working relationship ended.

After the Experience

The Experience played its last show as a trio at the Denver Pop Festival on 29 June 1969, and Redding quit the next day. Hendrix headlined Woodstock on 18 August 1969 with a larger group called Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, played the American national anthem with feedback, and closed with Hey Joe. From 31 December 1969 to 1 January 1970 he played four shows at the Fillmore East with Cox and the drummer Buddy Miles as Band of Gypsys, and the live album Band of Gypsys came out in March 1970. The trio ended after a Madison Square Garden show on 28 January 1970, when Hendrix left the stage.

In 1970 he turned to Electric Lady Studios in New York, which he first used on 15 June and which opened officially on 25 August. He headlined the Isle of Wight Festival on 31 August, and his last concert was on 6 September at Fehmarn in Germany. He died on 18 September 1970 in London, aged 27. The Cry of Love, assembled mostly from the 1970 sessions at Electric Lady, appeared in March 1971, and Voodoo Child (Slight Return) went to number one in Britain two months after his death.

Legacy

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Experience in 1992, with Neil Young presenting. Hendrix is credited with popularising feedback, overdrive, fuzz, wah and the Uni-Vibe, and with the first recording of stereo phasing, on the end of Bold as Love. Are You Experienced went into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2005, and Mojo named it the greatest guitar album of all time in 2013. Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists. The family company Experience Hendrix, formed in 1995, controls his catalogue, and Sony Legacy has licensed it since 2010.