Jimi Hendrix
(1942-1970)
by Jonathan Green-Phelan

     Widely recognized as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 20th century. In his short lifetime of 28 years he influenced future musicians and inspired millions with his beautiful and unique music. It would be logical to think that he knew everything about musical theory and could put his thoughts on paper. However Jimi could not read or write music at all. This fact is ironically partly responsible for the quality of his music. He could not read music so he concentrated even greater on listening. The ear is a musicians most valuable tool. His unique thought process is also responsible for his great music. He often thought of his music as color: "I want to get color into music: I'd like to play a note and have it come out as a color." (April 22, 1967)" or as a human body: "All I write is just what I feel...I don't round it off too good. I just keep it almost naked..." (September 11, 1970). On November 27, 1942 at 10:15 a.m., at Seattle's King County Hospital Johnny Allan Hendrix a rock legend was born. James "Al" Hendrix his father later renamed him James Marshall. However he was referred to as young Jimmy at the time. Jimmy was always interested in music from when he was playing his fathers broom when he should have been sweeping to the day he died. Blues musicians such as, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Holly, and Robert Johnson inspired him to become a musician. Al, his father, discovered broom straws all around the foot of the bed and he later found out why the broom straws were there so Al gave Jimmy his first guitar. Well I guess you could call it a guitar it was a one-string ukulele. However this was a big improvement over the broom at least it didn't get broom straws all over the floor. Finally in the summer of 1958 he got his first actual guitar. Al bought Jimmy a second hand five dollar acoustic guitar from a neighbor. As soon as he got an actual guitar he joined a band the Velvetones. He stayed with this band for three months and left to pursue his own interests. Then the summer after he quit he got his first electric guitar, a Supro Ozark 1560S, hardly a Fender Stratocaster. He used this in his second band the Rocking Kings. However he quit the band when enlisted in the army in 1961. In 1962 Jimmy became a "Screaming Eagle", a paratrooper division. Even as a paratrooper Jimmy formed a band the "Casual Kings" with bassist Billy Cox. He was not a paratrooper for a long period of time because he was discharged due to a broken ankle and an injured back during a jump. After he left the army he traveled around the U.S. for a while playing his guitar. He finally got a Job with the "Isley Brothers," his first tour job. This is when he assumed the name Jimmy James. He toured with Tina Turner, Sam Cooke, and little richard under these names. In 1965 however he began his own band "Jimmy James and the Blue Flames." In the next five years he rose to become one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. The Blue Flames played the smaller venues until about 1966 in Greenwich Village. Chas Chandler, a bassist for, "The Animals" saw Jimmy and was impressed. In 1966 Chandler gave Jimmy a contract. In this contract he agreed to form a new band and move to London. At this time Chandler gave Hendrix the name he is known for today, "Jimi." His new band "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" consisted of bassist Noel Redding, and drummer Mitch Mitchell. This trio quickly became the talk of London and it was Jimi's big break. Their first release "Hey Joe" spent ten weeks on the U.K. charts and the song reached the spot of #6 in early 1967. Hey Joe is still played on the radio today on most every local rock station. After "Hey Joe" "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" released "Are you Experienced?". This compilation of unique psychedelic music became one of the most influential debut rock albums of all time. On this album there are songs such as, "Purple Haze," "The Wind Cries Mary," "Foxey Lady," "Fire," and "Are You Experienced?". All songs still played today. See "Are you Experienced?" lyrics. In 1967 he became popular at the "Monterey International Pop Festival" with his performance of "Wild Thing." Over night "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" became one of the most popular and highest grossing tour acts in the world. From this point on Jimi had a very busy life of touring as you can see from the index of his concerts between 1966 & 1970. In addition to touring the group released "Axis-Bold as Love." In 1968 Jimi took even greater control of the production of his music. He was addicted to perfection so he tweaked his music in the recording studio until it was perfect. Eventually he made his own recording studio in New York. Electric Ladyland Studios was what he called it. Here "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" created their last album titled "Electric Ladyland." See "Electric Ladyland" lyrics. Creating albums and touring took their toll on the group and they broke up in 1969. However this was not by far the end of great music created by Jimi Hendrix. A group was created for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969 called "Gypsy and Rainbows." This band featured Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell, Billy Cox, Juma Sultan, and Jerry velez. Here at Woodstock Jimi first performed his legendary version of the "Star Spangled Banner." You heard it when you entered my page click to see the audio page with another version of the "Star Spangled Banner" by Jimi Hendrix. After Woodstock Jimi Hendrix joined up with bassist Billy Cox, and drummer Buddy Miles to form Band of Gypsies. This band performed four New Years Eve performances on December 31, 1969, and January 1, 1970. Later their incredible performances were released in mid 1970 in "Band of Gypsys." In 1970 Jimi brought back Mitch Mitchell back as the drummer of the group and kept Billy Cox as the bassist to form the "Jimi Hendrix Experience" once again. They began recording an album tentatively titled "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" However Jimi never saw this album finished because of his tragic death on September 18, 1970. This two LP album was released however finally in 1997 with support from the Hendrix family and Eddie Kramer, the original studio engineer. Jimi Hendrix only released three albums in his lifetime and he mastered three. However albums are still being first published today. "Live at the Filmore East" is an example of this. Most popular music doesn't stay popular for this long. This shows that his music truly changed music created after his death. Rock, jazz, blues, pop, r&b, etc. have all been influenced by Jimi's creative music. Jimi Hendrix is one of the most popular and important figures in the history of rock, and possibly in the history of music in general.

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