Fashion
Hendrix was well known for his unique sense of fashion, and strived to perfect his hairstyle and wardrobe almost to the point of obsession. A set of hair curlers was one of the few possessions that travelled with him to England upon his discovery in 1966. When his first advance check arrived, Hendrix immediately took to the streets of London in search of clothing at obscure fashion haunts like I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet, where he purchased an ages old British military jacket adorned with tasseled ropes. A traffic warden once ordered him to remove the jacket, citing it as an offense to the Queen.
Many photographs of Hendrix show him wearing various rings, medallions, and brooches, and Hendrix often peppered his attire with pins that professed his support for the hippie movement or his fascination with folk singer Bob Dylan. His only vacation, a two week trip to Morocco with friends Colette Mimram and Deering Howe, deeply affected his sense of art and style, and upon his return Hendrix filled his Greenwich Village apartment with Moroccan art and decor. Mimram and Stella Douglas, the wife of producer Alan Douglas, created some of Hendrix's most memorable attire: a Bowler style derby adorned with either an angled feather or a set of silver bangles, a Trilby hat crowned with a purple scarf and adorned with various brooches, the blue dashikis he wore on the Dick Cavett Show, and the blue on white fringed jacket that he wore at Woodstock.
He had enough of a sense of humor to poke fun at himself, specifically with the song "Purple Haze." A mondegreen had appeared, in which the line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" was misheard as "Scuse me while I kiss this guy." It is claimed that, in a few performances, Hendrix deliberately enunciated the line so as to emphasize the mondegreen. A volume of misheard lyrics has been published, with this mondegreen itself as the title, and Hendrix illustrated on the cover, taking the phrase literally.
Politics and racism
Even after achieving worldwide success as a musician, Hendrix could not avoid experiences of racism, which was omnipresent whenever he returned to the Southern United States.
Hendrix was also shunned by much of the black community for playing "white music" and for having white musicians in his band. Weeks after Woodstock, his performance at a Harlem block party became a harrowing experience. Within seconds of arriving at the site, his guitar was stolen from the back seat of his car by two Harlem thugs. When he appeared stageside to watch the early acts with his girlfriend Carmen Borrero (a Puerto-Rican model), the crowd verbally harassed the pair. When he appeared on stage, he was bottled, and had eggs thrown at him from the crowd. After the show, drummer Mitch Mitchell and roadie Eric Barrett were physically assaulted while dismantling their set.
Hendrix was also constantly harassed by various civil rights oriented activist and extremist groups who wished to use his fame to further their own message or cause. The Black Panthers even went as far as posting signs for his appearance at a benefit concert that Hendrix never even knew existed.
Drug use
Hendrix is widely known for and associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, most notably LSD. A common opinion is that Jimi's use of LSD was integral in unlocking his creative process. He had never taken hallucinogens until the night he met Linda Keith, but likely experimented with other drugs in years prior. Various forms of sleeping pills and speed fueled his "stop and go" lifestyle throughout his career, and pictures exist of Hendrix smoking marijuana.
Jimi was also notorious among friends and bandmates for becoming angry and violent when he drank alcohol. Kathy Etchingham spoke of an incident that took place in a London pub in which an intoxicated Hendrix beat her with a public telephone handset because he thought she was calling another man on the payphone. Alcohol was also cited as the cause of Hendrix's 1968 rampage that destroyed a Stockholm hotel room and led to his arrest. Musician Paul Caruso's friendship with Hendrix ended in 1970 when Jimi punched him during an alcohol-fueled argument.
The most controversial topic however, concerns his alleged use of heroin. The Hendrix family, along with a portion of his friends and biographers, emphatically maintains that Hendrix was never a heroin user, citing his irrational fear of needles. Known today as trypanophobia, this condition was never medically diagnosed in Hendrix. A toxicology report prepared shortly after his death found no heroin in his body, nor were there any marks from needles.
Many photographs of Hendrix show him wearing various rings, medallions, and brooches, and Hendrix often peppered his attire with pins that professed his support for the hippie movement or his fascination with folk singer Bob Dylan. His only vacation, a two week trip to Morocco with friends Colette Mimram and Deering Howe, deeply affected his sense of art and style, and upon his return Hendrix filled his Greenwich Village apartment with Moroccan art and decor. Mimram and Stella Douglas, the wife of producer Alan Douglas, created some of Hendrix's most memorable attire: a Bowler style derby adorned with either an angled feather or a set of silver bangles, a Trilby hat crowned with a purple scarf and adorned with various brooches, the blue dashikis he wore on the Dick Cavett Show, and the blue on white fringed jacket that he wore at Woodstock.
He had enough of a sense of humor to poke fun at himself, specifically with the song "Purple Haze." A mondegreen had appeared, in which the line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" was misheard as "Scuse me while I kiss this guy." It is claimed that, in a few performances, Hendrix deliberately enunciated the line so as to emphasize the mondegreen. A volume of misheard lyrics has been published, with this mondegreen itself as the title, and Hendrix illustrated on the cover, taking the phrase literally.
Politics and racism
Even after achieving worldwide success as a musician, Hendrix could not avoid experiences of racism, which was omnipresent whenever he returned to the Southern United States.
Hendrix was also shunned by much of the black community for playing "white music" and for having white musicians in his band. Weeks after Woodstock, his performance at a Harlem block party became a harrowing experience. Within seconds of arriving at the site, his guitar was stolen from the back seat of his car by two Harlem thugs. When he appeared stageside to watch the early acts with his girlfriend Carmen Borrero (a Puerto-Rican model), the crowd verbally harassed the pair. When he appeared on stage, he was bottled, and had eggs thrown at him from the crowd. After the show, drummer Mitch Mitchell and roadie Eric Barrett were physically assaulted while dismantling their set.
Hendrix was also constantly harassed by various civil rights oriented activist and extremist groups who wished to use his fame to further their own message or cause. The Black Panthers even went as far as posting signs for his appearance at a benefit concert that Hendrix never even knew existed.
Drug use
Hendrix is widely known for and associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, most notably LSD. A common opinion is that Jimi's use of LSD was integral in unlocking his creative process. He had never taken hallucinogens until the night he met Linda Keith, but likely experimented with other drugs in years prior. Various forms of sleeping pills and speed fueled his "stop and go" lifestyle throughout his career, and pictures exist of Hendrix smoking marijuana.
Jimi was also notorious among friends and bandmates for becoming angry and violent when he drank alcohol. Kathy Etchingham spoke of an incident that took place in a London pub in which an intoxicated Hendrix beat her with a public telephone handset because he thought she was calling another man on the payphone. Alcohol was also cited as the cause of Hendrix's 1968 rampage that destroyed a Stockholm hotel room and led to his arrest. Musician Paul Caruso's friendship with Hendrix ended in 1970 when Jimi punched him during an alcohol-fueled argument.
The most controversial topic however, concerns his alleged use of heroin. The Hendrix family, along with a portion of his friends and biographers, emphatically maintains that Hendrix was never a heroin user, citing his irrational fear of needles. Known today as trypanophobia, this condition was never medically diagnosed in Hendrix. A toxicology report prepared shortly after his death found no heroin in his body, nor were there any marks from needles.
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