Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix (November 27 1942, Seattle, Washington – September 18 1970, London) was a singer, songwriter and guitarist. Hendrix is recognized as one of the most influential guitar players in rock music history.[1] He achieved worldwide fame in 1967, playing at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival before his death in 1970, at the age of 27.
Hendrix was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Preservation Board's National Recording Registry. Rolling Stone named Hendrix number one on their list of the "100 greatest guitarists of all time" in 2003[2] and ranked him #6 in their 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004 [3]. He was also ranked number three in VH1's "100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists."
Career
The early days
After he completed his military service (he had been stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky), Hendrix and army friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, where they formed a band called The King Casuals. The group toiled in low-paying gigs at obscure venues, eventually moving to Nashville. There they played, and sometimes lived in, the clubs along Jefferson Street, the traditional heart of Nashville's black community and home to a lively rhythm and blues scene.[4] 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 Casuals 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.
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 the West 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 pedal.
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 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.
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. On stage, Hendrix was also making a huge impression with fiery renditions of the BB 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 UK 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 days prior, and two Beatles (Paul McCartney and George Harrison) were in attendance at the show, along with a roll call of other UK rock stardom: Brian Epstein, Eric Clapton, Spencer Davis, Jack Bruce, and pop singer Lulu. In a courageous and brilliant display, Jimi chose to open the show with his own rendition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", crafted minutes before taking the stage.
Months later, Reprise Records released the US version of Are You Experienced, 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 "Foxy 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.
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Electric Ladyland
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 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, with blues guitarist Johnny Winter followed by Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles, in which Jim Morrison grabbed an open microphone and contributed 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), some falsely claiming the presence of Johnny Winter's band.
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.[5]
Monterey Pop Festival
On June 18 1967, Jimi Hendrix performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival in Monterey, California. An LP entitled "Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival: Otis Redding/The Jimi Hendrix Experience", was released in 1970, featuring four songs performed by Hendrix on side 1 (Like a Rolling Stone; Rock Me, Baby; Can You See Me; and Wild Thing) and five performed by Otis Redding on side 2 (Shake; Respect; I've Been Loving You Too Long; (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction; and Try a Little Tenderness). Years later, a more complete recording of Hendrix's performance at Monterey Pop was released on CD under the title Jimi Plays Monterey, consisting of nine tracks (Killing Floor; Foxy Lady; Like a Rolling Stone; Rock Me, Baby; Hey Joe Can You See Me; The Wind Cries Mary; Purple Haze; and Wild Thing). At the end of his performance of Wild Thing, Hendrix lit his guitar on fire prior to smashing it against the stage. This can be heard on the end of the recording.
Woodstock
Hendrix's popularity eventually saw him headline the Woodstock music festival on August 18, 1969. Although a number of the world's most talented and popular musicians were invited to the festival, including The Who, Santana, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix was considered to be the festival's main attraction. The band's $18,000 stipend[citation needed] was the highest of all Woodstock performers, and the group was given the top-billing position, scheduled to perform last on Sunday night.
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. Besides suffering microphone level and guitar tuning problems, it was also 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.
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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 studio recordings of the song exist as well.
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 Jimi—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 "Foxy 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 August, 1970, Electric Lady Studios was opened in New York. 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.
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, and the following day Hendrix created his last ever studio recording: a cool and tranquil instrumental known only as "Slow Blues". 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".
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.
An early end
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 hallucinogenics 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.
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.
Death
In the early morning hours of 18 September 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. Following a libel case brought in 1996 by Hendrix's long-term British girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, Monika Dannemann allegedly took her own life.
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. [6]
A sad poem written by Hendrix that was found in the apartment has led some to believe that he committed suicide. More speculative is the belief that Hendrix was murdered—forcibly given the sleeping pills and wine, then asphyxiated with a scarf by professionals hired by manager Michael Jeffery. The most popular theory, however, is that he simply misjudged the potency of the sleeping pills, and asphyxiated in his sleep due to an inability to regain consciousness when he vomited.
Gravesite
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 Stratocaster guitar, though it is depicted as the instrument of a traditional right-handed player. (Hendrix played the instrument left-handed.)
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.
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.
Music Legacy
Hendrix's synthesized many styles in creating his musical voice and his guitar style was unique, later to be abundantly imitated by others. Despite his hectic touring schedule and notorious perfectionism, he was a prolific recording artist and left behind more than 300 unreleased recordings.
His career and ill-timed death has grouped him with Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison as one of contemporary music's tragic "three J's", iconic 60's rock stars that suffered drug-related deaths at age 27 within months of each other, leaving legacies in death that have eclipsed the popularity and influence they experienced during their lifetimes.
Musically, Hendrix did much to further the development of the electric guitar repertoire. He moved the instrument to a higher level, establishing its uniqueness, rather than an amplified version of the acoustic guitar. Likewise, his feedback and fuzz-laden soloing moved guitar distortion well beyond mere novelty, popularizing effects pedals and units (most notably the wah-wah pedal) dramatically.
Hendrix strove to combine what he called "earth", a blues, jazz, or funk driven rhythm accompaniment, with "space", the high-pitched psychedelic sounds created by his guitar improvisations. As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas; he was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects during the recording process.
Hendrix affected popular music with similar profundity; along with earlier bands such as The Who and Cream, he established a sonically heavy yet technically proficient bent to rock music as a whole, significantly furthering the development of hard rock and paving the way for heavy metal. He took blues to another level. His music has also had a great influence on funk and the development of funk rock especially through the guitarists Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers and Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic, Prince and Jesse Johnson of The Time. His influence even extends to many hip hop artists, including Chuck D of Public Enemy, Ice-T (who covered Hey Joe), El-P and Wyclef Jean. Hendrix was listed as number 3 on VH1's list of 100 Best Hard Rock Artists of all time behind Black Sabbath at the second spot, and Led Zeppelin who were ranked number one. He was ranked number 3 on VH1's list of 100 Best Pop Artists of all time behind the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. He has been voted by Rolling Stone, Guitar World, and a number of other magazines and polls as the best electric guitarist of all time.
In 1992, Hendrix was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Guitar legacy
Fender Stratocaster
Hendrix owned and used a variety of guitars during his career. His guitar of choice however, and the instrument that became most associated with him, was the Fender Stratocaster, or "Strat". He bought his first Stratocaster in 1965 and thereafter used it almost exclusively for his stage performances and recordings.
Hendrix's emergence coincided with the lifting of post-war import restrictions (imposed in many British Commonwealth countries), which made the instrument much more available, and after its initial popularizers Buddy Holly and Hank B. Marvin, Hendrix arguably did more than any other player to make the Stratocaster the biggest-selling electric guitar in history. Before his arrival in the UK, most top players used Gibson and Rickenbacker models. After Hendrix, many leading guitarists including Jeff Beck, Ritchie Blackmore and Eric Clapton switched to the Stratocaster. Hendrix bought dozens of Strats and gave many away as gifts, including one to ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons, although a former ZZ Top roadie claimed this was one of Gibbons many made-up stories to the press. Many others were stolen, and a few were destroyed during his notorious guitar-burning finales.
Amplifiers and effects
Hendrix was a catalyst in the development of modern guitar amplification and guitar effects. His high-energy stage act and the blistering volume at which he played required robust and powerful amplifiers. For the first few months of his touring career he used Vox and Fender amplifiers, but he soon found that they could not stand up to the rigors of an Experience show. Hendrix soon discovered a new range of high-powered guitar amps being made by London audio engineer Jim Marshall and they proved perfect for his needs. Along with the Strat, the Marshall stack and Marshall amplifiers were crucial in shaping his heavily overdriven sound, enabling him to master the creative use of feedback as a musical effect, and his exclusive use of this brand soon made it the most popular amplifier in rock music.
Hendrix also constantly looked for new guitar effects. He was one of the first guitarists to move past simple gimmickry and to exploit the full expressive possibilities of electronic effects such as the wah-wah pedal. He had a fruitful association with engineer Roger Mayer and made extensive use of several Mayer devices, including the Axis fuzz unit, the Octavia octave doubler, and especially the UniVibe, designed to electronically simulate the modulation effects of the Leslie speaker. He also used an Arbiter Fuzz Face for a time. It should be noted that while Jimi never used an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, he did try out prototypes before he died and the tone of the pedal was modeled after Hendrix's tone.
The Hendrix sound combined high volume and high power, feedback manipulation, and a range of cutting-edge guitar effects, especially the UniVibe-Octavia combination, which can be heard to full effect on the Band of Gypsys' live version of "Machine Gun." He was also known for his trick playing, which included playing with only his right (fretting) hand, using his teeth or playing behind his back, although he soon grew tired of audience demands to perform these tricks.
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ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/criticallist/must_have_axis.shtml
Footnotes
- ↑ Jimi Hendrix in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- ↑ The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Rolling Stone Magazine (2003).
- ↑ The Immortals: The First Fifty. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
- ↑ Climbing Aboard 'Night Train to Nashville'. Country Music Television (2004).
- ↑ Bob Wyman. Jimi Hendrix plays The Denver Pop Festival June 29 1969.
- ↑ companion booklet to The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volumes One Ane Two, 1989, Reprise Records (page 7).
Other books
- Ken Matesich, Jimi Hendrix: A Discography, 1982
- David Stubbs, Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child: The Stories Behind Every Song, 2003
- John Kruth, Bright Moments: The Life & Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 2004: ISBN 1-56649-105-3
Magazine articles
- Jimpress magazine; Warrington, Cheshire, England
- Univibes magazine; Popiglio, Italy
- Experience Hendrix magazine; Seattle, USA
Interviews
- September 3 1969 - for United Block Association at "Frank's Restaurant", Harlem, New York City, USA
- February 4 1970 - at Mike Jeffery's apartment, W 44th St., New York City, USA
- September 11 1970 - with Keith Altham at The Cumberland Hotel, Great Cumberland Place, Marble Arch, UK (last interview ever)
External links
- The Jimi Hendrix Foundation - Comissioned by Al and Leon Hendrix
- Official Jimi Hendrix website
- Jimi Hendrix at MusicBrainz
- Photo archive of Jimi Hendrix by rock photographer Chris Walter
- Photo gallery showing rare pictures inside Jimi's first Marshall JTM 45/100 amp
{{Persondata |NAME=Hendrix, James Marshall |ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Hendrix, Jimi |SHORT DESCRIPTION=Rock musician |DATE OF BIRTH=November 27, 1942 |PLACE OF BIRTH=Seattle, Washington |DATE OF DEATH=September 18, 1970 |PLACE OF DEATH=London, England
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