Jimi Hendrix(1942-1970)
- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Composer
Widely regarded as the greatest and most influential guitarist in rock history, Jimi Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942 in Seattle, Washington, to African-American parents Lucille (Jeter) and James Allen Hendrix. His
mother named him John Allen Hendrix and raised him alone while his
father, Al Hendrix, was off fighting in World War II. When his mother
became sick from alcoholism, Hendrix was sent to live with relatives in
Berkeley, California. When his father returned from Europe in 1945 he
took back Hendrix, divorced his wife, and renamed him James Marshall
Hendrix.
When Jimi was 13 his father taught him to play an acoustic
guitar. In 1959 Jimi dropped out of high school and enlisted in the
U.S. Army, but soon became disenchanted with military service. After he
broke his ankle during a training parachute jump, he was honorably
discharged. He then went to work as a sideman on the rhythm-and-blues
circuit, honing his craft but making little or no money. Jimi got
restless being a sideman and moved to New York City hoping to get a
break in the music business. Through his friend Curtis Knight, Jimi
discovered the music scene in Greenwich Village, which left indelible
impressions on him. It was here that he began taking drugs, among them
marijuana, pep pills and cocaine.
In 1966, while Jimi was performing
with his own band called James & the Blue Flames at Cafe Wha?, John
Hammond Jr. approached Jimi about the Flames playing backup for him at
Cafe Au Go Go. Jimi agreed and during the show's finale, Hammond let
Jimi cut loose on Bo Diddley's "I'm the Man." Linda Keith, girlfriend of
The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, was one of Jimi's biggest fans and it was
she who told friend Chas Chandler, a band manager, about Jimi. When
Chandler heard Jimi play, he asked him to come to London to form his
own band, and while there Chandler made the simple change in Jimi's
name by formally dropping James and replacing it with Jimi. Having
settled in England with a new band called the Jimi Hendrix Experience,
which consisted of Jimi as guitarist and lead singer, bass player
Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, Jimi took the country by storm with the
release of his first single "Hey, Joe."
In the summer of 1967 Jimi
performed back in the USA at the Monterey Pop Festival, a mix-up
backstage forced Jimi to follow The Who onstage, where after a superb
performance Jimi tore up the house by trashing his guitar in a wild
frenzy. Afterwards, Jimi's career skyrocketed with the release of the
Experience's first two albums, "Are You Experienced?" and "Axis: Bold
as Love," which catapulted him to the top of the charts. However,
tensions, possibly connected with Jimi's drug use and the constant
presence of hangers-on in the studio and elsewhere, began to fracture
some of his relationships, including Chas Chandler, who quit as manager
in February 1968.
In September 1968 the Experience released their most
successful album, "Electric Ladyland." However, in early 1969 bassist
Redding left the Experience and was replaced by Billy Cox, an old army
buddy who Jimi had jammed with. Jimi began experimenting with different
musicians. For the Woodstock music festival Jimi put together an outfit
called the Gypsies, Sun and Rainbows, with Mitchell and Cox as well as
a second guitarist and two percussionists. Their one and only
performance in August 1969 at Woodstock took place near Bethel, New
York, where Hendrix and his band were to be the closing headline act.
Because of the delay getting there and the logistical problems, Jimi
performed on the morning of the fourth and final day. Only 25,000
people of the original 400,000 stayed to watch Jimi and his band as the
closing music number, where Jimi's searing rendering of "The
Star-Spangled Banner" became the anthem for counterculture.
After
Woodstock, Jimi formed a new band with Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums
with the May 1970 release of the album "The Band of Gypsys." Jimi's
last album, "Cry of Love", featured Cox on bass and former Experience
drummer Mitchell on drums. However, Jimi's drug problem finally caught
up with him. On the night of September 17, 1970, while living in
London, Jimi took some sleeping pills, which were prescribed for his
live-in girlfriend Monika Danneman. Sometime after midnight, Jimi threw
up from an apparent allergic reaction to the pills and then passed out.
Danneman, thinking him to be all right, went out to get cigarettes for
them. When she returned, she found him lying where he collapsed, having
inhaled his own vomit, and and she couldn't wake him. Danneman called
an ambulance, which took him to a nearby hospital, but Jimi Hendrix was
pronounced dead a short while later without regaining consciousness. He
was 27 years old.
Jimi Hendrix's life was short, but his impact on the
rock guitar is still being heard and set the course for a new era of
rock music.
mother named him John Allen Hendrix and raised him alone while his
father, Al Hendrix, was off fighting in World War II. When his mother
became sick from alcoholism, Hendrix was sent to live with relatives in
Berkeley, California. When his father returned from Europe in 1945 he
took back Hendrix, divorced his wife, and renamed him James Marshall
Hendrix.
When Jimi was 13 his father taught him to play an acoustic
guitar. In 1959 Jimi dropped out of high school and enlisted in the
U.S. Army, but soon became disenchanted with military service. After he
broke his ankle during a training parachute jump, he was honorably
discharged. He then went to work as a sideman on the rhythm-and-blues
circuit, honing his craft but making little or no money. Jimi got
restless being a sideman and moved to New York City hoping to get a
break in the music business. Through his friend Curtis Knight, Jimi
discovered the music scene in Greenwich Village, which left indelible
impressions on him. It was here that he began taking drugs, among them
marijuana, pep pills and cocaine.
In 1966, while Jimi was performing
with his own band called James & the Blue Flames at Cafe Wha?, John
Hammond Jr. approached Jimi about the Flames playing backup for him at
Cafe Au Go Go. Jimi agreed and during the show's finale, Hammond let
Jimi cut loose on Bo Diddley's "I'm the Man." Linda Keith, girlfriend of
The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, was one of Jimi's biggest fans and it was
she who told friend Chas Chandler, a band manager, about Jimi. When
Chandler heard Jimi play, he asked him to come to London to form his
own band, and while there Chandler made the simple change in Jimi's
name by formally dropping James and replacing it with Jimi. Having
settled in England with a new band called the Jimi Hendrix Experience,
which consisted of Jimi as guitarist and lead singer, bass player
Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, Jimi took the country by storm with the
release of his first single "Hey, Joe."
In the summer of 1967 Jimi
performed back in the USA at the Monterey Pop Festival, a mix-up
backstage forced Jimi to follow The Who onstage, where after a superb
performance Jimi tore up the house by trashing his guitar in a wild
frenzy. Afterwards, Jimi's career skyrocketed with the release of the
Experience's first two albums, "Are You Experienced?" and "Axis: Bold
as Love," which catapulted him to the top of the charts. However,
tensions, possibly connected with Jimi's drug use and the constant
presence of hangers-on in the studio and elsewhere, began to fracture
some of his relationships, including Chas Chandler, who quit as manager
in February 1968.
In September 1968 the Experience released their most
successful album, "Electric Ladyland." However, in early 1969 bassist
Redding left the Experience and was replaced by Billy Cox, an old army
buddy who Jimi had jammed with. Jimi began experimenting with different
musicians. For the Woodstock music festival Jimi put together an outfit
called the Gypsies, Sun and Rainbows, with Mitchell and Cox as well as
a second guitarist and two percussionists. Their one and only
performance in August 1969 at Woodstock took place near Bethel, New
York, where Hendrix and his band were to be the closing headline act.
Because of the delay getting there and the logistical problems, Jimi
performed on the morning of the fourth and final day. Only 25,000
people of the original 400,000 stayed to watch Jimi and his band as the
closing music number, where Jimi's searing rendering of "The
Star-Spangled Banner" became the anthem for counterculture.
After
Woodstock, Jimi formed a new band with Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums
with the May 1970 release of the album "The Band of Gypsys." Jimi's
last album, "Cry of Love", featured Cox on bass and former Experience
drummer Mitchell on drums. However, Jimi's drug problem finally caught
up with him. On the night of September 17, 1970, while living in
London, Jimi took some sleeping pills, which were prescribed for his
live-in girlfriend Monika Danneman. Sometime after midnight, Jimi threw
up from an apparent allergic reaction to the pills and then passed out.
Danneman, thinking him to be all right, went out to get cigarettes for
them. When she returned, she found him lying where he collapsed, having
inhaled his own vomit, and and she couldn't wake him. Danneman called
an ambulance, which took him to a nearby hospital, but Jimi Hendrix was
pronounced dead a short while later without regaining consciousness. He
was 27 years old.
Jimi Hendrix's life was short, but his impact on the
rock guitar is still being heard and set the course for a new era of
rock music.