Early life
Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, U.S.. He was originally named Johnny Allen Hendrix, but later re-named James Marshall Hendrix. Hendrix's parents (James "Al" Hendrix and Lucille Jeter) divorced when he was nine years old, and in 1958 his mother died. He went to live with his Cherokee grandmother because of his unstable household. Jimi Hendrix grew up as a shy and sensitive boy, deeply affected by the conditions of poverty and neglect that he was raised in, and by the troubling family events of his childhood—namely his parents' divorce when he was nine, and the death of his mother in 1958. In an unusual experience for African Americans of his era, Hendrix grew up with children of diverse ethnic origin. Most American inner cities of the 1950s were heavily segregated by race, but Seattle's Central District was a mix of Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian residents. At age 15, he received his first guitar, an electric to replace the broom stick he would strum like one.Learning quickly, he played in many local bands, playing as far away as Vancouver. Hendrix did not graduate from high school. Hendrix later claimed that he was expelled for holding hands with his white girlfriend, but when questioned later, his principal insisted that it was due to poor grades and frequent absences.
Young Hendrix was particularly fond of Elvis Presley; the color drawing on the right, showing Elvis wielding a guitar, was made by an impressionable 15-year-old Hendrix two months after attending Presley's concert at Sick's Stadium on September 1, 1957, as a follow up to his note taking there, during the concert itself, in which he wrote down the entire line-up of songs he heard Presley sing that night. Both documents can still be seen at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. His reverence to Presley continued even into adulthood, as when he attended, in late 1968, a late-night screening of Presley's "King Creole", during his time in Paris and crediting this particular viewing with giving him the additional strength and inspiration needed to further his career, after his first, uneventful travel to London.
Young Jimi was equally impressed when Little Richard appeared in his Central District neighborhood and he shook hands with the R&B star. Jimi's early exposure to Blues music came from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Lightnin Hopkins with his father. Another impressionable image came from the 1954 western Johnny Guitar, in which the hero carries no gun but instead wears a guitar slung behind his back.
At about age fourteen, Jimi acquired his very first guitar, a severely battered acoustic with one string that he retrieved when another boy had thrown it away. Young Jimi proudly slung his guitar behind his back like the hero in Johnny Guitar, and tried to coax every sound possible from its one string. That same year his only failing grade in school was an F in music class. His first electric guitar was a white Supro Ozark that his father, Al Hendrix, had purchased for him. He learned simply by practicing and watching others play, and he emulated the flashy moves of T-Bone Walker and the duck walk of Chuck Berry.
His first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue. After too much wild playing and showing off, he was fired between sets. The first formal band he played in was The Velvetones, who performed regularly at the Yesler Terrace Neighborhood House without pay. His flashy style and left-handed playing of a right-handed guitar was already a standout. When his guitar was stolen (after he left it backstage overnight), Al bought him a white Silvertone Danelectro which he painted red and emblazoned with the words Betty Jean, the name of his high school girlfriend.
Hendrix had completed middle school with little trouble but failed to graduate from Garfield High School; he would later be awarded an honorary diploma, and in the 1990's a bust of Hendrix held a place of honor in the school library. When his fame struck in the late 1960s, Hendrix would punch up his own past by telling reporters that he was expelled from Garfield by racist faculty for holding hands with a white girlfriend in study hall, but Principal Frank Hanawalt insisted that it was simply due to poor grades and attendance problems. (Legend among the students at the school over the years has credited Hendrix with a number of rebellious acts during his time as a student as the supposed real cause of his expulsion -- including having ridden a motorcycle through the main hallway -- though no actual evidence of any such stunts has ever been produced.)
Hendrix got into trouble with the law twice for riding in a stolen car. He was given a choice between spending two years in prison or joining the army. Hendrix chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing boot camp, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. His commanding officers considered him to be a sub-par soldier: he slept while on duty, had little regard for regulations, required constant supervision, and showed no skill as a marksman. For these reasons, his commanding officers submitted a request that Hendrix be discharged from the military after he had served only one year. Hendrix would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump. The 2005 biography Room Full of Mirrors by Charles Cross claims that Hendrix faked being homosexual—claiming to have fallen in love with a fellow soldier—in order to be discharged. According to Cross, Hendrix was an avid anti-communist and did not leave the Army as a protest to the Vietnam War, but simply wanted out so he could focus on playing guitar. At the post recreation center, he met fellow soldier and bass player Billy Cox, and forged a loyal friendship that would serve Hendrix well during the last year of his life. The two would often play with other musicians at venues both on and off the post as a loosely organized band named The Kasuals.
As a celebrity, Hendrix spoke nonchalantly of his military service, but once said that the sound of air whistling through the parachute shrouds was one of the sources of his "spacy" guitar sound. Although discharged from the Army three years before Vietnam saw large numbers of U.S. soldiers arrive, his recordings would become favorites of the servicemen fighting there, most notably his version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".
Early career
After his release, Hendrix and army friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, where they formed a band called "The King Kasuals". Playing in low-paying gigs at obscure venues, the band eventually moved to Nashville. Playing and sometimes living in the clubs along Jefferson Street, the traditional heart of Nashville's black community and home to a lively rhythm and blues scene, offered a bare sort of existence. In November 1962, Hendrix participated in his first studio session, where his wild but still undeveloped playing found him cut from the soundboard.
For the next three years, Hendrix made a precarious living on the Chitlin Circuit, performing in black-oriented venues throughout the South with both the King Kasuals and in backing bands for various soul, R&B, and blues musicians, including Chuck Jackson, Slim Harpo, Tommy Tucker, Sam Cooke, and Jackie Wilson. The Chitlin Circuit was an important phase of Jimi's career, since the refinement of his style and blues roots occurred there. His work garnered him little fame or profit, and the extremes of racism and poverty that he endured left an indelible mark on his memories of this era.
Frustrated by his experiences in the South, Hendrix decided to try his luck in New York City. Jimi was always inspired by a saying he once heard from his grandmother: "I want to need to have you. First I have to need to want you." In January 1964, he moved to Harlem, where he quickly befriended Lithofayne "Fayne" Pridgeon (who later became his girlfriend) and the Allen twins, Arthur and Albert (now known as Taharqa and Tunde-Ra Aleem). The Allen twins quickly became loyal friends who kept Hendrix out of trouble in New York. The twins also performed as backup singers (under the name Ghetto Fighters) on some of his recordings, most notably the funk anthem "Freedom". Pridgeon, a beautiful Harlem native with connections throughout the area's music scene, provided Hendrix with shelter, support, and encouragement during the poorest and most desperate years of his life. 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 1965, guitar pioneer and producer Les Paul watched Hendrix audition for a nightclub gig in Greenwich Village, NYC, and was awestruck by his performance. An errand forced Les Paul to leave the club before he had the chance to speak with Hendrix. When he returned later to contact and sign Hendrix, Les Paul found that the club owner had turned Hendrix down for being too loud and crazy and that Hendrix had disappeared. That year, Hendrix earned a spot as the new guitarist for the Isley Brothers' band and joined their national tour, which included the southern Chitlin' circuit. Hendrix played his first successful studio session on the two-part Isley Brothers hit "Testify". In Nashville, he left the Isleys to tour with Gorgeous George Odell. In Atlanta, he earned a spot in the backing band of Little Richard, The Upsetters. Although Hendrix idolized Richard, he clashed frequently with the star over tardiness, wardrobe, and, above all, Hendrix's flashy stage antics. For a short while, Hendrix quit and toured with Ike and Tina Turner, but was quickly fired for playing wild guitar solos and returned to Little Richard's band. Months later, he was banished from The Upsetters after missing the tour bus in Washington, D.C.. Around this time he refined his flamboyant guitar stage style, much of which was influenced by Johnny "Guitar" Watson.
In 1965, Hendrix joined a New York-based band, Curtis Knight and the Squires, after meeting Knight in the lobby of a seedy midtown hotel where both men were living at the time. Hendrix then toured for two months with Joey Dee and the Starliters before rejoining the Squires in New York. On October 15, 1965, Hendrix signed a three-year recording contract with entrepreneur Ed Chalpin, receiving $1 and 1% royalty on records with Curtis Knight. While the relationship with Chalpin was short-lived, his contract remained in force, which caused considerable problems for Hendrix later on in his career. The legal dispute was eventually settled. During a brief excursion to Vancouver in 1965, it was reported that Hendrix played in Motown band Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers with Taylor and Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame). Chong, however, disputes this ever happened and that any such appearance is a product of Taylor's imagination".
In 1966, Hendrix formed his own band, Jimmy James and The Blue Flames, composed of various friends he would casually meet at Manny's Music Shop, including a 15-year old runaway from California named Randy Wolfe. Since there were two musicians named "Randy" in the group, Hendrix dubbed Wolfe "Randy California" and the other "Randy Texas". Randy California would later co-found the band Spirit with Ed Cassidy.
Hendrix and his new band quickly gained local attention and played throughout New York City, but their primary spot was a residency at the Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. During this period, Hendrix met and worked with singer-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine and guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, who was an employee at Manny's. Hendrix also met Frank Zappa during this time, who is credited as having introduced Hendrix to the newly-invented wah-wah.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
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 by remaking it into a rock song.
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 British 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 gig. Hendrix and Clapton remained friends up until Hendrix's death.
UK success
After a number of European club appearances, word of Hendrix spread through the London music community. His showmanship and virtuosity made instant fans of reigning guitar heroes Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, as well as members of The Beatles and The Who, whose managers signed Hendrix to The Who's record label, Track Records.
Hendrix's first single was a cover of "Hey Joe", crafted after folk-singer Tim Rose's slower revision of the song and adapted to Hendrix's emerging style. Backing the first single was Jimi's first songwriting effort, "Stone Free". Further success came with "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary". The three singles were all UK Top 10 hits. Onstage, Hendrix was also making a huge impression with fiery renditions of the B.B. King hit "Rock Me Baby" and an ultra-fast revision of Howlin Wolf's blues classic, "Killing Floor".
Are You Experienced?
The first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, was released in the United Kingdom on May 12, 1967. It contained no previous UK singles or any 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 he set his guitar on fire. Later, after causing damage to amplifiers and other stage equipment at his shows, Rank Theatre management warned him to "tone down" his stage act. On June 4 1967, the Experience played their last show in England, at London's Saville Theatre, before heading off to America. The Sgt. Pepper's album had just been released on June 1st 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. Jimi chose to open the show with his own rendition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", crafted minutes before taking the stage, much to McCartney's astonishment and delight.
Months later, Reprise Records released the US version of Are You Experienced with a new cover by Karl Ferris, removing "Red House," "Remember" and "Can You See Me" to make room for the first three UK single A-sides. Where the UK album kicked off with "Foxey Lady", the American one started with "Purple Haze". The UK and US versions both offered a startling introduction to the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the album was a blueprint for what had become possible on the electric guitar.
US success
Although quite popular in Europe at this time, the Experience had yet to crack America. 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 the performances were filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and later shown in movie theaters throughout the country as the concert documentary Monterey Pop, which immortalized Hendrix's iconic burning and smashing of his guitar at the finale of his performance.
Following the festival, the Experience played a short-lived gig as the opening act for pop group The Monkees on their first American tour. The Monkees asked for Hendrix because they were fans, but their mostly teenage audience did not warm to his outlandish stage act and he abruptly quit the tour after a few dates. Chas Chandler later admitted that being "thrown" from The Monkees tour was engineered to gain maximum media impact and publicity for Hendrix. At the time, a story circulated claiming that Hendrix was removed from the tour because of complaints made by the Daughters of the American Revolution that his stage conduct was "lewd and indecent". Australian journalist Lillian Roxon, accompanying the tour, concocted the story. The claim was repeated in Roxon's 1969 Rock Encyclopedia but she later admitted it was fabricated.
Meanwhile in England, Hendrix's wild-man image and musical gimmickry (such as playing the guitar with his teeth and behind his back) continued to bring publicity, but Hendrix was already advancing musically and becoming frustrated by media and audience concentration on his stage tricks and hit singles.
Hendrix adapted the Howlin' Wolf blues classic "Killing Floor" into this wild and fast paced revision, and throughout the first year of his fame these became the first notes concertgoers would hear when witnessing a live Hendrix show. The Monterey performance included an equally lively rendition of the BB King hit "Rock Me Baby", Billy Roberts' "Hey Joe" and the Bob Dylan hit "Like a Rolling Stone". The set ended with Hendrix burning his guitar on stage, then smashing it to bits and tossing pieces out to the audience. The show instantly catapulted Hendrix into US stardom. Today, the charred remnants of Hendrix's psychedelically painted Stratocaster can now be found at the Experience Music Project in Seattle.
Axis: Bold as Love
The Jimi Hendrix Experience's second 1967 album, Axis: Bold as Love continued the style established by Are You Experienced, but showcased a profound sense 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. It should also be noted that this album marked the first time Jimi recorded the whole album with his guitar tuned down one half-tone, to E♭, which he used exclusively thereafter.
A mishap almost prevented the album's release: Hendrix lost the master tape of side 1 of the LP, leaving it in the back seat of a London taxi. Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer tried re-mixing it, but couldn't match the lost mix. It was only saved by the discovery that bassist Noel Redding had a copy on tape, which had to be ironed flat as his machine had chewed it up.[8] With the release deadline looming, Hendrix, Chandler, and engineer Eddie Kramer remixed the missing side from the multitracks in an all-night session. Kramer and Hendrix later admitted that they were never entirely happy with the results.
Hendrix was also somewhat disappointed with the album's cover art. Although he appreciated the symbolic design, he had requested cover art that showcased his "Indian" heritage. The British art designers who created the cover assumed that he meant the culture of India, not of Native Americans, and thus created cover art that depicts Hendrix and his Experience bandmates as the Vedic deities Durga and Vishnu, illustrating a photo portrait of their heads by Karl Ferris.
Upon the album's release, the Jimi Hendrix Experience continued to pursue an extremely demanding touring schedule, which involved performing in front of ever-larger audiences. This, combined with the influence of drugs, alcohol, and fatigue, led to a trouble-plagued tour of Scandinavia that culminated with the arrest of Hendrix in Stockholm after trashing his hotel room in a drunken rage.
Electric Ladyland
Hendrix's third recording, a double album cover by Karl Ferris, Electric Ladyland (1968), was a departure from previous efforts.
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. Chandler's professional and musical education was very business-oriented, and it taught him that songs should be recorded in a matter of hours, and written with a view to releasing them as singles. His influence over the Experience's first two albums is clear in light of the facts that very few of the tracks are more than four minutes long, that both albums were recorded in short times, and that most of the songs on both albums conformed to the structure of a typical pop song. 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.
Hendrix began experimenting with different combinations of musicians and instruments, and modern electronic effects. 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. This was one of the other reasons that Chandler cited as precipitating his departure. He described how Hendrix went from a disciplined recording regimen to an erratic schedule, which often saw him beginning recording sessions in the middle of the night and with any number of hangers-on.
Chandler also expressed exasperation at the number of times Hendrix would insist on re-recording particular tracks; the song "Gypsy Eyes" was reportedly recorded 43 times. This was also frustrating for bassist Noel Redding, who would often leave the studio to calm himself, only to return and find that Hendrix had recorded the bass parts himself during Redding's absence. The effects of these events can clearly be identified in the album's musical style. On a purely superficial level, the tracks no longer conformed to the standard pop song format, often lacked easily identifiable patterns or sections, and would sometimes lack even a recognizable melody. More particularly, however, the themes that the songs addressed, and the music that Hendrix set out to record, went far beyond anything that he had attempted to achieve before.
Electric Ladyland includes a number of compositions and arrangements for which Hendrix is still remembered. These include "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" as well as Hendrix's rendition of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". Hendrix's version was a complete departure from the original, and includes one of the most highly praised guitar arrangements in modern music. It was around this time that Hendrix lived with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham at her Brook Street home, now the Handel House Museum, in the West End of London.
Throughout the four years of his fame, Hendrix often appeared in impromptu jams with various musicians. A recording exists of Hendrix playing in March 1968 at Steve Paul's Scene Club, in which a rendition of the Beatles' 1966 Revolver album's closing track "Tomorrow Never Knows" is played. The band members remain largely unknown but singer Jim Morrison clearly can be heard contributing a growling, obscenity-laced vocal accompaniment. The band continued to play behind him, and Hendrix can be heard on the tape announcing Morrison's presence and offering him a better microphone. The recording, circulated among Hendrix and Doors collectors, is titled Morrison's Lament. Albums of the recording were sold under various titles (originally Sky High, then Woke Up this Morning and Found Myself Dead), some falsely claiming the presence of Johnny Winter's band. Johnny Winter has denied, several times, being a participant at that jam session.
Breakup of Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience performed at London's Royal Albert Hall February 18 and February 24, 1969, two sold-out concerts which became the last British appearance of the band. A Gold and Goldstein-produced film titled "Experience" was also recorded at these two shows, but remains to this day unreleased.
Noel Redding felt increasingly frustrated by the fact that he was not playing his original and favored instrument, the guitar. In 1968, he decided to form his own band "Fat Mattress", which would sometimes open for the Experience (Hendrix would jokingly refer to them as "Thin Pillow"). Redding and Hendrix would begin seeing less and less of each other, which also had an effect in the studio, with Hendrix playing many of the basslines on Electric Ladyland.
Redding was also increasingly uncomfortable with the hysteria surrounding Hendrix's performances. The last Experience concert took place on June 29, 1969 at Barry Fey's Denver Pop Festival, a three-day event held at Denver's Mile High Stadium that was marked by rioting and tear gas. The three bandmates were smuggled out of the venue in the back of a rental truck which was crushed by a mob of fans. The next day, Noel Redding announced that he had quit the Experience.
Legal troubles
Throughout 1969, Hendrix also experienced a number of legal difficulties. First, a contractual dispute arose in relation to an unfavorable agreement Hendrix had entered into with producer Ed Chalpin long before he became successful. The dispute was resolved when the parties agreed that Hendrix would record an album specifically for Chalpin which would be released under his auspices. This was the genesis of the live album entitled Band of Gypsys. Then on May 3, 1969, Hendrix was arrested at Toronto's Pearson International Airport after heroin and hashish were found in his luggage. Hendrix argued in his trial defense that the drugs were slipped into his bag by a fan without his knowledge, and he was acquitted.
Gypsy Sun and Rainbows
After the departure of Noel Redding from the group, Hendrix moved into a rented eight-bedroom mansion near the town of Shokan in upstate New York for the duration of the summer of 1969. Manager Michael Jeffery arranged the stay, with hopes that the respite would produce a new album. To replace Redding as bassist, Hendrix immediately tracked down Billy Cox, his old and trusted Army buddy. The trio of Hendrix, Cox, and Mitch Mitchell fulfilled his last commitment at the time, which was an appearance on The Tonight Show. 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. The cohesion of the group in the relaxed, country atmosphere of the Shokan house inspired fresh material like "Jam Back at the House", "Shokan Sunrise", "Villanova Junction", and the funk driven centerpieces of Hendrix's post-Experience sound: "Message to Love" and "Izabella".
The band did not last long. After the Woodstock festival they appeared on only one more occasion, in Harlem, New York. Studio recordings of the band can be heard on the MCA Records box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience and on South Saturn Delta.
After the break-up of this band, Hendrix and Cox teamed up with another Hendrix friend, Buddy Miles (formerly with Wilson Pickett and The Electric Flag). They performed a short series of concerts under the name A Band of Gypsys. In 1999, Mitchell and Cox, along with guitarist Gary Serkin, performed some dates as the Gypsy Sun Experience.
Woodstock
Hendrix's popularity eventually saw him headline the Woodstock music festival on August 18, 1969.
Due to enormous delays caused by bad weather and other logistical problems, Hendrix did not appear on stage until Monday morning, by which 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 was introduced at the festival as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but Hendrix quickly corrected this to Gypsy Sun and Rainbows and launched into a two hour set (the longest of his career) that was plagued with technical difficulties. Hendrix suffered microphone level and guitar tuning problems, and one of his guitar strings snapped while performing Red House (though he kept playing regardless). Moreover, it was apparent that Jimi's new, much larger band had not rehearsed enough, and at times simply could not keep up with him. Despite this, Hendrix managed to deliver a historic performance, which featured his highly-regarded rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner", a solo improvisation which became a defining moment of the 1960s.
The controversial nature of Hendrix's style is epitomized in the sentiments expressed about his renditions of the "Star Spangled Banner", a tune he played loudly and sharply accompanied by simulated sounds of war (machine guns, bombs and screams) from his guitar. His impressionistic renditions have been described by some as anti-American mockery and by others a generation's statement on the unrest in U.S. society, oddly symbolic of the beauty, spontaneity, and tragedy endemic to Hendrix's life.
Hendrix claimed that he did not intend for his performance of the national anthem to be a political statement, that he simply intended it as a different interpretation of the anthem. When taken to task on the Dick Cavett Show regarding the "unorthodox" nature of his performance of the song at Woodstock, Hendrix replied, "I thought it was beautiful," which was greeted with applause from the audience. His later-career live favorite "Machine Gun" however, was clearly a protest song against war.
Woodstock was not the first time Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner in concert. It was in fact a setlist staple from fall 1968 through the summer of 1970, and a studio version was released on the 1971 Rainbow Bridge album and later re-released on the 2000 The Jimi Hendrix Experience Box Set.
Band of Gypsys
The Gypsy Sun and Rainbows band was short-lived; after two post-Woodstock shows, some studio time, and an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Hendrix disbanded the group, but retained bassist Billy Cox. After attending to the successful defense of his drug possession charges in Toronto, Hendrix added drummer Buddy Miles and formed a new trio: the Band of Gypsys. Rehearsing for ten days at Juggy's sound studio, the group gelled quickly and produced a surprising amount of original material, including the lively "Earth Blues", which featured The Ronettes on background vocals. Four memorable concerts on New Year's Eve 1969-70 at Bill Graham's Fillmore East in New York captured several outstanding pieces, including one of Hendrix's greatest live performances: an explosive 12-minute rendition of his anti-war epic Machine Gun. The release of the Band of Gypsys album--the only official live recording sanctioned by and also produced by Jimi (under the name "Heaven Research") brought to an end the contract and legal battles with Ed Chalpin.
The second and final Band of Gypsys appearance occurred one month later (January 28, 1970) at a twelve-act show in Madison Square Garden dubbed the Winter Festival for Peace. Similar to Woodstock, set delays forced Hendrix to take the stage at an inopportune 3am, only this time he was obviously high on drugs and in no shape to play. He belted out a dismal rendition of "Who Knows" before snapping a vulgar response at a woman who shouted a request for "Foxey Lady". He lasted halfway through a second song, then simply stopped playing, telling the audience: "That's what happens when earth fucks with space—never forget that". He then sat quietly on the stage until staffers escorted him away. Various explanations have been offered to explain this bizarre scene—Buddy Miles claimed that manager Michael Jeffery dosed Hendrix with LSD in an effort to sabotage the current band and bring about the return of the Experience lineup; blues legend Johnny Winter said it was Hendrix's girlfriend Devon Wilson who spiked his drink with drugs for unknown reasons.
Cry of Love band
Jeffery's reaction to the botched Band of Gypsys show was swift and firm; he immediately fired Buddy Miles and Billy Cox, then rushed Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding over from England to begin press for the upcoming tour dates as a reunited Jimi Hendrix Experience. Before the tour began however, Jimi fired Redding from the band and reinstated Billy Cox. Fans refer to this final Hendrix/Cox/Mitchell lineup as the Cry of Love band, named after the tour.
Most of 1970 was spent recording during the week and playing live on the weekends. The "Cry of Love" tour, begun in April at the LA Forum, was structured to accommodate this pattern. Performances on this tour were occasionally uneven in sound quality, but featured Hendrix, Cox, and Mitchell playing new material alongside extended versions of older recordings. The tour included 30 performances and ended at Honolulu, Hawaii on August 1, 1970. A number of these shows were professionally recorded and produced some of Hendrix's most memorable live performances.
Electric Lady Studios
In 1968, Hendrix and Jeffery had invested jointly in the purchase of the Generation Club in Greenwich Village. Their initial plans to reopen the club were scrapped when the pair decided that the investment would serve them much better as a recording studio. The studio fees for the lengthy Electric Ladyland sessions were astronomical, and Jimi was constantly in search of a recording environment that suited him. In August, 1970, Electric Lady Studios was opened in New York. Hendrix was among the first major music artists to own his own recording studio (the Beatles had opened their Apple studios in London in January 1969).
Designed by architect and acoustician John Storyk, the studio was made specifically for Hendrix, with round windows and a machine capable of generating ambient lighting in a myriad of colors. It was designed to have a relaxing feel to encourage Jimi's creativity, but at the same time provide a professional recording atmosphere. Engineer Eddie Kramer upheld this by refusing to allow any drug use during session work.
Hendrix spent only four weeks recording in Electric Lady, most of which took place while the final phases of construction were still ongoing. An opening party was held on August 26, following a recording/dubbing session that generated his last studio recorded song, Belly Button Window.[citation needed] He then boarded an Air India flight for London (with Billy Cox in tow), joining Mitch Mitchell to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival.
European tour
The group then commenced on a tour of Europe designed to earn money to repay the studio loans, temper Jimi's mounting back taxes and legal fees, and fund the production of his next album, tentatively titled First Rays of The New Rising Sun. Longing for his new studio and creative outlets, the tour was a requirement by Jeffery that the already restless Hendrix was not eager to perform. Audience demands for the older hits and stage trickery that he had long tired of performing only served to worsen his mood. In Aarhus, Hendrix abandoned his show after only two songs, remarking: "I've been dead a long time".
While on tour in Sweden, Hendrix discovered the music of duo Hansson & Karlsson and became a big fan, recording a cover of their song "Tax Free". His LSD-fueled jam sessions with Swedish drummer-turned-TV-star Janne "Loffe" Carlsson (one half of Hansson & Karlsson), remain a legendary claim to fame in the Scandinavian country.
In the months before Hendrix's death, the British music press claimed that Hendrix had plans to join the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer which were prevented only by his death.
On September 6, 1970, his final concert performance, Hendrix was greeted with some booing and jeering by fans at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany in a riot-like atmosphere reminiscent of the failed Altamont Festival. Shortly after he left the stage, it went up in flames during the first stage appearance of Ton Steine Scherben. Billy Cox quit the tour and headed home to Memphis, Tennessee, after reportedly being dosed with PCP.
Hendrix retreated to London, where he reached out to Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, and other friends in a renewed attempt to divorce himself from manager Michael Jeffery. He caught up with Linda Keith, an old flame he still admired, and gave her a brand new black Fender Stratocaster as a token of his appreciation for her discovery efforts years earlier. Included in the guitar case was a stack of letters--all of their mutually written correspondence. Jimi's last public performance was an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War.
One of Hendrix's last known recordings was the lead guitar part on Old Times Good Times from Stephen Stills' eponymous album (1970), a track recorded at London's Island Studios.
Death
In the early morning hours of September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix was found dead in the basement flat of the Samarkand Hotel at 22 Lansdowne Crescent in London. Hendrix died amid circumstances which have never been fully explained. He had spent the night with his German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, and likely died in bed after drinking wine and taking nine Vesperax sleeping pills, then asphyxiating on his own vomit. For years, Dannemann publicly claimed that Hendrix was alive when placed in the back of the ambulance; however, her comments about that morning were often contradictory and confused, varying from interview to interview. Police and ambulance reports reveal that not only was Hendrix dead when they arrived on the scene, but he had been dead for some time, the apartment's front door was wide open, and the apartment itself empty. A poem written by Hendrix that was found in the apartment has led some to believe that he committed suicide.[citation needed] Following a libel case brought in 1996 by Hendrix's long-term British girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, Monika Dannemann committed suicide, though her later lover, Uli Jon Roth, has made accusations of foul play.
Some reports indicated that the paramedics who escorted Jimi out of the apartment did not support his head and that he was still alive. According to this version of events, he choked on his own vomit and died during the trip to the hospital, because his head and his neck were not supported.
Reports that Hendrix's tapes of the concept album Black Gold had been stolen from the London flat are in fact wrong: the tapes were handed to Mitch Mitchell by Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival three weeks prior to his death.[citation needed] Hendrix's Greenwich Village apartment, however, was indeed plundered by an unknown series of vandals who stole numerous personal items, tapes, and countless pages of lyrics and poems, some of which have resurfaced in the hands of collectors or at auctions.
Hendrix's unfinished album was released under a title Cry of Love. The album was well received and peaked at position #3 on US Billboard album chart. However, the album's producers, Mitchell and Kramer, would later complain that they were unable to make use of some tracks at the time. The Cry of Love album was re-released to include all the tracks that Mitchell and Kramer had wanted to include, and is called First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997).
Gravesite
The original gravestone of Jimi Hendrix, incorporated into the granite base of his memorial where a large brass statue will someday be installed.
The original gravestone of Jimi Hendrix, incorporated into the granite base of his memorial where a large brass statue will someday be installed.
Although Hendrix had verbally requested to be buried in England, his body was returned to Seattle and he was interred in Greenwood Memorial Park, Renton, Washington. Al Hendrix created a five-plot family burial site to include himself, his second wife Akayo June, his adopted daughter Janie, and son Leon. The headstone for Jimi contains a drawing of a Fender Stratocaster guitar, the instrument he was most famed for using.
As the popularity of Hendrix and his music grew over the decades following his death, concerns began to mount over fans damaging the adjoining graves at Greenwood, and the growing extended Hendrix family further prompted Al to create an expanded memorial site separate from other burial sites in the park. The memorial was announced in late 1999, but Al's deteriorating health led to delays. He died two months before its scheduled completion in 2002. Later that year, the remains of Jimi Hendrix, his father Al Hendrix, and grandmother Nora Rose Moore Hendrix were moved to the new site.
The memorial is an impressive granite dome supported by three pillars under which Jimi Hendrix is interred. Jimi's autograph is inscribed at the base of each pillar, while two stepped entrances and one ramped entrance provide access to the dome's center where the original Stratocaster adorned headstone has been incorporated into a statue pedestal. A granite sundial complete with brass gnomon adjoins the dome, along with over 50 family plots that surround the central structure, half of which are currently adorned with raised granite headstones.
To date, the memorial remains incomplete: brass accents for the dome and a large brass statue of Hendrix were announced as being under construction in Italy, but since 2002, no information as to the status of the project has been revealed to the public. In addition, a memorial statue of Jimi playing a Stratocaster stands near the corner of Broadway and Pine Streets in Seattle.
In May 2006 Seattle honored the music, artistry and legacy of Jimi Hendrix with the naming of a new park near Seattle's historic Colman School in the heart of the Central District.
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Young Hendrix was particularly fond of Elvis Presley; the color drawing on the right, showing Elvis wielding a guitar, was made by an impressionable 15-year-old Hendrix two months after attending Presley's concert at Sick's Stadium on September 1, 1957, as a follow up to his note taking there, during the concert itself, in which he wrote down the entire line-up of songs he heard Presley sing that night. Both documents can still be seen at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. His reverence to Presley continued even into adulthood, as when he attended, in late 1968, a late-night screening of Presley's "King Creole", during his time in Paris and crediting this particular viewing with giving him the additional strength and inspiration needed to further his career, after his first, uneventful travel to London.
Young Jimi was equally impressed when Little Richard appeared in his Central District neighborhood and he shook hands with the R&B star. Jimi's early exposure to Blues music came from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Lightnin Hopkins with his father. Another impressionable image came from the 1954 western Johnny Guitar, in which the hero carries no gun but instead wears a guitar slung behind his back.
At about age fourteen, Jimi acquired his very first guitar, a severely battered acoustic with one string that he retrieved when another boy had thrown it away. Young Jimi proudly slung his guitar behind his back like the hero in Johnny Guitar, and tried to coax every sound possible from its one string. That same year his only failing grade in school was an F in music class. His first electric guitar was a white Supro Ozark that his father, Al Hendrix, had purchased for him. He learned simply by practicing and watching others play, and he emulated the flashy moves of T-Bone Walker and the duck walk of Chuck Berry.
His first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue. After too much wild playing and showing off, he was fired between sets. The first formal band he played in was The Velvetones, who performed regularly at the Yesler Terrace Neighborhood House without pay. His flashy style and left-handed playing of a right-handed guitar was already a standout. When his guitar was stolen (after he left it backstage overnight), Al bought him a white Silvertone Danelectro which he painted red and emblazoned with the words Betty Jean, the name of his high school girlfriend.
Hendrix had completed middle school with little trouble but failed to graduate from Garfield High School; he would later be awarded an honorary diploma, and in the 1990's a bust of Hendrix held a place of honor in the school library. When his fame struck in the late 1960s, Hendrix would punch up his own past by telling reporters that he was expelled from Garfield by racist faculty for holding hands with a white girlfriend in study hall, but Principal Frank Hanawalt insisted that it was simply due to poor grades and attendance problems. (Legend among the students at the school over the years has credited Hendrix with a number of rebellious acts during his time as a student as the supposed real cause of his expulsion -- including having ridden a motorcycle through the main hallway -- though no actual evidence of any such stunts has ever been produced.)
Hendrix got into trouble with the law twice for riding in a stolen car. He was given a choice between spending two years in prison or joining the army. Hendrix chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing boot camp, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. His commanding officers considered him to be a sub-par soldier: he slept while on duty, had little regard for regulations, required constant supervision, and showed no skill as a marksman. For these reasons, his commanding officers submitted a request that Hendrix be discharged from the military after he had served only one year. Hendrix would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump. The 2005 biography Room Full of Mirrors by Charles Cross claims that Hendrix faked being homosexual—claiming to have fallen in love with a fellow soldier—in order to be discharged. According to Cross, Hendrix was an avid anti-communist and did not leave the Army as a protest to the Vietnam War, but simply wanted out so he could focus on playing guitar. At the post recreation center, he met fellow soldier and bass player Billy Cox, and forged a loyal friendship that would serve Hendrix well during the last year of his life. The two would often play with other musicians at venues both on and off the post as a loosely organized band named The Kasuals.
As a celebrity, Hendrix spoke nonchalantly of his military service, but once said that the sound of air whistling through the parachute shrouds was one of the sources of his "spacy" guitar sound. Although discharged from the Army three years before Vietnam saw large numbers of U.S. soldiers arrive, his recordings would become favorites of the servicemen fighting there, most notably his version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".
Early career
After his release, Hendrix and army friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, where they formed a band called "The King Kasuals". Playing in low-paying gigs at obscure venues, the band eventually moved to Nashville. Playing and sometimes living in the clubs along Jefferson Street, the traditional heart of Nashville's black community and home to a lively rhythm and blues scene, offered a bare sort of existence. In November 1962, Hendrix participated in his first studio session, where his wild but still undeveloped playing found him cut from the soundboard.
For the next three years, Hendrix made a precarious living on the Chitlin Circuit, performing in black-oriented venues throughout the South with both the King Kasuals and in backing bands for various soul, R&B, and blues musicians, including Chuck Jackson, Slim Harpo, Tommy Tucker, Sam Cooke, and Jackie Wilson. The Chitlin Circuit was an important phase of Jimi's career, since the refinement of his style and blues roots occurred there. His work garnered him little fame or profit, and the extremes of racism and poverty that he endured left an indelible mark on his memories of this era.
Frustrated by his experiences in the South, Hendrix decided to try his luck in New York City. Jimi was always inspired by a saying he once heard from his grandmother: "I want to need to have you. First I have to need to want you." In January 1964, he moved to Harlem, where he quickly befriended Lithofayne "Fayne" Pridgeon (who later became his girlfriend) and the Allen twins, Arthur and Albert (now known as Taharqa and Tunde-Ra Aleem). The Allen twins quickly became loyal friends who kept Hendrix out of trouble in New York. The twins also performed as backup singers (under the name Ghetto Fighters) on some of his recordings, most notably the funk anthem "Freedom". Pridgeon, a beautiful Harlem native with connections throughout the area's music scene, provided Hendrix with shelter, support, and encouragement during the poorest and most desperate years of his life. 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 1965, guitar pioneer and producer Les Paul watched Hendrix audition for a nightclub gig in Greenwich Village, NYC, and was awestruck by his performance. An errand forced Les Paul to leave the club before he had the chance to speak with Hendrix. When he returned later to contact and sign Hendrix, Les Paul found that the club owner had turned Hendrix down for being too loud and crazy and that Hendrix had disappeared. That year, Hendrix earned a spot as the new guitarist for the Isley Brothers' band and joined their national tour, which included the southern Chitlin' circuit. Hendrix played his first successful studio session on the two-part Isley Brothers hit "Testify". In Nashville, he left the Isleys to tour with Gorgeous George Odell. In Atlanta, he earned a spot in the backing band of Little Richard, The Upsetters. Although Hendrix idolized Richard, he clashed frequently with the star over tardiness, wardrobe, and, above all, Hendrix's flashy stage antics. For a short while, Hendrix quit and toured with Ike and Tina Turner, but was quickly fired for playing wild guitar solos and returned to Little Richard's band. Months later, he was banished from The Upsetters after missing the tour bus in Washington, D.C.. Around this time he refined his flamboyant guitar stage style, much of which was influenced by Johnny "Guitar" Watson.
In 1965, Hendrix joined a New York-based band, Curtis Knight and the Squires, after meeting Knight in the lobby of a seedy midtown hotel where both men were living at the time. Hendrix then toured for two months with Joey Dee and the Starliters before rejoining the Squires in New York. On October 15, 1965, Hendrix signed a three-year recording contract with entrepreneur Ed Chalpin, receiving $1 and 1% royalty on records with Curtis Knight. While the relationship with Chalpin was short-lived, his contract remained in force, which caused considerable problems for Hendrix later on in his career. The legal dispute was eventually settled. During a brief excursion to Vancouver in 1965, it was reported that Hendrix played in Motown band Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers with Taylor and Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame). Chong, however, disputes this ever happened and that any such appearance is a product of Taylor's imagination".
In 1966, Hendrix formed his own band, Jimmy James and The Blue Flames, composed of various friends he would casually meet at Manny's Music Shop, including a 15-year old runaway from California named Randy Wolfe. Since there were two musicians named "Randy" in the group, Hendrix dubbed Wolfe "Randy California" and the other "Randy Texas". Randy California would later co-found the band Spirit with Ed Cassidy.
Hendrix and his new band quickly gained local attention and played throughout New York City, but their primary spot was a residency at the Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. During this period, Hendrix met and worked with singer-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine and guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, who was an employee at Manny's. Hendrix also met Frank Zappa during this time, who is credited as having introduced Hendrix to the newly-invented wah-wah.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
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 by remaking it into a rock song.
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 British 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 gig. Hendrix and Clapton remained friends up until Hendrix's death.
UK success
After a number of European club appearances, word of Hendrix spread through the London music community. His showmanship and virtuosity made instant fans of reigning guitar heroes Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, as well as members of The Beatles and The Who, whose managers signed Hendrix to The Who's record label, Track Records.
Hendrix's first single was a cover of "Hey Joe", crafted after folk-singer Tim Rose's slower revision of the song and adapted to Hendrix's emerging style. Backing the first single was Jimi's first songwriting effort, "Stone Free". Further success came with "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary". The three singles were all UK Top 10 hits. Onstage, Hendrix was also making a huge impression with fiery renditions of the B.B. King hit "Rock Me Baby" and an ultra-fast revision of Howlin Wolf's blues classic, "Killing Floor".
Are You Experienced?
The first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced, was released in the United Kingdom on May 12, 1967. It contained no previous UK singles or any 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 he set his guitar on fire. Later, after causing damage to amplifiers and other stage equipment at his shows, Rank Theatre management warned him to "tone down" his stage act. On June 4 1967, the Experience played their last show in England, at London's Saville Theatre, before heading off to America. The Sgt. Pepper's album had just been released on June 1st 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. Jimi chose to open the show with his own rendition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", crafted minutes before taking the stage, much to McCartney's astonishment and delight.
Months later, Reprise Records released the US version of Are You Experienced with a new cover by Karl Ferris, removing "Red House," "Remember" and "Can You See Me" to make room for the first three UK single A-sides. Where the UK album kicked off with "Foxey Lady", the American one started with "Purple Haze". The UK and US versions both offered a startling introduction to the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the album was a blueprint for what had become possible on the electric guitar.
US success
Although quite popular in Europe at this time, the Experience had yet to crack America. 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 the performances were filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and later shown in movie theaters throughout the country as the concert documentary Monterey Pop, which immortalized Hendrix's iconic burning and smashing of his guitar at the finale of his performance.
Following the festival, the Experience played a short-lived gig as the opening act for pop group The Monkees on their first American tour. The Monkees asked for Hendrix because they were fans, but their mostly teenage audience did not warm to his outlandish stage act and he abruptly quit the tour after a few dates. Chas Chandler later admitted that being "thrown" from The Monkees tour was engineered to gain maximum media impact and publicity for Hendrix. At the time, a story circulated claiming that Hendrix was removed from the tour because of complaints made by the Daughters of the American Revolution that his stage conduct was "lewd and indecent". Australian journalist Lillian Roxon, accompanying the tour, concocted the story. The claim was repeated in Roxon's 1969 Rock Encyclopedia but she later admitted it was fabricated.
Meanwhile in England, Hendrix's wild-man image and musical gimmickry (such as playing the guitar with his teeth and behind his back) continued to bring publicity, but Hendrix was already advancing musically and becoming frustrated by media and audience concentration on his stage tricks and hit singles.
Hendrix adapted the Howlin' Wolf blues classic "Killing Floor" into this wild and fast paced revision, and throughout the first year of his fame these became the first notes concertgoers would hear when witnessing a live Hendrix show. The Monterey performance included an equally lively rendition of the BB King hit "Rock Me Baby", Billy Roberts' "Hey Joe" and the Bob Dylan hit "Like a Rolling Stone". The set ended with Hendrix burning his guitar on stage, then smashing it to bits and tossing pieces out to the audience. The show instantly catapulted Hendrix into US stardom. Today, the charred remnants of Hendrix's psychedelically painted Stratocaster can now be found at the Experience Music Project in Seattle.
Axis: Bold as Love
The Jimi Hendrix Experience's second 1967 album, Axis: Bold as Love continued the style established by Are You Experienced, but showcased a profound sense 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. It should also be noted that this album marked the first time Jimi recorded the whole album with his guitar tuned down one half-tone, to E♭, which he used exclusively thereafter.
A mishap almost prevented the album's release: Hendrix lost the master tape of side 1 of the LP, leaving it in the back seat of a London taxi. Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer tried re-mixing it, but couldn't match the lost mix. It was only saved by the discovery that bassist Noel Redding had a copy on tape, which had to be ironed flat as his machine had chewed it up.[8] With the release deadline looming, Hendrix, Chandler, and engineer Eddie Kramer remixed the missing side from the multitracks in an all-night session. Kramer and Hendrix later admitted that they were never entirely happy with the results.
Hendrix was also somewhat disappointed with the album's cover art. Although he appreciated the symbolic design, he had requested cover art that showcased his "Indian" heritage. The British art designers who created the cover assumed that he meant the culture of India, not of Native Americans, and thus created cover art that depicts Hendrix and his Experience bandmates as the Vedic deities Durga and Vishnu, illustrating a photo portrait of their heads by Karl Ferris.
Upon the album's release, the Jimi Hendrix Experience continued to pursue an extremely demanding touring schedule, which involved performing in front of ever-larger audiences. This, combined with the influence of drugs, alcohol, and fatigue, led to a trouble-plagued tour of Scandinavia that culminated with the arrest of Hendrix in Stockholm after trashing his hotel room in a drunken rage.
Electric Ladyland
Hendrix's third recording, a double album cover by Karl Ferris, Electric Ladyland (1968), was a departure from previous efforts.
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. Chandler's professional and musical education was very business-oriented, and it taught him that songs should be recorded in a matter of hours, and written with a view to releasing them as singles. His influence over the Experience's first two albums is clear in light of the facts that very few of the tracks are more than four minutes long, that both albums were recorded in short times, and that most of the songs on both albums conformed to the structure of a typical pop song. 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.
Hendrix began experimenting with different combinations of musicians and instruments, and modern electronic effects. 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. This was one of the other reasons that Chandler cited as precipitating his departure. He described how Hendrix went from a disciplined recording regimen to an erratic schedule, which often saw him beginning recording sessions in the middle of the night and with any number of hangers-on.Chandler also expressed exasperation at the number of times Hendrix would insist on re-recording particular tracks; the song "Gypsy Eyes" was reportedly recorded 43 times. This was also frustrating for bassist Noel Redding, who would often leave the studio to calm himself, only to return and find that Hendrix had recorded the bass parts himself during Redding's absence. The effects of these events can clearly be identified in the album's musical style. On a purely superficial level, the tracks no longer conformed to the standard pop song format, often lacked easily identifiable patterns or sections, and would sometimes lack even a recognizable melody. More particularly, however, the themes that the songs addressed, and the music that Hendrix set out to record, went far beyond anything that he had attempted to achieve before.
Electric Ladyland includes a number of compositions and arrangements for which Hendrix is still remembered. These include "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" as well as Hendrix's rendition of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". Hendrix's version was a complete departure from the original, and includes one of the most highly praised guitar arrangements in modern music. It was around this time that Hendrix lived with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham at her Brook Street home, now the Handel House Museum, in the West End of London.
Throughout the four years of his fame, Hendrix often appeared in impromptu jams with various musicians. A recording exists of Hendrix playing in March 1968 at Steve Paul's Scene Club, in which a rendition of the Beatles' 1966 Revolver album's closing track "Tomorrow Never Knows" is played. The band members remain largely unknown but singer Jim Morrison clearly can be heard contributing a growling, obscenity-laced vocal accompaniment. The band continued to play behind him, and Hendrix can be heard on the tape announcing Morrison's presence and offering him a better microphone. The recording, circulated among Hendrix and Doors collectors, is titled Morrison's Lament. Albums of the recording were sold under various titles (originally Sky High, then Woke Up this Morning and Found Myself Dead), some falsely claiming the presence of Johnny Winter's band. Johnny Winter has denied, several times, being a participant at that jam session.
Breakup of Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience performed at London's Royal Albert Hall February 18 and February 24, 1969, two sold-out concerts which became the last British appearance of the band. A Gold and Goldstein-produced film titled "Experience" was also recorded at these two shows, but remains to this day unreleased.
Noel Redding felt increasingly frustrated by the fact that he was not playing his original and favored instrument, the guitar. In 1968, he decided to form his own band "Fat Mattress", which would sometimes open for the Experience (Hendrix would jokingly refer to them as "Thin Pillow"). Redding and Hendrix would begin seeing less and less of each other, which also had an effect in the studio, with Hendrix playing many of the basslines on Electric Ladyland.
Redding was also increasingly uncomfortable with the hysteria surrounding Hendrix's performances. The last Experience concert took place on June 29, 1969 at Barry Fey's Denver Pop Festival, a three-day event held at Denver's Mile High Stadium that was marked by rioting and tear gas. The three bandmates were smuggled out of the venue in the back of a rental truck which was crushed by a mob of fans. The next day, Noel Redding announced that he had quit the Experience.
Legal troubles
Throughout 1969, Hendrix also experienced a number of legal difficulties. First, a contractual dispute arose in relation to an unfavorable agreement Hendrix had entered into with producer Ed Chalpin long before he became successful. The dispute was resolved when the parties agreed that Hendrix would record an album specifically for Chalpin which would be released under his auspices. This was the genesis of the live album entitled Band of Gypsys. Then on May 3, 1969, Hendrix was arrested at Toronto's Pearson International Airport after heroin and hashish were found in his luggage. Hendrix argued in his trial defense that the drugs were slipped into his bag by a fan without his knowledge, and he was acquitted.
Gypsy Sun and Rainbows
After the departure of Noel Redding from the group, Hendrix moved into a rented eight-bedroom mansion near the town of Shokan in upstate New York for the duration of the summer of 1969. Manager Michael Jeffery arranged the stay, with hopes that the respite would produce a new album. To replace Redding as bassist, Hendrix immediately tracked down Billy Cox, his old and trusted Army buddy. The trio of Hendrix, Cox, and Mitch Mitchell fulfilled his last commitment at the time, which was an appearance on The Tonight Show. 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. The cohesion of the group in the relaxed, country atmosphere of the Shokan house inspired fresh material like "Jam Back at the House", "Shokan Sunrise", "Villanova Junction", and the funk driven centerpieces of Hendrix's post-Experience sound: "Message to Love" and "Izabella".
The band did not last long. After the Woodstock festival they appeared on only one more occasion, in Harlem, New York. Studio recordings of the band can be heard on the MCA Records box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience and on South Saturn Delta.
After the break-up of this band, Hendrix and Cox teamed up with another Hendrix friend, Buddy Miles (formerly with Wilson Pickett and The Electric Flag). They performed a short series of concerts under the name A Band of Gypsys. In 1999, Mitchell and Cox, along with guitarist Gary Serkin, performed some dates as the Gypsy Sun Experience.
Woodstock
Hendrix's popularity eventually saw him headline the Woodstock music festival on August 18, 1969.Due to enormous delays caused by bad weather and other logistical problems, Hendrix did not appear on stage until Monday morning, by which 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 was introduced at the festival as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but Hendrix quickly corrected this to Gypsy Sun and Rainbows and launched into a two hour set (the longest of his career) that was plagued with technical difficulties. Hendrix suffered microphone level and guitar tuning problems, and one of his guitar strings snapped while performing Red House (though he kept playing regardless). Moreover, it was apparent that Jimi's new, much larger band had not rehearsed enough, and at times simply could not keep up with him. Despite this, Hendrix managed to deliver a historic performance, which featured his highly-regarded rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner", a solo improvisation which became a defining moment of the 1960s.
The controversial nature of Hendrix's style is epitomized in the sentiments expressed about his renditions of the "Star Spangled Banner", a tune he played loudly and sharply accompanied by simulated sounds of war (machine guns, bombs and screams) from his guitar. His impressionistic renditions have been described by some as anti-American mockery and by others a generation's statement on the unrest in U.S. society, oddly symbolic of the beauty, spontaneity, and tragedy endemic to Hendrix's life.
Hendrix claimed that he did not intend for his performance of the national anthem to be a political statement, that he simply intended it as a different interpretation of the anthem. When taken to task on the Dick Cavett Show regarding the "unorthodox" nature of his performance of the song at Woodstock, Hendrix replied, "I thought it was beautiful," which was greeted with applause from the audience. His later-career live favorite "Machine Gun" however, was clearly a protest song against war.
Woodstock was not the first time Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner in concert. It was in fact a setlist staple from fall 1968 through the summer of 1970, and a studio version was released on the 1971 Rainbow Bridge album and later re-released on the 2000 The Jimi Hendrix Experience Box Set.
Band of Gypsys
The Gypsy Sun and Rainbows band was short-lived; after two post-Woodstock shows, some studio time, and an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Hendrix disbanded the group, but retained bassist Billy Cox. After attending to the successful defense of his drug possession charges in Toronto, Hendrix added drummer Buddy Miles and formed a new trio: the Band of Gypsys. Rehearsing for ten days at Juggy's sound studio, the group gelled quickly and produced a surprising amount of original material, including the lively "Earth Blues", which featured The Ronettes on background vocals. Four memorable concerts on New Year's Eve 1969-70 at Bill Graham's Fillmore East in New York captured several outstanding pieces, including one of Hendrix's greatest live performances: an explosive 12-minute rendition of his anti-war epic Machine Gun. The release of the Band of Gypsys album--the only official live recording sanctioned by and also produced by Jimi (under the name "Heaven Research") brought to an end the contract and legal battles with Ed Chalpin.
The second and final Band of Gypsys appearance occurred one month later (January 28, 1970) at a twelve-act show in Madison Square Garden dubbed the Winter Festival for Peace. Similar to Woodstock, set delays forced Hendrix to take the stage at an inopportune 3am, only this time he was obviously high on drugs and in no shape to play. He belted out a dismal rendition of "Who Knows" before snapping a vulgar response at a woman who shouted a request for "Foxey Lady". He lasted halfway through a second song, then simply stopped playing, telling the audience: "That's what happens when earth fucks with space—never forget that". He then sat quietly on the stage until staffers escorted him away. Various explanations have been offered to explain this bizarre scene—Buddy Miles claimed that manager Michael Jeffery dosed Hendrix with LSD in an effort to sabotage the current band and bring about the return of the Experience lineup; blues legend Johnny Winter said it was Hendrix's girlfriend Devon Wilson who spiked his drink with drugs for unknown reasons.
Cry of Love band
Jeffery's reaction to the botched Band of Gypsys show was swift and firm; he immediately fired Buddy Miles and Billy Cox, then rushed Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding over from England to begin press for the upcoming tour dates as a reunited Jimi Hendrix Experience. Before the tour began however, Jimi fired Redding from the band and reinstated Billy Cox. Fans refer to this final Hendrix/Cox/Mitchell lineup as the Cry of Love band, named after the tour.
Most of 1970 was spent recording during the week and playing live on the weekends. The "Cry of Love" tour, begun in April at the LA Forum, was structured to accommodate this pattern. Performances on this tour were occasionally uneven in sound quality, but featured Hendrix, Cox, and Mitchell playing new material alongside extended versions of older recordings. The tour included 30 performances and ended at Honolulu, Hawaii on August 1, 1970. A number of these shows were professionally recorded and produced some of Hendrix's most memorable live performances.
Electric Lady Studios
In 1968, Hendrix and Jeffery had invested jointly in the purchase of the Generation Club in Greenwich Village. Their initial plans to reopen the club were scrapped when the pair decided that the investment would serve them much better as a recording studio. The studio fees for the lengthy Electric Ladyland sessions were astronomical, and Jimi was constantly in search of a recording environment that suited him. In August, 1970, Electric Lady Studios was opened in New York. Hendrix was among the first major music artists to own his own recording studio (the Beatles had opened their Apple studios in London in January 1969).
Designed by architect and acoustician John Storyk, the studio was made specifically for Hendrix, with round windows and a machine capable of generating ambient lighting in a myriad of colors. It was designed to have a relaxing feel to encourage Jimi's creativity, but at the same time provide a professional recording atmosphere. Engineer Eddie Kramer upheld this by refusing to allow any drug use during session work.
Hendrix spent only four weeks recording in Electric Lady, most of which took place while the final phases of construction were still ongoing. An opening party was held on August 26, following a recording/dubbing session that generated his last studio recorded song, Belly Button Window.[citation needed] He then boarded an Air India flight for London (with Billy Cox in tow), joining Mitch Mitchell to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival.
European tour
The group then commenced on a tour of Europe designed to earn money to repay the studio loans, temper Jimi's mounting back taxes and legal fees, and fund the production of his next album, tentatively titled First Rays of The New Rising Sun. Longing for his new studio and creative outlets, the tour was a requirement by Jeffery that the already restless Hendrix was not eager to perform. Audience demands for the older hits and stage trickery that he had long tired of performing only served to worsen his mood. In Aarhus, Hendrix abandoned his show after only two songs, remarking: "I've been dead a long time".
While on tour in Sweden, Hendrix discovered the music of duo Hansson & Karlsson and became a big fan, recording a cover of their song "Tax Free". His LSD-fueled jam sessions with Swedish drummer-turned-TV-star Janne "Loffe" Carlsson (one half of Hansson & Karlsson), remain a legendary claim to fame in the Scandinavian country.
In the months before Hendrix's death, the British music press claimed that Hendrix had plans to join the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer which were prevented only by his death.
On September 6, 1970, his final concert performance, Hendrix was greeted with some booing and jeering by fans at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany in a riot-like atmosphere reminiscent of the failed Altamont Festival. Shortly after he left the stage, it went up in flames during the first stage appearance of Ton Steine Scherben. Billy Cox quit the tour and headed home to Memphis, Tennessee, after reportedly being dosed with PCP.
Hendrix retreated to London, where he reached out to Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, and other friends in a renewed attempt to divorce himself from manager Michael Jeffery. He caught up with Linda Keith, an old flame he still admired, and gave her a brand new black Fender Stratocaster as a token of his appreciation for her discovery efforts years earlier. Included in the guitar case was a stack of letters--all of their mutually written correspondence. Jimi's last public performance was an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War.
One of Hendrix's last known recordings was the lead guitar part on Old Times Good Times from Stephen Stills' eponymous album (1970), a track recorded at London's Island Studios.
Death
In the early morning hours of September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix was found dead in the basement flat of the Samarkand Hotel at 22 Lansdowne Crescent in London. Hendrix died amid circumstances which have never been fully explained. He had spent the night with his German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, and likely died in bed after drinking wine and taking nine Vesperax sleeping pills, then asphyxiating on his own vomit. For years, Dannemann publicly claimed that Hendrix was alive when placed in the back of the ambulance; however, her comments about that morning were often contradictory and confused, varying from interview to interview. Police and ambulance reports reveal that not only was Hendrix dead when they arrived on the scene, but he had been dead for some time, the apartment's front door was wide open, and the apartment itself empty. A poem written by Hendrix that was found in the apartment has led some to believe that he committed suicide.[citation needed] Following a libel case brought in 1996 by Hendrix's long-term British girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, Monika Dannemann committed suicide, though her later lover, Uli Jon Roth, has made accusations of foul play.
Some reports indicated that the paramedics who escorted Jimi out of the apartment did not support his head and that he was still alive. According to this version of events, he choked on his own vomit and died during the trip to the hospital, because his head and his neck were not supported.
Reports that Hendrix's tapes of the concept album Black Gold had been stolen from the London flat are in fact wrong: the tapes were handed to Mitch Mitchell by Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival three weeks prior to his death.[citation needed] Hendrix's Greenwich Village apartment, however, was indeed plundered by an unknown series of vandals who stole numerous personal items, tapes, and countless pages of lyrics and poems, some of which have resurfaced in the hands of collectors or at auctions.
Hendrix's unfinished album was released under a title Cry of Love. The album was well received and peaked at position #3 on US Billboard album chart. However, the album's producers, Mitchell and Kramer, would later complain that they were unable to make use of some tracks at the time. The Cry of Love album was re-released to include all the tracks that Mitchell and Kramer had wanted to include, and is called First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997).
Gravesite
The original gravestone of Jimi Hendrix, incorporated into the granite base of his memorial where a large brass statue will someday be installed.The original gravestone of Jimi Hendrix, incorporated into the granite base of his memorial where a large brass statue will someday be installed.
Although Hendrix had verbally requested to be buried in England, his body was returned to Seattle and he was interred in Greenwood Memorial Park, Renton, Washington. Al Hendrix created a five-plot family burial site to include himself, his second wife Akayo June, his adopted daughter Janie, and son Leon. The headstone for Jimi contains a drawing of a Fender Stratocaster guitar, the instrument he was most famed for using.
As the popularity of Hendrix and his music grew over the decades following his death, concerns began to mount over fans damaging the adjoining graves at Greenwood, and the growing extended Hendrix family further prompted Al to create an expanded memorial site separate from other burial sites in the park. The memorial was announced in late 1999, but Al's deteriorating health led to delays. He died two months before its scheduled completion in 2002. Later that year, the remains of Jimi Hendrix, his father Al Hendrix, and grandmother Nora Rose Moore Hendrix were moved to the new site.
The memorial is an impressive granite dome supported by three pillars under which Jimi Hendrix is interred. Jimi's autograph is inscribed at the base of each pillar, while two stepped entrances and one ramped entrance provide access to the dome's center where the original Stratocaster adorned headstone has been incorporated into a statue pedestal. A granite sundial complete with brass gnomon adjoins the dome, along with over 50 family plots that surround the central structure, half of which are currently adorned with raised granite headstones.To date, the memorial remains incomplete: brass accents for the dome and a large brass statue of Hendrix were announced as being under construction in Italy, but since 2002, no information as to the status of the project has been revealed to the public. In addition, a memorial statue of Jimi playing a Stratocaster stands near the corner of Broadway and Pine Streets in Seattle.
In May 2006 Seattle honored the music, artistry and legacy of Jimi Hendrix with the naming of a new park near Seattle's historic Colman School in the heart of the Central District.
