Jimi Hendrix is an renown musician. He innovated different techniques and sounds in his songs.
He was born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle, Washington. He changed it to a few different names before Jimi Hendrix was settled. He was born November 27, 1942. He is widely regarded as the most influential electric guitarist in the history of pop. Jimi Hendrix started playing by miming the guitar with a broom. His father later bought him a ukulele with only one string, and he practiced on that. His father eventually bought him a five dollar used acoustic guitar. He formed the band Velvetones in 1959 when his dad bought him his first electric guitar. The Velvetones did not last long, though, because Jimi caught himself in some legal trouble. He was caught in a stolen car, and the judge gave him the option to go to jail, or join the army. In 1961, Jimi Hendrix joined the army as a paratrooper. He often slept through his duties, he would skip to play the guitar, and his quarters were not always kept military ready, and that frustrated a lot people. The officer knew he sprained his ankle while jumping, and used that as an excuse to honorably discharge him, but on the record, it says Jimi was kind of a nuisance.
The year is 1962 and Jimi finds himself in Tennessee, where he also began playing with his teeth. There, he found himself playing in back up bands for people like the Isley Brothers and Little Richard. He left the Isley Brothers because he said they were boring to work with. He joined Little Richard, hesitantly, and upstaged him, so he was fired. He went back to the Isley Brothers.
He quit the Isley Brothers again, and started Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. During this era of Jimi’s career, he met Linda Keith, Keith Richards’ girlfriend at the time. She lent Jimi one of Keith’s guitars for a show, and then he ended up destroying it on stage. She thought it wasn’t cool, but she was hypnotized by his playing, nonetheless. Her best friend at the time was dating the manager of the Rolling Stones (the band that her boyfriend plays in). And she tried to convince him to check Jimi out, and he refused. Then she called Chas Chandler from the Animals, and he accepted. He, too, was mesmerized. He convinced Jimi to change the spelling of his name from Jimmy to Jimi, and got him a bassist and a drummer, and they became an immediate success.
He had released Are you Experienced, which was a good album. But when he performed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and smashed his guitar and then lit his guitar on fire, the success grew exponentially. No one has ever seen that before. He took what Pete Townshend did, and put it to shame.
Quick side note, this was the first time that Mike Nesmith from the Monkees discovered Jimi Hendrix. He played the songs for the rest of the band, and they offered his manager a chance to open for them on a 29 date tour of the United States. His manager said he would do it. He played 8 shows, got booed off the stage at almost all of them. On the eighth show, he took his guitar off, walked off the stage, and walked off the tour.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. He was noted as being the greatest instrumentalist in rock history.
In January of 1970, while travelling from Toronto, Canada to Detroit, Michigan, he got searched by officials and they found heroin and hashish. He was on a couple week long trial where he was found innocent. He explained that his fans were nice, they gave him gifts all the time, and he doesn’t always look through them, sometimes he just throws them in his bag and checks it out later. He says that usually whenever fans give him drugs, and he knows they’re drugs, he throws them out.
His most memorable performances was when he played the National Anthem at Woodstock in 1969. He redesigned the song, but it was still the National Anthem at it’s core. He played it because it was what he sang in school when he was growing up, he was in the 101st Airborne Division in the army, and he is an American. He payed homage to the United States, but put his Jimi Hendrix touch to it.
On September 18, 1970, Jimi was found dead in his home in London. He had choked on his vomit while intoxicated. A month before that, though, in New York, a recording studio called Electric Lady opened it’s doors. The name is in reference to Jimi’s third album with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland.
He won several music awards. He was Pop Musician of the Year in 1968, World Top Musician in 1969, Rock Guitarist of the Year in 1970, inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005, and he also made it into the 27-club.
While they are crucial in Jimi Hendrix’s career, I will not be discussing any projects he was a backing performer on, like with the Isley Brothers, I will include those under the Isley Brothers tab, but I will give him credit for being on the album. This will just discuss the albums while he was in the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Noel Redding was born December 25, 1945. He was considered the time-keeper of the band. In addition to bass, which he learned after joining the band, he knows how to play the guitar, violin, and mandolin. He passed away on May 11, 2003 due to esophageal varies due to cirrhosis of the liver.
He was born John Graham “Mitch” Mitchell. He was born July 6, 1946. Mitch was a childhood actor before he pursued a music career. He starred in a television series called Jennings at School. He was also the star in the movie Bottoms Up. Between starting his own local band, and being part of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, he worked for a lot of different bands, including The Who in their transition between Doug Sandom and Keith Moon. Mitchell’s music influence was mainly jazz-oriented. He was attractive to Jimi because his jazz drum style. On November 12, 2008, he was found dead due to natural causes.
Producer: Chas Chandler
Label: Track
Singles: “Purple Haze,” “Hey Joe,” and “The Wind Cries Mary”
This is the first album that The Hendrix Experience released. Before they started writing and recording the album, the members only knew each other for a couple of weeks. Mitch auditioned to be in the band, and Jimi hooked up with Noel to hold auditions. The album was recorded piece by piece over the course of about five months. Mitch Mitchell was almost fired during the early stages of the album for continuously being late to rehearsals and recording sessions. He was late to a gig, and Jimi was so upset he offered the gig to John Banks of Merseybeats, when he declined, Jimi and Chas decided to just keep Mitch. Chas docked Mitch’s pay for the week, and he was never late after that. The first time any of the songs on the album were played live, was right before recording. Mitch explains that there were many songs that were written and recorded once and then never played again. The cover of the US album cover release was what Jimi wanted originally. When it was released in the UK, it had a different cover, and Jimi did not like it. He wanted more of a Hollies looking cover.
Despite many conspiracies, Jimi explained that the song “Purple Haze,” with it’s immortal “‘scuse me while I kiss the sky,” is not about being high, whether on acid or marijuana. He says it was about a dream he had where he was walking underwater. He also claims that he wrote a much longer version, and and he got the name from a science-fiction movie Night of Light: Day of Dreams.
The album went 5x Multi Platinum in the United States and went gold in the United Kingdom.
Producer: Chas Chandler
Label: Track
Single: “Up From the Skies”
Axis is noted by Rolling Stone Magazine as the best Voodoo album. The album is also comparable to the sound that Cream plays. It’s mystifying and psychedelic. In the song “Bold as Love,” Jimi explains what his guitar means to him. When he plays, it’s a battle between “Anger” and “Queen Jealousy.” The power behind the lyrics is what made the song, the whole album even, so magical to so many people. The lyrics to each song on the album expresses Jimi’s ideology. He tells the listeners how he experiences nature and the universe in general. Billboard describes his guitar playing on the album as him painting with his riffs. Each riff paints a picture in the listener’s mind. They also describe it as a psychedelic trip without the drugs. The album went platinum in the United States and silver in the United Kingdom.
Producers: Jimi Hendrix and Chas Chandler
Label: Reprise
Singles: “All Along the Watchtower,” “Crosstown Traffic,” and “Voodoo Chile”
Yet again, this album showcases a wide range of Jimi’s musical abilities. Just like the other two albums, the engineers of the album, reshape the sound in some way, shape, or form. Also like the other albums, this one features a cover of an old classic with that special Jimi Hendrix flair that he just adds to everything. This album turns the song “All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan and adds some funk-rock rhythm to make it Jimi’s. This album went 2x multi-platinum in the United States and gold in the United Kingdom.
Fun fact: the cover art to this album was supposed to feature a picture taken by Linda Eastman (Linda McCartney) of the group in Central Park, but ended up with the blurry red close up of him. The inside of the album featured 19 nude women, and was ultimately banned by a couple of record companies for being “pornographic.“
Oldies but Goodies 