Music Throughout the Ages

The Vietnam War brought about many changes in the social scene of the United States and around the world. People wanted the war to end and protested in many ways. They were angry because lives were being lost in record numbers so the ‘baby-boomers’ took action. While some protested through various marches and ’sit-ins’ others found their voice in music.

Jimi Hendrix (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter whose guitar playing was influential on rock music. Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, USA, while his father was in army camp in Oklahoma. He was named Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth by his mother, 17 year old Lucille Hendrix. She had put him in the temporary care of friends. On his release from the army his father, James Allen “Al” Hendrix (1919–2002), retrieved him and re-named him James Marshall Hendrix in memory of his deceased brother, Leon Marshall Hendrix.

Hendrix grew up as a shy and sensitive boy, deeply affected by the conditions of poverty and neglect that he was raised in. In a relatively unusual experience for African Americans of his era, Hendrix’ high school had a relatively equitable ethnic mix of African, European (including Jews) and Asian (Japanese, Filipino and Chinese) Americans.

At age 15, around the time his mother died, he acquired his first acoustic guitar for $5 from an acquaintance of his father. This guitar would replace both the broomstick he would strum in imitation and the one-stringed ukulele his father had found while cleaning out a garage, on which Jimi reportedly managed to play several tunes. He learned by practicing almost constantly, watching others play, through tips from more experienced players and listening to records.

In the summer of 1959, his father bought Hendrix a white Supro Ozark, his first electric guitar, but without an amplifier. That same year his only failing grade in school was an F in music class. According to fellow Seattle bandmates, he learned most of his acrobatic stage moves—a major part of the blues/R&B tradition—including playing with his teeth and behind his back, from a local youth, Raleigh “Butch” Snipes, guitarist with local band The Sharps, and also performed the “duck walk” of Chuck Berry. He played in a couple of local bands, occasionally playing outlying gigs in Washington state and at least once over the border in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hendrix and his friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, where they formed a band called “The King Kasuals”, Jimi had already seen Butch Snipes play with his teeth in Seattle and now Alphonso ‘Baby Boo’ Young the other guitarist in the band was featuring this. Not to be upstaged, it was then that Hendrix learned to play with his teeth properly, according to Hendrix himself: “… the idea of doing that came to me in a town in Tennessee. Down there you have to play with your teeth or else you get shot. There’s a trail of broken teeth all over the stage…”

Frustrated by his experiences in the South, Hendrix decided to try his luck in New York City and in January 1964 moved into the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where he soon befriended Lithofayne Pridgeon (known as “Faye”, who became his girlfriend).

In February 1964, Hendrix won first prize in the Apollo Theater amateur contest. The win was encouraging, but in general he found breaking into the New York scene difficult. In the spring, Hendrix was hired as the new guitarist for the Isley Brothers’ band and joined their national tour. In Nashville, he left the band to work with Gorgeous George Odell on an R&B package tour, that had Sam Cooke as the headliner.

In Atlanta, he was hired by Little Richard for his new backing band, “The Royal Company“. During a stop in Los Angeles while touring with Little Richard in 1965, Hendrix played a session for Rosa Lee Brooks on her single “My Diary”. This was his first recorded involvement with Arthur Lee of the band “Love”. While in LA he also played on the session for Richard’s final single for VeeJay “I Don’t Know What You’ve Got, But It’s Got Me”

The Right Introduction

Early in 1966 at the Cheetah Club on West 21st Street, Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, befriended Hendrix and recommended him to Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham and producer Seymour Stein. Neither man took a liking to Hendrix’s music, however, and they both passed. She then referred him to Chas Chandler, who was ending his tenure as bassist in The Animals and looking for talent to manage and produce. Chandler was enamored with the song “Hey Joe” and was convinced that he could create a hit single with the right artist.

Impressed with Hendrix’s version, Chandler brought him to London and signed him to a management and production contract with himself and ex-Animals manager Michael Jeffery. Chandler then helped Hendrix form a new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, with guitarist-turned-bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, both English musicians. Shortly before the Experience was formed, Chandler introduced Hendrix to Pete Townshend and to Eric Clapton, who had only recently formed Cream. At Chandler’s request, Cream let Hendrix join them on stage for a jam on the song Killing Floor.

Word of Hendrix spread throughout the London music community in late 1966. His showmanship and virtuosity made instant fans of reigning guitar heroes Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, as well as Brian Jones and members of The Beatles and The Who, whose managers signed Hendrix to their new record label, Track Records.

Hendrix’s first single was a cover of “Hey Joe”, using Tim Rose’s uniquely slower arrangement of the song including his addition of a female backing chorus. Backing this first 1966 ‘Experience’ single was Jimi’s first songwriting effort, “Stone Free”. Further success came in early 1967 with “Purple Haze” which featured the “Hendrix chord” and “The Wind Cries Mary”.

The three singles were all UK Top 10 hits and were also popular internationally including Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan (though failed to sell when released later in the USA). Onstage, Hendrix was also making an impression with fiery renditions of the B.B. King hit “Rock Me Baby” and a fast version of Howlin Wolf’s hit “Killing Floor”.

The first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, ‘Are You Experienced,‘ was released in the United Kingdom on May 12, 1967 and shortly thereafter internationally, outside of USA and Canada. It contained none of the previously released (outside USA and Canada) singles or their B sides (”Hey Joe/Stone Free”, “Purple Haze/51st Anniversary” and “The Wind Cries Mary/Highway Chile”). Only The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band prevented Are You Experienced from reaching No. 1 on the UK charts.

At this time, the Experience extensively toured the United Kingdom and parts of Europe. This allowed Hendrix to develop his stage presence, which reached a high point on March 31, 1967, when, booked to appear as one of the opening acts on the Walker Brothers farewell tour, he set his guitar on fire at the end of his first performance, as a publicity stunt.

On June 4 1967, the Experience played their last show in England, at London’s Saville Theatre, before heading off to America. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album had just been released on June 1 and two Beatles (Paul McCartney and George Harrison) were in attendance, along with a roll call of other UK rock stardom: Brian Epstein, Eric Clapton, Spencer Davis, Jack Bruce, and pop singer Lulu. Hendrix chose to open the show with his own rendition of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, rehearsed only minutes before taking the stage, much to McCartney’s astonishment and delight.

Coming To America

Although very popular internationally at this time, the Experience had yet to crack America, his first single there having failed to sell. Their chance came when Paul McCartney recommended the group to the organizers of the Monterey International Pop Festival. This proved to be a great opportunity for Hendrix, not only because of the large audience present at the event, but also because of the many journalists covering the event that wrote about him. The performances were filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and later shown in some movie theaters around the country in early 1969 as the concert documentary Monterey Pop, which immortalized Hendrix’s iconic burning and smashing of his guitar at the finale of his performance.

The opening song was Hendrix’ very fast arrangement of Howlin’ Wolf’s 1965 R&B hit “Killing Floor”. The set ended with The Troggs “Wild Thing” and Hendrix repeating the act that had boosted his profile in the UK (and internationally) with him burning his guitar on stage, then smashing it to bits and tossing pieces out to the audience. This show finally brought Hendrix to the notice of the US public. A large chunk of this guitar was on display along with the other psychedelically painted Stratocaster that Hendrix smashed (but didn’t burn) at his farewell concert in England before he left for the US and Monterey, at the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s second 1967 album, ‘Axis: Bold as Love’ was his first recording made with a view to a stereo release and was where he first experimented with this format, using much panning and other stereo effects. It showcased a profound use of melody, along with his well-known technical virtuosity, with tracks such as “Little Wing” and “If 6 Was 9″.

The opening track, “EXP”, featured a stereo effect in which a ruckus of sound emanating from Jimi’s guitar appeared to revolve around the listener, fading out into the distance from the right channel, then returning in on the left. This album marked the first time Hendrix recorded the whole album with his guitar tuned down one half-step, to E, which he used exclusively thereafter and was his first to feature the wah-wah pedal and on ‘Bold As Love’ was probably the first record to feature the stereo phasing technique.

Finding Himself

Hendrix’s third recording, a double album, Electric Ladyland (1968), was a departure from previous efforts. Following his third and penultimate French concert at the Paris Olympia, Hendrix flew to the US to start his first tour there, after two months of this he returned to his Electric Ladyland project at the newly opened Record Plant studios with engineers Eddie Kramer and Gary Kellgren and initially Chas Chandler as producer. As the album’s recording progressed, Chas Chandler became so frustrated with Hendrix’s perfectionism and with various friends and hangers-on milling about the studio that he decided to sever his professional relationship with Hendrix.

However, as Hendrix began developing his own vision and started to assert more control over the artistic process in the studio, Chandler decided to move to other opportunities and ceded overall control to Hendrix. Chandler’s departure had a clear impact on the artistic direction that the recording took. For example, Dave Mason, Chris Wood, and Steve Winwood from the band Traffic, drummer Buddy Miles and former Bob Dylan organist Al Kooper, among others, were all involved in the recording sessions.

Hendrix helped develop the technique of guitar feedback with overdriven amplifiers. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Albert King, and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by some modern jazz. As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas; he was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects during recording.

Hendrix rented the eight-bedroom ‘Ashokan House’ in the hamlet of Boiceville near Woodstock in upstate New York, where he spent some time through the summer of 1969. Manager Michael Jeffery, who had a house in Woodstock, arranged the stay, with hopes that the respite would produce a new album.

To replace Redding as bassist, Hendrix had been rehearsing and recording with Billy Cox. In an effort to expand his sound beyond the power trio format, Hendrix then added rhythm guitarist Larry Lee (another old friend from his R&B days), and percussionists Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez. He dubbed the new band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, although this was never formally announced by management.

Headlining Woodstock

Hendrix’s popularity eventually saw him headline the Woodstock music festival on August 18, 1969. Bad weather and logistical problems caused long delays, so that Hendrix did not appear on stage until Monday morning. By this time, the audience (which had peaked at over 500,000 people) had been reduced to, at most, 180,000, many of whom merely waited to catch a glimpse of Hendrix before leaving.

The band, unused to playing large audiences and exhausted after being up all night, could not always keep up with Hendrix’s pace, but in spite of this the guitarist managed to deliver a memorable performance, climaxing with his highly-regarded rendition of the ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, a solo improvisation which is now regarded as a special symbol of the 1960s era.

Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the USA’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. Rolling Stone named Hendrix the best guitarist on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003. Hendrix was also inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and in 2006, his debut USA album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry.