Jimi Hendrix profile picture

Jimi Hendrix

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Jimi Hendrix

..

In his brief four-year reign as a superstar, Jimi Hendrix expanded the vocabulary of the electric rock guitar more than anyone before or since. Hendrix was a master at coaxing all manner of unforeseen sonics from his instrument, often with innovative amplification experiments that produced astral-quality feedback and roaring distortion. His frequent hurricane blasts of noise and dazzling showmanship -- he could and would play behind his back and with his teeth and set his guitar on fire -- has sometimes obscured his considerable gifts as a songwriter, singer, and master of a gamut of blues, R&B, and rock styles.When Hendrix became an international superstar in 1967, it seemed as if he'd dropped out of a Martian spaceship, but in fact he'd served his apprenticeship the long, mundane way in numerous R&B acts on the chitlin circuit. During the early and mid-'60s, he worked with such R&B/soul greats as Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, and King Curtis as a backup guitarist. Occasionally he recorded as a session man (the Isley Brothers' 1964 single "Testify" is the only one of these early tracks that offers even a glimpse of his future genius). But the stars didn't appreciate his show-stealing showmanship, and Hendrix was straight-jacketed by sideman roles that didn't allow him to develop as a soloist. The logical step was for Hendrix to go out on his own, which he did in New York in the mid-'60s, playing with various musicians in local clubs, and joining white blues-rock singer John Hammond, Jr.'s band for a while.It was in a New York club that Hendrix was spotted by Animals bassist Chas Chandler. The first lineup of the Animals was about to split, and Chandler, looking to move into management, convinced Hendrix to move to London and record as a solo act in England. There a group was built around Jimi, also featuring Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass, that was dubbed the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The trio became stars with astonishing speed in the U.K., where "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," and "The Wind Cries Mary" all made the Top Ten in the first half of 1967. These tracks were also featured on their debut album, Are You Experienced?, a psychedelic meisterwerk that became a huge hit in the U.S. after Hendrix created a sensation at the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967.Are You Experienced? was an astonishing debut, particularly from a young R&B veteran who had rarely sung, and apparently never written his own material, before the Experience formed. What caught most people's attention at first was his virtuosic guitar playing, which employed an arsenal of devices, including wah-wah pedals, buzzing feedback solos, crunching distorted riffs, and lightning, liquid runs up and down the scales. But Hendrix was also a first-rate songwriter, melding cosmic imagery with some surprisingly pop-savvy hooks and tender sentiments. He was also an excellent blues interpreter and passionate, engaging singer (although his gruff, throaty vocal pipes were not nearly as great assets as his instrumental skills). Are You Experienced? was psychedelia at its most eclectic, synthesizing mod pop, soul, R&B, Dylan, and the electric guitar innovations of British pioneers like Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, and Eric Clapton.Amazingly, Hendrix would only record three fully conceived studio albums in his lifetime. Axis: Bold as Love and the double-LP Electric Ladyland were more diffuse and experimental than Are You Experienced? On Electric Ladyland in particular, Hendrix pioneered the use of the studio itself as a recording instrument, manipulating electronics and devising overdub techniques (with the help of engineer Eddie Kramer in particular) to plot uncharted sonic territory. Not that these albums were perfect, as impressive as they were; the instrumental breaks could meander, and Hendrix's songwriting was occasionally half-baked, never matching the consistency of Are You Experienced? (although he exercised greater creative control over the later albums).The final two years of Hendrix's life were turbulent ones musically, financially, and personally. He was embroiled in enough complicated management and record company disputes (some dating from ill-advised contracts he'd signed before the Experience formed) to keep the lawyers busy for years. He disbanded the Experience in 1969, forming the Band of Gypsies with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox to pursue funkier directions. He closed Woodstock with a sprawling, shaky set, redeemed by his famous machine-gun interpretation of "The Star Spangled Banner." The rhythm section of Mitchell and Redding were underrated keys to Jimi's best work, and the Band of Gypsies ultimately couldn't measure up to the same standard, although Hendrix did record an erratic live album with them. In early 1970, the Experience re-formed again -- and disbanded again shortly afterward. At the same time, Hendrix felt torn in many directions by various fellow musicians, record-company expectations, and management pressures, all of whom had their own ideas of what Hendrix should be doing. Coming up on two years after Electric Ladyland, a new studio album had yet to appear, although Hendrix was recording constantly during the period.While outside parties did contribute to bogging down Hendrix's studio work, it also seems likely that Jimi himself was partly responsible for the stalemate, unable to form a permanent lineup of musicians, unable to decide what musical direction to pursue, unable to bring himself to complete another album despite jamming endlessly. A few months into 1970, Mitchell -- Hendrix's most valuable musical collaborator -- came back into the fold, replacing Miles in the drum chair, although Cox stayed in place. It was this trio that toured the world during Hendrix's final months.It's extremely difficult to separate the facts of Hendrix's life from rumors and speculation. Everyone who knew him well, or claimed to know him well, has different versions of his state of mind in 1970. Critics have variously mused that he was going to go into jazz, that he was going to get deeper into the blues, that he was going to continue doing what he was doing, or that he was too confused to know what he was doing at all. The same confusion holds true for his death: contradictory versions of his final days have been given by his closest acquaintances of the time. He'd been working intermittently on a new album, tentatively titled First Ray of the New Rising Sun, when he died in London on September 18, 1970, from drug-related complications.Hendrix recorded a massive amount of unreleased studio material during his lifetime. Much of this (as well as entire live concerts) was issued posthumously; several of the live concerts were excellent, but the studio tapes have been the focus of enormous controversy for over 20 years. These initially came out in haphazard drabs and drubs (the first, The Cry of Love, was easily the most outstanding of the lot). In the mid-'70s, producer Alan Douglas took control of these projects, posthumously overdubbing many of Hendrix's tapes with additional parts by studio musicians. In the eyes of many Hendrix fans, this was sacrilege, destroying the integrity of the work of a musician known to exercise meticulous care over the final production of his studio recordings. Even as late as 1995, Douglas was having ex-Knack drummer Bruce Gary record new parts for the typically misbegotten compilation Voodoo Soup. After a lengthy legal dispute, the rights to Hendrix's estate, including all of his recordings, returned to Al Hendrix, the guitarist's father, in July of 1995.With the help of Jimi's step-sister Janie, Al set up Experience Hendrix to begin to get Jimi's legacy in order. They began by hiring John McDermott and Jimi's original engineer, Eddie Kramer to oversee the remastering process. They were able to find all the original master tapes, which had never been used for previous CD releases, and in April of 1997, Hendrix's first three albums were reissued with drastically improved sound. Accompanying those reissues was a posthumous compilation album (based on Jimi's handwritten track listings) called First Rays of the New Rising Sun, made up of tracks from the Cry of Love, Rainbow Bridge and War Heroes.Later in 1997, another compilation called South Saturn Delta showed up, collecting more tracks from posthumous LPs like Crash Landing, War Heroes, and Rainbow Bridge (without the terrible '70s overdubs), along with a handful of never-before-heard material that Chas Chandler had withheld from Alan Douglas for all those years.More archival material followed; Radio One was basically expanded to the two-disc BBC Sessions (released in 1998), and 1999 saw the release of the full show from Woodstock as well as additional concert recordings from the Band of Gypsies shows entitled Live at the Fillmore East. 2000 saw the release of the Jimi Hendrix Experience four-disc box set, which compiled remaining tracks from In the West, Crash Landing and Rainbow Bridge along with more rarities and alternates from the Chandler cache.The family also launched Dagger Records, essentially an authorized bootleg label to supply harcore Hendrix fans with material that would be of limited commercial appeal. Dagger Records has released several live concerts (of shows in Oakland, Ottawa and Clark University in Massachusetts) and a collection of studio jams and demos called Morning Symphony Ideas. ~ Richie Unterberger & Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide

My Interests

Guitarist with the Rocking Kings, mid-1950s; performed with quintet while in armed forces, c. 1959; performed with the King Kasuals at the El Morocco club and backed R&B performers, Nashville, TN, early 1960s; performed with Curtis Mayfield, Little Richard, Curtis Knight, the Isley Brothers, and many others, 1963-65; signed with PPX Productions, 1965; performed with Jimmy James & the Blue Flames, Cafe Wha?, New York City; formed Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1966; signed with Track Records, 1966; signed in the U.S. with Reprise Records and released group's debut album, Are You Experienced, 1967; performed at Monterey Pop Festival, 1967; dissolved band, 1969; performed at Woodstock Music and Crafts Fair, 1969; formed group Band of Gypsys and released eponymous live album, 1970.

I'd like to meet:

In the few years between his emergence as a solo artist and his death from a barbiturate overdose at the height of his fame, Jimi Hendrix wrought a slew of radical changes on pop music. Arguably the most innovative electric guitarist of all time, he combined the raw passion of the blues, the sonic aggression of hard rock, the aural adventure of psychedelia and modern jazz, and the symphonic lyricism of progressive soul, melding these disparate inclinations into a style that, even when heard in fragments, remains unmistakably his own.Had his instrumental prowess been his only contribution, Hendrix would remain a towering figure in modern music. But he was also a supremely gifted songwriter, as the myriad cover versions of his songs by such diverse artists as Eric Clapton, the Pretenders, Frank Zappa, Rickie Lee Jones, Living Colour, The Cure, jazz composer Gil Evans, and many others attest. When funk pioneer George Clinton was asked by a Rolling Stone interviewer how Hendrix had influenced Clinton's band Funkadelic, he responded, "He was it. He took noise to church."At the time of his death, Hendrix was working desperately on an ambitious project that seemed designed to bridge a dazzling array of musical territories. Though he never completed that record, he did lay the groundwork for a range of bold stylistic hybrids, and he continues to influence those who hear his work. "Hendrix left an indelible, fiercely individual mark on popular music," wrote David Fricke in Rolling Stone, "accelerating rock's already dynamic rate of change in the late 1960s with his revolutionary synthesis of guitar violence, improvisational nerve, spacey melodic reveries and a confessional intensity born of the blues." Indeed, as one of the late musician's friends told the authors of the biography Electric Gypsy, Hendrix revealed, "I sacrifice part of my soul every time I play."The man who would achieve fame as Jimi Hendrix was born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle, Washington, in 1942. His father, Al--a gifted jazz dancer who worked at a number of jobs including landscape gardening--bore much of the responsibility of raising the boy and his brother, Leon, as did their grandmother and various family friends. This was due to the unreliability of Al's wife, Lucille, who drank excessively and would disappear for extended periods. Al Hendrix won custody of his sons and exercised as much discipline as he could, but the boys--young Johnny especially--worshipped their absentee mother; numerous biographers have hypothesized that in later years the guitarist looked to her as his muse. Al later changed his older son's name to James Marshall Hendrix.Jimmy Hendrix wanted a guitar early .. acquiring his first real instrument, he plucked a number of surrogates, including a broom and a one-stringed ukelele. Al at last procured a guitar for him, and the precocious 12-year-old restrung it upside down--as a left-hander, he was forced to turn the instrument in the opposite direction from how it is usually played, which left the low strings on the bottom unless he rearranged them--proceeding to teach himself blues songs from records by greats like B. B. King and Muddy Waters. The guitar rarely left his side and even lay beside him as he slept. By his mid- teens, Hendrix was playing blues and R&B with his band the Rocking Kings. He played behind his back, between his legs, and over his head--as had many blues guitarists before him. Thus he endeared himself to audiences, if not to all musicians.It was therefore a shock to his father and friends when Hendrix joined the armed forces at age 17 and left his guitar behind. He volunteered for the 101st Airborne Division as a paratrooper and was soon jumping out of airplanes (he would later use his instrument to evoke the otherworldly sounds and sensations of freefall). Eventually he sent for his guitar and became the object of much derision and abuse from his peers, who considered Hendrix's extravagant devotion to the instrument freakish.An exception was a young private named Billy Cox. Himself an aspiring bassist with a taste for jazz as well as R&B, Cox overheard guitar music coming from inside a club on the camp that sounded, as he told Electric Gypsy authors Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek, "somewhere between [German classical composer Ludwig von] Beethoven and [blues icon] John Lee Hooker." He immediately suggested that he and Hendrix form a band; soon their quintet was entertaining troops all over the region. Eventually, though, Hendrix tired of army discipline and managed--with the help of a well-timed and overdramatized injury--to obtain a discharge. Cox got out two months later.After a few unproductive months, the two musicians headed for Nashville, Tennessee, which was just gaining a national reputation for its recording scene. Their new band, the King Kasuals--a revamped version of their service combo--landed a regular gig at the El Morocco club. Hendrix rapidly established himself as one of the hottest guitarists in town. At the time, however, he had no confidence in his singing and was content to back R&B artists, among them Curtis Mayfield, whose soulful guitar playing combined rhythm and lead and strongly influenced Hendrix's later balladry.Over the next few years, Hendrix logged time in several R&B road shows--on what came to be known, somewhat disparagingly, as the "Chitlin Circuit"--though he didn't last long with any one act; his wild hair and compelling stage presence often stole the thunder from bandleaders who expected their musicians to play their assigned parts and stay in the background. From the seminal rocker Little Richard, Hendrix lifted much of what would become his signature look as an artist. Richard admired the guitarist's playing but viewed his taste for the limelight as a threat. The Isley Brothers gave Hendrix a bit more freedom; he was allowed to stretch out onstage and contributed a fiery solo to their 1964 single "Testify." The Isley Brothers hit showcases the passion and budding virtuosity that would soon make Hendrix a sensation.Hendrix then played with saxophonist King Curtis and later with friend Curtis Knight (cowriting and recording some sides with the latter that would be exploited after he achieved fame). In 1965 he signed--for a one-dollar advance--a record contract with Knight's manager and PPX Productions head Ed Chalpin, the first of many costly and ill-advised legal entanglements that characterized Hendrix's career. It was around this time that he formed his own group, Jimmy James & the Blue Flames (which included a future member of the psychedelic rock group Spirit), moved to New York, and played endless low-paying gigs at the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. His increasingly daring guitar work would make itself known, however.Linda Keith, then girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, was sufficiently impressed by Hendrix to recommend him to Chas Chandler, bassist for British rock sensations the Animals and an aspiring manager. Chandler was stunned by Hendrix and urged him to come to London. The road-weary Hendrix was justifiably skeptical, but Chandler turned out to be the real thing. Soon the guitarist was en route to the United Kingdom.Chandler suggested changing the spelling of Hendrix's first name to Jimi, though the oft-cited assertion that he made this suggestion on the flight to London may be untrue. In any event, they touched down in September of 1966 and immediately put a band together with two British musicians, guitarist Noel Redding--who came to Chandler's office hoping to audition for the Animals but would, instead, be handed a bass for the first time--and jazz-influenced drummer John "Mitch" Mitchell, who won a coin toss to beat out his only competitor.Mitchell's exuberant, round-the-kit playing combined the frenetic psychedelic blues attack of his most famous British peers with a post-bop virtuosity that recalled Elvin Jones, one-time skinsman for visionary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Many critics would later suggest that the Hendrix-Mitchell chemistry paralleled that between the two jazz players. Thus was born the Jimi Hendrix Experience. "Together, they complemented the rhythmic idiosyncrasies of Hendrix's songs and playing style with their own turbulent blend of hardy soul dynamics and breathtaking acid-jazz breakaways," wrote Rolling Stone's Fricke. "The sound was fluid enough for open-ended jamming yet free of excess instrumental baggage, tight and heavy in the hard- rock clutches."Meanwhile, Hendrix had found his voice not only as a songwriter but as a singer. Both his vocalizing and lyrics were profoundly influenced by folk-rock trailblazer Bob Dylan, whose unpretty plainsong voice and personal, surrealistic writing inspired Hendrix to cover his work--witness the rocking hit version of "All Along the Watchtower"--and to emulate it.The Experience coalesced in a whirlwind couple of weeks, playing its debut gig in Paris opening for French pop star Johnny Hallyday at the Paris Olympia. Having signed with Track Records, they commenced recording their debut album the following month and by December had released their first single, a cover version of the folk-rock standard "Hey Joe." Hendrix's relaxed take on this often frantically rendered song added menace to the violent imagery of the lyrics and lent the title character's flight from justice considerable heft with concise, emotional bursts of lead guitar."Hey Joe" became a hit, and Hendrix proceeded to terrify London's biggest rock stars with his electrifying stage show. "It's the most psychedelic experience I ever had, going to see Hendrix play," guitarist Pete Townshend of The Who told Charles Shaar Murray, author of Crosstown Traffic. "When he started to play, something changed: colours changed, everything changed." Townshend--who claims never to have been a heavy user of psychedelic substances--recalled "flames and water dripping out of the ends of his hands." Eric Clapton, guitar "God" of rock until Hendrix's arrival, invited the young American onstage to play with his group Cream; soon "God" slunk offstage and was found in his dressing room with his head in his hands. Cream later wrote their psychedelic riff-rock smash "Sunshine of Your Love" in tribute to the American firebrand; he eventually adopted it into his live set without knowing he'd inspired it.Unlike Townshend, Hendrix had a special fondness for hallucinogens like LSD and was also an enthusiastic marijuana smoker. In addition, scores of women flocked to him, and his "Wild Man of Borneo" reputation made him seem--to those who didn't know him--like some kind of omnivorous Yank tornado. Yet he is almost universally remembered as a shy, diffident person, occasionally explosive but largely gentle and naive; he was in no way prepared for the stormy sea of fame or the cynical manipulations of the music business. As Shapiro and Glebbeek pointed out in Electric Gypsy, he was dashed between the extremes of sporadic hero worship and institutional racism. "Feted as the greatest rock guitarist in the world, acclaimed as a Dionysian superstud and refused service at the tattiest redneck lunch counters--Jimi Hendrix was treated as superhuman and subhuman, but rarely just human," the authors attest. Even so, he seemed to care little about issues of color and was especially frustrated by the suggestion that he played "white music" or "black music."The Experience's debut album, Are You Experienced?--released in the United States on the Reprise label--was a watershed in popular music, only kept from the top chart position by one of the few albums that arguably exceeds it in importance: the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Hendrix produced a psychedelic rock anthem in the disoriented "Purple Haze," elegiac soul with the ballad "The Wind Cries Mary," R&B brimstone with "Fire," and proto-jazz rock with "Third Stone from the Sun." The U.K. version of the record included the signature Hendrix blues "Red House," released the following year in the United States on a singles collection. Are You Experienced? was an epochal debut, full of innovative studio effects and Hendrix's advanced use of feedback and tremolo. Then, in 1967, the band took the landmark Monterey Pop Festival by storm; Hendrix's ceremonial burning of his guitar--a highly theatrical routine that he somehow invested with the solemnity of a ritual sacrifice--left audiences stunned and appropriately worshipful.Hendrix returned to the United States a hero. Crowds swarmed to watch this "wild man" play with his teeth, play behind his head, make relatively explicit love to--and, with any luck, torch--his Fender Stratocaster, and otherwise update the blues showman tradition with revolutionary fervor. What sometimes got lost in this impressive performance, to Hendrix's eternal dismay, was the music.In the meantime, Chas Chandler made the best of the Experience's disastrous, abortive tour with wholesome TV popsters the Monkees by starting a rumor that the ultraconservative Daughters of the American Revolution had forced out the group. When Hendrix wasn't playing concerts or engaging in marathon studio sessions, he could invariably be found jamming at local clubs with anyone and everyone.The Jimi Hendrix Experience's follow-up album, Axis: Bold as Love, demonstrated Hendrix's balladry and general songcraft to even greater effect, particularly on "Little Wing," which has been covered numerous times. Yet Hendrix was deeply dissatisfied by the way his albums had been cut and mixed and by a number of other factors. The trio format limited him--Redding played the bass parts Hendrix wrote but added little spice to the band dynamic--and he quickly tired of the theatrics audiences had come to expect. When he neglected to play the flashy guitar hero, crowds often grew restless, filling him with frustration and even contempt.Hendrix longed to expand his musical range and to this end began work on the one album over which he exercised complete control, the sprawling double-length Electric Ladyland. Featuring a vast crew of guest players, the epic blues "Voodoo Child," and the plaintive mini- symphony "Burning of the Midnight Lamp"--as well as the hit single "Crosstown Traffic"--it was the most far-reaching achievement of his brief recording career. "You don't care what people say so much," he told Down Beat, "you just go on and do what you want to do." Increasingly, this would not be as easy as Hendrix made it sound.It was at this point that the unscrupulous Ed Chalpin sued Hendrix's management over his 1966 contract with the guitarist, disrupting his affairs for several years. Meanwhile, the enormous recording costs Hendrix had amassed making Electric Ladyland induced Chandler and comanager Mike Jeffreys to build a custom studio--Electric Ladyland Studios--that would be rented out when the guitarist wasn't using it. But this, too, cost a fortune, necessitating endless touring that resulted in extreme road fatigue. The Experience broke up, and Hendrix began working with bassist Cox again, also recruiting drummer Buddy Miles for a soul-rock trio he called Band of Gypsys.In 1969 Hendrix appeared at the famed Woodstock festival in New York state, where his performance of the "Star-Spangled Banner"--complete with apocalyptic guitar noise--captured the anguish of the Vietnam War era and became a legend and a vital component of every time- capsule summary of the period. As Living Colour guitarist and Black Rock Coalition founder Vernon Reid told Crosstown Traffic author Murray, "At that moment, he became one of the greats, like Coltrane or [bop saxophone luminary Charlie] Parker or [woodwind innovator Eric] Dolphy. He plugged into something deep, something beyond good or bad playing. It was just 'there it is.'"Various interested parties hoped to team Hendrix with trumpeter- bandleader-composer Miles Davis, one of the preeminent creative forces in post-bop jazz; though this never materialized, Hendrix did play with a number of musicians in Davis's circle and showed a marked interest in elements of what would come to be called "fusion," an amalgam of jazz and rock. He also declared, in a late interview quoted by Murray, that he wanted a "big band" and expressed the desire for "other musicians to play my stuff," saying, "I want to be a good writer."The Band of Gypsys recorded a live album and, of legal necessity, handed it over to Chalpin; it is the only document of their short- lived band dynamic, one that tantalizingly demonstrates how a different rhythm section affected Hendrix's guitar work. Cox and Miles--who, as black sidemen, symbolized to Hendrix's more literal- minded political advisors a welcome concession to the black militancy of the day--did something Redding and Mitchell hadn't: they grooved. Much of the funk-rock and funk-metal that followed owes a huge debt to this corner of Hendrix's creativity. The scorching "Machine Gun" has been hailed by critics as a masterpiece.But the trio was short-lived; soon Miles was out, Mitchell returned, and Hendrix recorded a number of tracks for what was to be perhaps the fullest realization of the sound he heard in his head: another double album, this one titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun. All available evidence suggests it would have melded soul, jazz, psychedelia, hard rock, and a few styles as yet unimagined. Tragically, after a slew of dispirited performances and perpetual self-medication, Jimi Hendrix died of a sleeping-pill overdose before he could complete the ambitious work. He was buried in Seattle.The Hendrix estate was mired in litigation for many years; Al Hendrix at last found an aggressive lawyer and in 1994--after a protracted struggle--looked to regain control of much of his son's music. In the years after the guitarist's death, hundreds of "new Hendrix albums" appeared, featuring everything from studio outtakes to pre-Experience club performances to rambling interviews. Consumers have gotten the shortest end of the stick, with a sizeable group of what rock industry consensus regards as the ultimate bottom-feeders profiting from these paltry and often grotesquely misrepresented scraps. Such exploitation, however, has scarcely tarnished Jimi Hendrix's shining legacy.Bits and pieces of what would have been First Rays appeared on three of many posthumous releases--The Cry of Love, the soundtrack to the meandering hippie film Rainbow Bridge, and 1995's Voodoo Soup, of which Vibe's Joseph V. Tirella commented, "The title is silly but apt, since this album is a delicious soup of sorts, a bouillabaisse of musical flavors." Of all his posthumous recordings, Voodoo Soup garnered the best general reviews. Entertainment Weekly queried, "Another Hendrix hodgepodge? Yes ... The catch is that this one ... is as fluid and cohesive as a preconceived record, without a bad song in the bunch."In less than four years, Hendrix had established himself as one of the most important figures in pop music history. His influence extends to virtually every corner of contemporary music, from funk to heavy metal to fusion to the "harmolodic" school of New York free jazz to alternative rock. Well into the 1990s, Hendrix's presence on the rock scene practically makes a myth of his physical absence: MCA Records released remastered versions of his classic albums on CD as well as a compilation of his blues pieces and his complete Woodstock set.In 1992 Hendrix was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The following year he received the Grammy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award. And notable rock, rap, and blues artists contributed cover versions of his songs to the high-profile 1993 tribute album Stone Free. That same year Hendrix archivist Bill Nitopi published Cherokee Mist: The Lost Writings, an ensemble of various forms of personal memorabillia including Hendrix's unpublished writings such as letters to family and friends, "never-before-seen" photographs, and notes on unrecorded music. The book title was meant to pay homage to Hendrix's Native American heritage.Hendrix mania even extended into mid-1990s cyberculture when the Jimi Hendrix Foundation created an Internet web site (http://www.wavenet.com/~jhendrix) for afficianados. Named after the classic Hendrix tune "Room Full of Mirrors," the web site was characterized in Newsweek as "part shrine, part fanzine ... [with] high-culture and low-culture perspectives on Hendrix." Considering the amount of unreleased Hendrix music--of varied quality and in the hands of those with varied integrity--he will likely remain as prolific posthumously as any new artist. Meanwhile, his groundbreaking, heartfelt body of work will certainly continue to inspire musicians and listeners with every new rising sun.In September, 1969, Hendrix was apparently kidnapped and held for two days in New York City by two men who appeared to be New York mobsters. The standoff ended when associates of manager Michael Jeffery appeared and peacefully regained custody of Hendrix. No police or media reports of the incident exist, but Hendrix himself retold the story often when confiding with friends or associates about his management problems. He believed that Jeffery staged the kidnapping to bolster his role as manager or as a threat of some kind. The incident had occurred at a time when Hendrix was at odds with Jeffery over the direction of his career, and his recollection was influenced by his drug induced paranoia. Jimi Hendrix Along the Watchtower
..
Add to My Profile | More Videos

Music:

Purple Haze, Manic Depression, Hey Joe, Love or Confusion, May This Be Love, I Don't Live Today, The Wind Cries Mary, Fire, Third Stone from the Sun, Foxey Lady, Are You Experienced, Stone Free, 51st Anniversary, Highway Chile, Can You See Me, Remember, Red House, Voodoo Child, etc... Named pop musician of the year by Melody Maker, 1967 and 1968; voted Billboard artist of the year, 1968; named performer of the year and honored for rock album of the year by Rolling Stone, 1968; presented key to city of Seattle, 1968; elected to Down Beat Hall of Fame in readers' poll, 1970; named rock guitarist of the year, 1970, and received lifetime achievement award, 1983, from Guitar Player; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1992; Lifetime Achievement Award, Grammy Awards, 1993.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.Jimi was also notorious among friends and bandmates for becoming angry and violent when he drank alcohol. Kathy Etchingham spoke of an incident that took place in a London pub in which an intoxicated Hendrix beat her with a public telephone handset because he thought she was calling another man on the payphone. Alcohol was also cited as the cause of Hendrix's 1968 rampage that destroyed a Stockholm hotel room and led to his arrest. Musician Paul Caruso's friendship with Hendrix ended in 1970 when Jimi punched him during an alcohol-fueled argument.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.

Movies:

Jimi Hendrix - Hey Joe
..
Add to My Profile | More Videos Jimi Hendrix (November 27 1942, Seattle, Washington – September 18 1970, London, England) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Hendrix is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists in rock music history.[1] After initial success in England, he achieved worldwide fame following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival before his death in 1970, at the age of 27.A self-taught guitarist, Hendrix played a Fender Stratocaster guitar turned upside down ("left-handed") and restrung to suit him. Hendrix pioneered the technique of guitar feedback with overdriven amplifiers, incorporating into his music what was previously an undesirable sound. He built upon the innovations and influences of blues stylists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Albert King, and T-Bone Walker, and derived style from rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, and Cornell Dupree, as well as from traditional jazz. Part of Hendrix's flamboyant stage persona may have been inspired by rock pioneer Little Richard, with whom he toured as part of Richard's back-up band, "The Upsetters".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 recording.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 1 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003.

Television:

After his release, Hendrix and army friend Billy Cox moved to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, where they formed a band called The King Kasuals. Playing in low-paying gigs at obscure venues, the 'band' eventually moved to Nashville. Playing and sometimes living in the clubs along Jefferson Street, the traditional heart of Nashville's black community and home to a lively rhythm and blues scene offered some sort of 'existence'.[5] 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 Kasuals 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.Frustrated by his experiences in the South, Hendrix decided to try his luck in New York City. Jimi was always inspired by a saying he once heard from his grandmother: "I want to need to have you. First I have to need to want you." In January 1964, he moved to Harlem, where he quickly befriended Lithofayne "Fayne" Pridgeon (who later became his girlfriend) and the Allen twins, Arthur and Albert (now known as Taharqa and Tunde-Ra Aleem). The Allen twins quickly became loyal friends who 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 funk anthem "Freedom". Pridgeon, a beautiful Harlem native with connections throughout the area's music scene, provided Hendrix with shelter, support, and encouragement during the poorest and most desperate years of his life. In February 1964, Hendrix won first prize in the Apollo Theater amateur contest. The win was encouraging, but in general he found breaking into the New York scene difficult.In 1965, Hendrix earned a spot as the new guitarist for the The Isley Brothers' band and joined their national tour, which included the southern Chitlin Circuit. Hendrix played his first successful studio session on the two-part Isley Brothers hit "Testify". In Nashville, he left the Isleys to tour with Gorgeous George Odell. In Atlanta, he earned a spot in the backing band of Little Richard, The Upsetters. Although Hendrix idolized Richard, he clashed frequently with the star over tardiness, wardrobe, and, above all, Hendrix's flashy stage antics. For a short while, Hendrix quit and toured with Ike and Tina Turner, but was quickly fired for playing wild guitar solos and returned to Little Richard's band. Months later, he was banished from The Upsetters after missing the tour bus in Washington, D.C.. Around this time he refined his flamboyant guitar stage style, much of which was influenced by Johnny "Guitar" Watson.In 1965, Hendrix joined a New York-based band, Curtis Knight and the Squires, after meeting Knight in the lobby of a seedy midtown hotel where both men were living at the time. Hendrix then toured for two months with Joey Dee and the Starliters before rejoining the Squires in New York. On October 15, 1965, Hendrix signed a three-year recording contract with entrepreneur Ed Chalpin, receiving $1 and 1% royalty on records with Curtis Knight. 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 was eventually settled.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.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 Brian Jones, 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 it as a unique sonic source, rather than merely an amplified version of the acoustic guitar. Likewise, his feedback and fuzz-laden soloing moved guitar distortion well beyond mere novelty, incorporating effects pedals and units (most notably the wah-wah pedal) with dramatic results.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 ?uestlove, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Ice-T (who covered Hey Joe), El-P and Wyclef Jean. Miles Davis was also deeply impressed by Hendrix and was a major influence on his move to electrified jazz-rock fusion. 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, ranked number one. Hendrix 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.

Books:

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 fee[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.

Heroes:

In the early morning hours of September 18 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.[9]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.Reports that Hendrix's tapes of the concept album Black Gold had been stolen from the London flat are in fact wrong: the tapes were handed to Mitch Mitchell by Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival three weeks prior to his death. Hendrix's Greenwich Village apartment, however, was indeed plundered by an unknown series of vandals who stole numerous personal items, tapes, and countless pages of lyrics and poems, some of which have resurfaced in the hands of collectors or at auctions.The day before Hendrix died, Eric Clapton had found and purchased a left-handed Stratocaster guitar; he had planned on giving it to Hendrix, and was devastated when he learned he would never get the chance.In 1988, Al and Leon Hendrix commissioned the James (Jimi) Marshall Hendrix Foundation. This foundation is based in Renton, Washington and is devoted to helping people in all plights. When Al Hendrix passed in 2002, he donated the 'likeness' of his son Jimi to the foundation to be used in a non-profit manner to assist people less fortunate. In August, 2006 Jimi Hendrix's long-time best friend James (Jimmy) Williams took helm of the Foundation. ..