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James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is often considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry, and one of the most important and influential musicians of his era across a range of genres. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. Hendrix often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Hendrix was one of the musicians who popularized the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato based on the pentatonic scale. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by funk and some modern jazz. In 1966, Hendrix, who played and recorded with Little Richard's band from 1964 to 1965, said, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." 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 for rock recording. Hendrix
won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime, and
has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into
the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage blue plaque was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London, in September 1997. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut US album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry, and Rolling Stone named Hendrix the top guitarist on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time in 2003. He was also the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame. Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, while his father, James Allen "Al" Hendrix (1919 – 2002), was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma. He was named Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth by his mother, 17-year-old Lucille Hendrix, née Jeter. When
the infant was two years old, his mother put him in the temporary care
of friends in California. His father, upon being discharged from the
Army in November 1945, took custody of his son and changed his name to
James Marshall Hendrix in memory of his deceased brother, Leon Marshall
Hendrix. He was known as "Buster" to friends and family, from birth. Shortly
after, Al reunited with Lucille. He found it hard to gain steady
employment after the Second World War, and the family experienced
financial hardship. Hendrix had two brothers, Leon and Joseph, and two
sisters, Kathy and Pamela. Joseph was born with physical difficulties
and at the age of three was given up to state care. His two sisters
were both given up at a relatively early age, for care and later
adoption, Kathy was born blind and Pamela had some lesser physical
difficulties. Hendrix's
parents divorced when he was nine years old; his mother, a heavy
drinker who had developed cirrhosis of the liver, died in 1958 when the
state of her liver caused her spleen to rupture. On occasion, he was sent to live with his grandmother in Vancouver, British Columbia because of the unstable household, and his brother Leon was put into temporary welfare care for a period. Hendrix grew up as a shy and sensitive boy, deeply affected by the poverty and
family disruption he experienced. In a relatively unusual experience
for African Americans of his era, Hendrix's high school had a
relatively equitable ethnic mix of African Americans, European
Americans, and Asian Americans. At
age 15, around the time his mother died, he acquired his first acoustic
guitar for $5 from an acquaintance of his father. This guitar replaced
both the broomstick he had been strumming in imitation, and a ukulele which his father had found while cleaning out a garage. Hendrix
learned to play by practicing almost constantly, watching others play,
getting tips from more experienced players, and listening to records.
In the summer of 1959, his father bought Hendrix a white Supro Ozark,
his first electric guitar, but there was no available amplifier.
According to fellow Seattle bandmates, he learned most of his acrobatic
stage moves, a major part of the blues/R&B tradition, including
playing with his teeth and behind his back, from a fellow young
musician, Raleigh "Butch" Snipes, guitarist with local band The Sharps.
Hendrix himself performed Chuck Berry's trademark "duck walk" on occasion. Hendrix
played in a couple of local bands, occasionally playing outlying gigs
in Washington State and at least once over the border in Vancouver, British Columbia. Hendrix was particularly fond of Elvis Presley, whom he saw perform in Seattle, in 1957. Leon Hendrix claimed, in an early interview, that Little Richard appeared in his Central District neighborhood and shook hands with his brother, Jimi. This is unattested elsewhere and vehemently denied by his father. Hendrix's early exposure to blues music came from listening to records by Muddy Waters and B.B. King which his father owned. Another early impression came from the 1954 western Johnny Guitar, in which the hero carries no gun but instead wears a guitar slung behind his back. Hendrix's first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue, Seattle's Temple De Hirsch. 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 already made him a standout. He later joined the
Rocking Kings, who played professionally at such venues as the
Birdland. When his guitar was stolen (after he left it backstage
overnight), Al bought him a white Silvertone Danelectro. He painted it red and had "Betty Jean" emblazoned on it — the name of his high school girlfriend. Hendrix completed junior high at Washington Junior High School with little trouble but did not graduate from Garfield High School.
Later he was awarded an honorary diploma, and in the 1990s a bust of
Hendrix was placed in the school library. After he became famous in the
late 1960s, Hendrix told reporters that he had been expelled from
Garfield by racist faculty for holding hands with a white girlfriend in
study hall. However, Principal Frank Hanawalt says that it was simply
due to poor grades and attendance problems. Hendrix
got into trouble with the law twice for riding in stolen cars. 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 and fellow soldiers considered him to be a
subpar 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 did not object when the opportunity to
leave arose. He
would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after
breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump. The rock music
journalist Charles Cross contended in his biography of Hendrix, Room Full of Mirrors (2005)
that Hendrix faked being homosexual — claiming to have fallen in love
with a fellow soldier — in order to be discharged, but did not produce
credible evidence to support this contention. At the base recreation center, Hendrix met fellow soldier and bass player Billy Cox,
and the two forged a loyal friendship that Hendrix would call upon from
April 1969 until Billy's breakdown shortly before Hendrix' death. The
two would often perform with other musicians at venues both on and off
the base as a loosely organized band there named the Casuals. As a
celebrity in the UK, Hendrix only mentioned his military service in
three published interviews; One in 1967 for the film See My Music Talking (much later released under the title Experience), which was intended for TV to promote his recently released Axis: Bold as Love LP,
in which he spoke very briefly of his first parachuting experience:
"...once you get out there everything is so quiet, all you hear is the
breezes-s-s-s..." This comment has later been used to claim that he was
saying that this was one of the sources of his "spacy" guitar sound.
The second and third mentions of his military experience were in
interviews for Melody Maker in 1967 and 1969, where he spoke of his dislike of the army. In interviews in the US, Hendrix almost never mentioned it, and when Dick Cavett brought it up in his TV interview, Hendrix's only response was to verify that he had been based at Fort Campbell. After his Army discharge, Hendrix and army friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, and
undertook in earnest to earn a living with their existing band. Hendrix
had already seen Butch Snipes play with his teeth in Seattle and now
Alphonso 'Baby Boo' Young the other guitarist in the band, was
featuring this gimmick. Not
to be upstaged, it was then that Hendrix learned to play with his teeth
properly, according to Hendrix himself: "... the idea of doing that
came to me in a town in Tennessee. Down there you have to play with
your teeth or else you get shot. There’s a trail of broken teeth all
over the stage..." They played mainly in low-paying gigs at obscure venues. The band eventually moved to Nashville's Jefferson Street, the traditional heart of Nashville's black community and home to a lively rhythm and blues scene. After
they moved to Nashville, upon learning there was already an established
band by the name "The Casuals", they amended their name to the "King
Kasuals". While
in Nashville, according to Cox and Larry Lee — who replaced Alphonso
Young on guitar — they were basically the house band at "Club del
Morocco". Hendrix and Cox shared a flat above "Joyce's House Of Glamour". Hendrix's
girlfriend at this time was Joyce Lucas. Bill 'Hoss' Allen's memory of
Hendrix's supposed participation in a session with Billy Cox in
November 1962, which he cut Hendrix's contribution due to his over the
top playing, has now been called into question; a suggestion has been
made that he may have confused this with a later 1965 session by Frank
Howard And The Commanders that Hendrix participated in. In
December 1962, Hendrix visited his relatives in Vancouver, Canada,
where as a child he had sometimes lived with his grandmother. It has
been claimed that while there he performed with future members of the Motown band Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, including Tommy Chong (of later Cheech & Chong fame). Chong, however, disputes this ever happened and that any such appearance is a product of Taylor's "imagination". In
early 1963, Hendrix returned to the South. For the next two years,
Hendrix made a living performing on a circuit of venues throughout the
South catering to black audiences. These were venues affiliated with
the Theater Owners' Booking Association (TOBA), sarcastically known as
"Tough On Black Asses" because the audiences were very demanding. The
TOBA circuit was also widely known as the Chitlin' Circuit. In addition to performing in his own band, he performed with Bob Fisher and the Bonnevilles, 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 where Hendrix refined his style. Feeling
he had artistically outgrown the circuit and frustrated at following
the rules of bandleaders, Hendrix decided to try his luck in New York
City and in January 1964 moved into the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where he soon befriended Lithofayne Pridgeon (known as "Faye", who
became his girlfriend) and the Allen twins, Arthur and Albert (now
known as Taharqa and Tunde-Ra Aleem). The Allen twins became friends
and 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 song "Freedom". Pridgeon, a Harlem native
with connections throughout the area's music scene, provided Hendrix
with shelter, support, and encouragement. In February 1964, Hendrix won
first prize in the Apollo Theater amateur
contest. Hoping to land a gig, Hendrix made the club circuit and sat in
with various bands. Eventually, Hendrix was offered the guitarist
position with the Isley Brothers' back-up band and he readily accepted.
Hendrix' first studio recording occurred in March 1964, when the Isley
Brothers, with Hendrix as a member of the band, recorded the two-part
single "Testify". Hendrix then went on tour with the Isley Brothers.
"Testify" was released in June 1964, but did not make an impact on the
charts. After touring as a member of the Isley Brothers until summer or
fall 1964, Hendrix
grew dissatisfied and left the band in Nashville. There, he found work
with the tour's MC "Gorgeous" George Odell. On March 1, 1964, Hendrix
(then calling himself Maurice James) began recording and performing
with Little Richard. Hendrix would later (1966) say, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." During
a stop in Los Angeles while touring with Little Richard in 1965,
Hendrix played a session for Rosa Lee Brooks on her single "My Diary".
This was his first recorded involvement with Arthur Lee of the band
"Love". While in L.A., he also played on the session for Little Richard's final single for Vee-Jay, "I Don't Know What You've Got, But It's Got Me". He
later made his first recorded TV appearance on Nashville's Channel 5
"Night Train" with "The Royal Company" backing up "Buddy and Stacy" on
"Shotgun". Hendrix clashed with Richard, over tardiness, wardrobe, and, above all, Hendrix's stage antics. On tour with Richard they shared billing a couple of times with Ike and Tina Turner.
It has been suggested that he left Richard and played with Ike &
Tina briefly before returning to Richard, but there is no firm evidence
to support this, and this is emphatically denied by Tina. Months later,
he was either fired or he left after missing the tour bus in
Washington, D.C. He
then rejoined the Isley Brothers in the summer of 1965 and recorded a
second single with them, "Move Over and Let Me Dance" backed with "Have
You Ever Been Disappointed" (1965 Atlantic 45-2303). Later in 1965, Hendrix joined a New York–based R&B band, Curtis Knight and the Squires, after meeting Knight in the lobby of the Hotel America, off Times Square, where both men were living at the time. He performed on and off with them for eight months. In
October 1965, Hendrix recorded a single with Curtis Knight, "How Would
You Feel" backed with "Welcome Home" (1966 RSVP 1120) and on October 15
he signed a three-year recording contract with entrepreneur Ed Chalpin,
receiving 1% royalty. 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 has
continued to the present day. (Several
songs (and demos) from the 1965 – 1966 Curtis Knight recording sessions,
deemed not worth releasing at the time, were marketed as "Jimi Hendrix"
recordings after he became famous.) Aside from Curtis Knight and the Squires, Hendrix then toured for two months with Joey Dee and the Starliters. In between performing with Curtis Knight in 1966, Hendrix toured and recorded with King Curtis. Hendrix recorded the two-part single "Help Me (Get the Feeling)" with Ray Sharpe and
the King Curtis Orchestra (1966 Atco 45-6402) (the backing track was
subsequently overdubbed by other vocalists with different lyrics and
released as new songs). Later in 1966, Hendrix also recorded with Lonnie Youngblood,
a saxophone player who occasionally performed with Curtis Knight. The
sessions produced two singles for Youngblood: "Go Go Shoes"/"Go Go
Place" (Fairmount F-1002) and "Soul Food (That's What I Like)"/"Goodbye
Bessie Mae" (Fairmount F-1022). Additionally, singles for other artists
came out of the sessions: The Icemen's "(My Girl) She's a Fox"/ "(I
Wonder) What It Takes" (1966 SAMAR S-111) and Jimmy Norman's
"You're Only Hurting Yourself"/"That Little Old Groove Maker" (1966
SAMAR S-112). As with the King Curtis recordings, backing tracks and
alternate takes for the Youngblood sessions would be overdubbed and
otherwise manipulated to create many "new" tracks. (Many Youngblood tracks without any Hendrix involvement would later be marketed as "Jimi Hendrix" recordings). Also
around this time in 1966, Hendrix got his first composer credits for
two instrumentals "Hornets Nest" and "Knock Yourself Out", released as
a Curtis Knight and the Squires single (1966 RSVP 1124). Hendrix, now going by the name Jimmy James, formed his own band, The Blue Flame,
composed of Randy Palmer (bass), Danny Casey (drums), a 15-year-old
guitarist who played slide and rhythm named Randy Wolfe, and the
occasional stand in June 1966. Since
there were two musicians named "Randy" in the group, Hendrix dubbed
Wolfe "Randy California" (as he had recently moved from there to New
York City) and Palmer (a Tejano) "Randy Texas". Randy California would later co-found the band Spirit with his stepfather, drummer Ed Cassidy.
It was around this time that Hendrix's only daughter Tamika was
conceived with Diana Carpenter (also known as Regina Jackson), a
teenage runaway and prostitute that he briefly stayed with. Her claim
has not been recognized by the US courts where, after death, she may
not have a claim on his estate even if she could legally prove he was
her father, unless recognized previously as such by him or the courts. Hendrix and his new band played at several places in New York, but their primary venue was a residency at the Cafe Wha? on
MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. The street runs along
"Washington (Square) Park" which appeared in at least two of Hendrix's
songs. Their last concerts were at the Cafe au Go Go, as John Hammond Jr.'s backing group, billed as "The Blue Flame". Singer-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine and guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter also claim to have briefly worked with Hendrix in this period. Hendrix sometimes had a camp sense of humor, specifically with the song "Purple Haze". A mondegreen had
appeared, in which the line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" was
misheard as "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy." In a few performances,
Hendrix humorously used this, deliberately singing "kiss this guy"
while pointing to Mitch or Noel, as he did at Monterey. In the Woodstock DVD he deliberately points to the sky at this point, to
make it clear. A volume of misheard lyrics has been published, using
this mondegreen itself as the title, with Hendrix on the cover. After his enthusiastically received performance at France's No. 1 venue, the Olympia theatre in Paris on the Johnny Hallyday tour, an on-stage jam with Cream, a showcase gig at the newly-opened, pop-celebrity oriented nightclub Bag O'Nails and the all important appearances on the top UK TV pop shows "Ready Steady Go!" and the BBC's "Top of the Pops",
word of Hendrix spread throughout the London music community in late
1966. His showmanship and virtuosity made instant fans of reigning
guitar heroes Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, as well as Brian Jones and members of The Beatles and The Who, whose managers signed Hendrix to their new record label, Track Records. Hendrix's first single was a cover of "Hey Joe", using Tim Rose's
uniquely slower arrangement of the song including his addition of a
female backing chorus. Backing this first 1966 "Experience" single was
Hendrix's first songwriting effort, "Stone Free". Further success came in early 1967 with "Purple Haze" which featured the "Hendrix chord" and "The Wind Cries Mary".
The three singles were all UK Top 10 hits and were also popular
internationally including Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan
(though failed to sell when released later in the US). Onstage, Hendrix
was also making an impression with speeded up renditions of the B.B. King hit "Rock Me Baby" and Howlin' Wolf's hit "Killing Floor". The first Jimi Hendrix Experience album, Are You Experienced,
was released in the United Kingdom on May 12, 1967 and shortly
thereafter internationally, outside of USA and Canada. It contained
none of the previously released (outside North America) singles or
their 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, booked to appear as
one of the opening acts on the Walker Brothers farewell
tour, he set his guitar on fire at the end of his first performance, as
a publicity stunt. This guitar has now been identified as the "Zappa
guitar" (previously thought to have been from Miami), which has been
partly refurbished. Later, as part of this press promotion campaign,
there were articles about Rank Theatre management warning him to "tone
down" his "suggestive" stage act, with Chandler stating that the group
would not compromise regardless. On June 4, 1967, the Experience played their last show in England, at London's Saville Theatre, before heading off to America. The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album had just been released on June 1 and two Beatles (Paul McCartney and George Harrison) were in attendance, along with a roll call of other UK rock stardom, including: Brian Epstein, Eric Clapton, Spencer Davis, Jack Bruce, and pop singer Lulu. Hendrix chose to open the show with his own rendition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", rehearsed only minutes before taking the stage, much to McCartney's astonishment and delight. While on tour in Sweden in 1967, Hendrix jammed with the duo Hansson & Karlsson,
and later opened several concerts with their song "Tax Free", also
recording a cover of it during the Electric Ladyland sessions. Just
one example of his strong connection with that country, he played there
frequently throughout his career, and his only son James Daniel
Sundquist was born there in 1969 to a Swede, Eva Sundquist, recognized
as such by the Swedish courts and paid a settlement by Experience
Hendrix LLC. He
wrote a poem to a woman there (probably Sundquist). Sundquist had sent
Hendrix roses on each of his opening nights in Stockholm, and began –
according to the Swedish courts – a sexual relationship from then until
conceiving Daniel with him, after his third visit in January 1969, He
also had an expatriate musician friend who lived there, "King" George
Clemmons, who played backup at one concert and socialized with him on
at least two of his visits there. Hendrix also dedicated songs to the
Swedish-based Vietnam deserters organization in 1969. Months later, Reprise Records released the US and Canadian 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 single A-sides. Where the (Rest of the World) album
kicked off with "Foxy Lady",
the US and Canadian one started with "Purple Haze". Both versions
offered a startling introduction to the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and
the album was a blueprint for what had become possible on an electric
guitar, basically recorded on four tracks, mixed into mono and only
modified at this point by a "fuzz" pedal, reverb and a small bit of the experimental "Octavia"
pedal on "Purple Haze", produced by Roger Meyer in consultation with
Hendrix. A remix using the mostly mono backing tracks with the guitar
and vocal overdubs separated and occasionally panned to create a stereo
mix was also released, only in the US and Canada. Although
very popular internationally at this time, the Experience had yet to
crack America, their first single there failed to sell. 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 of the many
journalists covering the event that wrote about him. The performances
were filmed by D.A. Pennebaker and later shown in some movie theaters around the country in early 1969 as the concert documentary Monterey Pop, which immortalized Hendrix's iconic burning and smashing of his guitar at the finale of his performance. The
opening song was Hendrix's very fast arrangement of Howlin' Wolf's 1965
R&B hit "Killing Floor". He played this frequently from late 1965
through 1968, usually as the opener to his shows. The Monterey
performance included an equally lively rendition of B.B. King's 1964
R&B hit "Rock Me Baby", Tim Rose's arrangement of "Hey Joe" and Bob Dylan's 1965 Pop hit "Like a Rolling Stone". The set ended with The Troggs "Wild Thing"
and Hendrix repeating the act that had boosted his profile in the UK
(and internationally) with him burning his guitar on stage, then smashing it
to bits and tossing pieces out to the audience. This show finally
brought Hendrix to the notice of the US public. A large chunk of this
guitar was on display at the Experience Music Project in
Seattle, along with the other psychedelically painted Stratocaster that
Hendrix smashed (but did not burn) at his farewell concert in England
before he left for the US and Monterey. At the time Hendrix was playing sets in the Scene club in NYC in July 1967, he met Frank Zappa, whose Mothers of Invention were playing the adjacent Garrick Theater, and he was reportedly fascinated by Zappa's recently-purchased wah-wah pedal. Hendrix immediately bought one from Manny's and starting using it right away on
the sessions for both sides of his new single, and slightly later, on
several jams recorded at Ed Chalpin's studio. Following the festival, the Experience played a series of concerts at Bill Graham's Fillmore replacing the original headliners Jefferson Airplane at the top of the bill. It was at this time that Hendrix became acquainted with future musical collaborator Stephen Stills, and reacquainted himself with Buddy Miles who
introduced Hendrix to his future partner, Devon Wilson. She had a
turbulent on/off relationship with him, right up to the night of his
death, and was the only one of his partners to record with him. She
died only six months after Hendrix under mysterious circumstances,
apparently falling from an upper window in the Chelsea Hotel. Following
this very successful West Coast introduction, which also included two
open air concerts (one of them a free concert in the "panhandle" of Golden Gate Park) and a concert at the Whisky a Go Go, they were booked as one of the opening acts for pop group The Monkees on their first American tour. The Monkees asked for Hendrix because they were fans, but
their (mostly early teens) audience sometimes did not warm to their
act, and he quit the tour after a few dates. Chas Chandler later
admitted that being thrown off the Monkees tour was engineered to gain
maximum media impact and publicity for Hendrix, similar
to that gained from the manufactured Rank Theatre's "indecency"
"dispute" on the earlier UK Walker Brothers tour. 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". This report was in fact
concocted by a journalist accompanying the tour, the Australian Lillian Roxon. Meanwhile
in Western Europe, where Hendrix was also appreciated for his authentic
blues renditions as well as his hit singles there, and was often
recognized for his avant-garde musical
ideas, his wild-man image and musical gimmickry (such as playing the
guitar with his teeth and behind his back) had faded; but they later
plagued him in the US following Monterey. He became frustrated by the
US media and audience when they concentrated on his stage tricks and
best known songs. The Jimi Hendrix Experience's second 1967 album, Axis: Bold as Love was
his first recording made with a view to a stereo release and was where
he first experimented with this format, using much panning and other
stereo effects. It continued the style established by Are You Experienced.
The opening track, "EXP", featured a stereo effect in which a sound
emanating from Hendrix's guitar appeared to revolve around the
listener, fading out into the distance from the right channel, then
returning in on the left. This album marked the first time Hendrix
recorded the whole album with his guitar tuned down one half-step, to E♭,
which he used exclusively thereafter and was his first to feature the
wah-wah pedal. A mishap almost delayed the album's pre-Christmas
release: Hendrix lost the master tape of side one of the LP, leaving it
in the back seat of a London taxi. With the release deadline looming,
Hendrix, Chas Chandler and engineer Eddie Kramer had to remix most of
side one in an overnight session, but they couldn't match the lost mix
of "If 6 was 9". They soon learned that bassist Noel Redding had a tape
recording of this mix. The tape had to be smoothed out as it had gotten
wrinkled. Hendrix
was disappointed that the album had to be finished so quickly and felt
it could have been better, given more time. He was also somewhat
disappointed in the album cover art work, which depicts Hendrix and his
Experience bandmates as the various forms of Vishnu, incorporating a painting of them by Roger Law (from a photo-portrait by Karl Ferris). Hendrix remarked that it would have been more appropriate if the cover had highlighted his American Indian heritage. The
album was released in the UK near the end of their first headlining
tour there, after which the pace slowed briefly during the Christmas
holidays. In January 1968 the group went to Sweden for a short tour,
and after the first show Hendrix, reportedly after drinking and
according to Hendrix his drink being spiked, went berserk and smashed
up his hotel room in a rage, injuring his hand and culminating in his
arrest. Then on the 6th in Denmark his famous hat was stolen. The
rest of the tour was uneventful, though Hendrix had to spend some time
in Sweden waiting for his trial and eventual large fine. Hendrix's third recording, the double album Electric Ladyland (1968),
was a departure from previous efforts. Following his third and
penultimate French concert at the Paris Olympia, Hendrix flew to the US
to start his first tour there, and after two months returned to his
Electric Ladyland project at the newly opened Record Plant Studios with engineers Eddie Kramer and Gary Kellgren and initially Chas Chandler as producer. As
the album's recording progressed, Chas Chandler became so frustrated
with Hendrix's perfectionism and with various friends and guests
milling about the studio that he decided to sever his professional
relationship with Hendrix. 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 involved in the recording sessions. 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 guests. Chandler also expressed exasperation at the number of times Hendrix would insist on rerecording 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. They 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 recorded, went far beyond
anything he had previously achieved. 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". Throughout the four years of his fame, Hendrix often appeared at impromptu jams with various musicians, such as B.B. King. In March 1968, Jim Morrison of The Doors joined Hendrix onstage at New York's Scene Club. Albums of this Electric Ladyland era bootleg recording were released under various titles, some falsely claiming the presence of Johnny Winter, who has denied, several times, being a participant at that jam session, and to ever having met Morrison. After
a year based in the US, Hendrix temporarily moved back to London and
into his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham's rented Brook Street flat, next
door to the Handel House Museum,
in the West End of London. During this time The Jimi Hendrix Experience
toured Scandinavia, Germany, and included a final French concert. They
later performed two sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall on
February 18 and February 24, 1969, which were the last European
appearances of this line-up of the "Jimi Hendrix Experience". A Gold
and Goldstein produced film titled Experience was
also recorded at these two shows, which, according to Experience
Hendrix LLC, "Elements of these recordings are sure to be utilized when
the official release of this material is finally made." 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 bass
parts on Electric Ladyland. Fruitless
recording sessions at Olympic in London; Olmstead and the Record Plant
in New York that ended on April 9, which only produced a remake of
Stone Free for a possible single release, were the last to feature
Redding. Jimi then flew Billy Cox up to New York and started recording
and rehearsing with him on April 21 as a replacement for Noel. In
a recorded interview by Nancy Carter on June 15 at his hotel in Los
Angeles, Hendrix announced that he had been recording with Cox and that
he would be replacing Noel as bass player in "The Jimi Hendrix
Experience". 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 police firing tear gas into the audience as they played "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)".
The band escaped from the venue in the back of a rental truck which was
partly crushed by fans trying to escape the tear gas. The next day,
Noel Redding announced that he had quit the Experience.
After the departure of Noel Redding from the group, Hendrix rented the
eight-bedroom 'Ashokan House' in the hamlet of Boiceville near Woodstock in
upstate New York, where he spent some time through the summer of 1969.
Manager Michael Jeffery, who had a house in Woodstock, arranged the
stay, with hopes that the respite would produce a new album. To replace
Redding as bassist, Hendrix had been rehearsing and recording with Billy Cox, his old and trusted Army buddy, since at least April 21. Mitchell
was unavailable to help fulfill Hendrix's commitments at this time,
which include his first appearance on US TV – on the Dick Cavett show –
where he was backed by the studio orchestra, and an appearance on The Tonight Show where he appeared with his new bass player Billy Cox, and session drummer Ed Shaughnessy sitting in for Mitchell. Mitchell returned in time for the Woodstock music festival on
August 18, 1969, for which — 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. They
recorded some jam-based material such as "Jam Back at the House",
"Shokan Sunrise" (posthumous title for untitled jam), "Villanova
Junction", and early renditions of the funk-driven centerpieces of
Hendrix's post-Experience sound: "Machine Gun", "Message to Love" and
"Izabella". Bad
weather and logistical problems caused long delays, so that Hendrix did
not appear on stage until Monday morning. By this 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. Festival MC Chip Monck introduced
the band as "The Jimi Hendrix Experience", but Hendrix quickly
corrected this to "Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, for short it's nothin’ but
‘A Band Of’ Gypsies" and launched into a two hour set, the longest of
his career. As well as the two percussionists, the performance notably
featured Larry Lee performing two songs and Lee sometimes soloing while
Hendrix played rhythm in places. Most of this has been edited out of
the officially released recordings, including Lee's two songs, reducing
the sound to basically a three piece. The concert was relatively free
of the technical difficulties that frequently plagued Hendrix's
performances, although one of his guitar strings snapped while
performing "Red House" (he
kept playing regardless). The band, unused to playing large audiences
and exhausted after being up all night, could not always keep up with
Hendrix's pace, but in spite of this the guitarist managed to deliver a
memorable performance, climaxing with his highly-regarded rendition of
the "The Star-Spangled Banner", a solo improvisation which is now regarded as a special symbol of the 1960s era. This expanded band did not last long. After the Woodstock festival they appeared on only two more occasions. The first was a street benefit in Harlem where,
in a scenario similar to the festival, most of the audience had left
and only a fraction remained by the time Hendrix took the stage. Within
seconds of Hendrix arriving at the site two youths had stolen his
guitar from the back seat of his car, although it was later recovered.
The band's only other appearance was at the Salvation club in Greenwich
Village, New York. After some studio recordings, Hendrix disbanded the
group. Some of this band's recordings can be heard on the MCA Records box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience and on South Saturn Delta. Their final work together was a session on September 6. Hendrix's September 9 appearance on TV's The Dick Cavett Show, backed by Cox, Mitchell and Juma Sultan, was credited as the "Jimi Hendrix Experience". In 1969, a contractual dispute arose in relation to an agreement Hendrix had entered into with producer Ed Chalpin in 1965. The
resolution for the dispute included Hendrix having to record an LP of
new material for Chalpin company, which wouldn't feature the Experience
band, and wouldn't be associated with the Experience band name. In
addition, Chalpin was granted 2% of profits from Hendrix's back catalog
sold in US. For the agreed upon album, Hendrix chose to record Band of Gypsys, a live album. Along with Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles (formerly with Wilson Pickett and The Electric Flag)
with whom he had been jamming together since September, Hendrix wrote
and rehearsed material which they then performed at a series of four
concerts over two nights, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day at Fillmore East. The second night produced the material for the Band Of Gypsys LP, which was produced by Hendrix (under the name "Heaven Research"). Ever
since the Band of Gypsys project, there have been rumors that Hendrix
had chosen to form the band with black musicians only in order to court
the black sector of the music-buying public. Such ideas ignored the
fact that Jimi was already popular in the black community, and
the fact that Hendrix cautioned against racial barriers in music,
saying: "Black kids think the music is white now, which it isn't. The
argument is not between black and white; that's just another game the
establishment set up to turn us against one another..." This message echoes the theme of social harmony which the Band of Gypsys presented in We Gotta Live Together. The Band of Gypsys LP
is additionally notable in that it is the only official completely live
LP released in Hendrix's lifetime. The band also released a single "Stepping Stone"
which was quickly withdrawn, and recorded several studio songs slated
for Hendrix's future LP. In 1999, the tapes from the four Fillmore
concerts were remastered and additional tracks and edits were released
as Live at the Fillmore East.
Litigation with Chalpin ended in 2007 after the "singularly uncredible
witness" was fined nearly $900,000 for failure to abide by contractual
limitations and failure to pay Experience Hendrix L.L.C. its court ordered royalties. On
the 26th and January 27, 1970, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding flew
into New York and signed contracts with Jeffery for the upcoming Jimi
Hendrix Experience tour. The next day, a second and final Band of
Gypsys appearance occurred at a twelve-act show in Madison Square Garden which was a benefit for the massively popular anti-Vietnam War Moratorium Committee,
titled the "Winter Festival for Peace". Similar to Woodstock, set
delays forced Hendrix to take the stage at an inopportune 3 a.m., only
this time he was obviously in no shape to play. He played 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 down on the drum riser for a minute and then walked off stage.
Various unverifiable assertions have been proffered 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. But none of Hendrix's other close associates verifies his statement. A
week after the botched Band of Gypsys show, Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and
Noel Redding gave an interview to Rolling Stone for the upcoming tour
dates as a reunited Jimi Hendrix Experience. But Redding never even got
to rehearse, as Hendrix just continued to work with Billy Cox. Noel was
not told he wasn't going to be playing until the pretour rehearsals.
Fans refer to this final "Jimi Hendrix Experience" lineup as the "Cry
of Love" band, named after The Cry of Love Tour to
distinguish it from the original. Billy Cox has countered on several
occasions that this lineup considered themselves "The Jimi Hendrix
Experience" before they even went on tour and that any other title is
bogus. All billing, adverts, tickets etc. on the tour used "Jimi
Hendrix Experience" or occasionally, as previously, just "Jimi Hendrix". Two of Hendrix's later recordings were the lead guitar parts on "Old Times Good Times" from Stephen Stills hit eponymous album (1970), and on "The Everlasting First" from Arthur Lee's new incarnation of Love's, not so successful and aptly named LP False Start both
tracks were recorded with these old friends on a fleeting and
unexplained visit to London in March 1970, following Kathy Etchingham's
marriage. He
spent the next four months of 1970 recording during the week and
playing live on the weekends. The "Cry of Love" tour, launched that
April at the LA Forum, was undertaken to earn money with which to repay debts and fund the production of his next album, tentatively titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun.
Performances on this tour featured Hendrix, Cox, and Mitchell playing
new material alongside extended versions of older recordings. The USA
leg of the tour included 30 performances and ended at Honolulu, Hawaii
on August 1, 1970. A number of these shows were recorded and produced
some of Hendrix's most memorable live performances. 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 Hendrix was constantly in search of a recording environment that suited him. In August 1970, Electric Lady Studios was opened in New York. 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 Hendrix'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 two and a half months recording in Electric Lady, most of
which took place while the final phases of construction were still
ongoing. Following a recording/dubbing session on August 26, an opening
party was held later that day. He then boarded an Air India flight for London with Billy Cox, joining Mitch Mitchell to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival. The
group then commenced the European leg of the tour. Longing for his new
studio and creative outlets, the tour was a commitment that the already
restless Hendrix was not eager to perform. In Aarhus,
Hendrix abandoned his show after only two songs, remarking: "I've been
dead a long time". In the months before Hendrix's death, a British
music paper alleged that Hendrix had plans to join the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. 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, due to his non-appearance at the end of the previous nights
bill, (due to the torrential rain and risk of electrocution). Several
acts played after he left the stage, part of the stage was burnt during
the first stage appearance of Ton Steine Scherben. Billy Cox quit the tour and headed home to Memphis, Tennessee, reportedly suffering paranoia after taking LSD or being given it unknowingly, earlier in the tour. Hendrix returned to London, where he reportedly spoke to Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, and others about leaving his manager, Michael Jeffery. Hendrix's last public performance was an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War. Early
on September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix died in London under circumstances
which have never been fully explained. He had spent the latter part of
the previous evening at a party and was picked up by girlfriend Monika Dannemann and
driven to her flat at the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent,
Notting Hill. According to the estimated time of death, from autopsy
data and statements by friends about the evening of September 17, he
would have died within a few hours after midnight, though no precise
estimate was made at the original inquest. Dannemann
claimed in her original testimony that after they returned to her
lodgings the evening before, Hendrix, unknown to her, had taken nine of
her prescribed Vesperax sleeping
pills. The normal medical dose was half a tablet, but Hendrix was
unfamiliar with this very strong German brand. According to surgeon
John Bannister, the doctor who initially attended to him, Hendrix had asphyxiated in his own vomit, mainly red wine which had filled his airways, as the autopsy was to show. For
years, Dannemann publicly claimed that she had only discovered that her
lover was unconscious and unresponsive sometime after 9:00 am, that
Hendrix was alive when placed in the back of the ambulance after half
past eleven, and that she rode with him on the way to the hospital; the
latter two are denied by the ambulance crew. However, Dannemann's
comments about that morning were often contradictory, varying from
interview to interview. Police
and ambulance statements reveal that there was no one but Hendrix in
the flat when they arrived at 11:27 am, and not only was he dead when
they arrived on the scene, but was fully clothed and had been dead for
some time. Later,
Dannemen claimed that former road managers Gerry Stickels and Eric
Barrett had been present before the ambulance was called and had
removed some of Hendrix's possessions including some of his most recent
messages. Lyrics written by Hendrix, which were found in the apartment,
led Eric Burdon to make a premature announcement on the BBC-TV program 24 Hours that
he believed Hendrix had committed suicide. Burdon often claimed he had
been telephoned by Dannemann after she discovered that Jimi failed to
wake up. Following
a libel case brought in 1996 by Hendrix's long-term English girlfriend
Kathy Etchingham, Monika Dannemann committed suicide, though her later
lover, Uli Jon Roth, has made accusations of foul play. A former Animals "roadie,"
James "Tappy" Wright, published a book in May 2009 claiming Hendrix's
manager, Mike Jeffery, admitted to him that he had Hendrix killed
because the rock star wanted to end his management contract. This claim was supported by John Bannister, the doctor who attended the scene of his death in 1970 stated publicly in 2009 "The
amount of wine that was over him was just extraordinary. Not only was
it saturated right through his hair and shirt but his lungs and stomach
were absolutely full of wine. I have never seen so much wine. We had a
sucker that you put down into his trachea, the entrance to his lungs
and to the whole of the back of his throat. We kept sucking him out and
it kept surging and surging. He had already vomited up masses of red
wine and I would have thought there was half a bottle of wine in his
hair. He had really drowned in a massive amount of red wine." This testimony is contradicted by everyone else involved, the ambulance drivers and Dr Donald Teare etc. Bannister according to the Daily Mail was struck off for "fraudlent conduct". |