JIMI HENDRIX- THE EARLY YEARS

On November 27, 1942, a little boy was born to James and Lucille Hendrix. At the Seattle King County Hospital,
James Allen Hendrix was born at 10:15 am. Lucille was in delicate health and was barely eighteen.
She was poor and had no home. Her new husband James was a private in the US Army far away in Alabama.
Jimi was to be three years old before James(Al) was discharged.
Jimi had been shunted around among friends and relatives all of his early life,
while his mother drank heavily and ran with a bad crowd.
When Al returned, he and Lucille were reunited.
They settled and raised Jimi as a family. In November of 1946, Jimi’s father changed Jimi’s
name to James Marshall Hendrix in honor of his dead uncle.
During this happy period in Jimi’s life, music entered his world.
Jimi remembered his parents practicing dance moves to the sound of Duke Ellington.
His parents entered dance contests often, and his father tap danced with touring shows.
Jimi also sang with the Church of Christ and God. While Jimi was in kindergarten(‘48),
Al went back to school to train as an electrician, under his GI bill, and Lucille watched Jimi and Leon.
But unfortunately, money was short. Lucille would often disappear for days at a time.
Over the next three years, Jimi and Leon witnessed arguments, separations, and reunions.
On December 17 of 1951, Al and Lucille divorced. Al gained custody of Jimi, Leon,
and Joseph (born in 1949, but was fostered out most of the time).
The boys seldom lived at home and were frequently “shunted” among relatives and friends.
“Eventually, Al simply couldn’t cope with the two children and placed Leon in a foster home.”
This hurt Jimi greatly.
Leon was Jimi’s only “constant security”, and sensitive Jimi became even more withdrawn;
he also developed a stutter as well.
Jimi retreated into a world of fantasy; he would often pretend to be a sci-fi hero.
“At school, he escaped through poetry and art” Jimi was beginning to develop the inner world
that would later influence his song writing.
By the age of eight, Jimi was showing signs of musical talent.
He would pick up a broom and strum it like a guitar, and accompany it with the sound of
Elvis Presley song lyrics. Jimi would even take the broom to school.
One day, while Al was doing yardwork, he found an old ukulele.
He restrang it and gave it to Jimi in 1955. Just as Jimi was beginning to express himself,
he suffered a tragic blow.
In December of 1957, Jimi’s mother Lucille went in and out of the hospital in Seattle, diagnosed with
cirrhosis of the liver. Jimi saw her often and proudly showed her his latest artwork.
Early in 1958, Lucille went back into the hospital. On February 2,1958, “Lucille died
of a ruptured spleen brought on by a failing liver. Jimi did not attend the
funeral ostensibly because there was no one to take him.”
At the age of 15, fragile Jimi lost his mother, but in the aftermath of that tragedy, a rare talent was to be born.
“In the year of his mother’s death, Jimi Hendrix got his first guitar.” In the fall of 1958,
Jimi joined his first band, The Velvetones.
During the summer of 1959, Al bought Jimi an electric guitar, which allowed
Jimi to play in a different band, The Rocking Kings;
Jimi made his live debut with them. After Jimi dropped out of high school in
October of 1960, he joined the US Army by lying about his age.
On October 31,1961, Jimi joined the 101st Airborne Division and starts
parachute training. During his 26th jump, Jimi broke his ankle and had to leave the army.

THE BEGINNING OF A LEGEND

Jimi then goes to Nashville as a musician-for-hire in October of 1962. These few years (1962-66) are rich
in Jimi’s musical development.
Jimi played in backup bands for The Isley Brothers, Jackie Wilson, Little Richard,
B.B.King, and Ike & Tina Turner.
Jimi said,” But it was not me, but the others who got famous.” In June of 1966,
Jimi forms the band Jimmy James and The Blue Flames.
During a performance of the band at the Cafe Wha? in Manhattan, Keith Richards’ girlfriend,
Linda Keith, tries to interest The Rolling Stones’ manager in Jimi.
Her attempts fail, but she didn’t give up. Linda brought The Animal’s bassist,
Chas Chandler along with his partner Mike Jeffery in to see Jimi.
They were interested in Jimi, and Chas offered to manage him. Chas told Jimi, ”I
believe you’ll be a great sensation in England.
If you agree I’ll pay your fare to London, look after you and manage your affairs.”
Jimi replied,” Well, if you take me to England you’ve gotta take me to meet Eric Clapton.”
This apparently clinched the deal. When Jimi and Chas arrived in London, Chas
found gigs in nightclubs immediately.
Chas introduced Jimi to Mick Jagger and The Beatles, John Lennon became one of Jimi’s biggest fans ;
he arranged for a jam session with Cream, Eric Clapton’s band.
Eric was impressed with Jimi and remembered being blown away.
While Jimi was playing in the nightclubs, he met future bassist,
Noel Redding, on September 29,1966;
he also met drummer Mitch Mitchell, and the three founded the band The
Jimi Hendrix Experience on October 5,1966.

THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE

The Experience played live for the first time in Evreux, which is near Paris,
on October 13,1966. After returning to London, they record “Hey Joe” with producer Chas Chandler
on October 23. On February 3,1967, they record “Purple Haze” and work on “The Wind Cries Mary”.
March 31st, The Experience began a controversial UK tour with the Walker Brothers.
The Walker Brothers were on their farewell tour and were major English sex symbols.
Chas thought Jimi could take over their position as sex symbols, if they timed it right.
They worked on a flamboyant, sexual act which would make Jimi famous for being a “wild man”.
When Chas saw the audiences’ reaction and the stir in the press, he knew they had hit the jackpot and used it.
Jimi did not take the act seriously; he only wanted his music to be heard. His manager said it
was the only way for him to be successful, especially since he was black. Jimi played the game,
unaware of the problems it would cause later. The following are articles involving the tour:
“Last year a musician...were brought to London where he got a serious breakthrough. This is all
about Jimi Hendrix, who climbed high on the charts from hi first record ‘Hey Joe’. At the moment
the follower ‘Purple Haze’ is among the five most sold records in England....
Jimi Hendrix sometimes plays so temperamental, that his...amplifier explodes, as it
happened a concert in England last month.”(Eksra Bladet5-15-67) “It is gonna be a pop-weekend
for popfans....Sunday the big name in British pop Jimi Hendrix gives a concert in Falkoner Centret...
.He is a big name in England ...his guitar playing are better than most pop people,
he has more blues feeling, it is more directly and artistic....”(Berlingske Tidende5-17-67)
“On Sunday the worlds most sensational guitarist Jimi Hendrix and his group The Jimi
Hendrix Experience will give their first concert in Denmark in Falkoner Centret in Kobenhavn.
Jimi Hendrix is known for a stage show that is prohibited in several areas in England.
”(Borge5-18-67) The following is my personal favorite of the newspaper articles.
“With the most provoking performance ever seen on a Danish stage, Jimi Hendrix
drew in a capacity crowd with his electrified sex, last night at the Falkoner.
There was such a violent reaction, that his rape attempts on the amplifier and
the guitar seemed to have worked organically on each individual. Hendrix plays
with his teeth, he simply puts the guitar strings to his mouth and bites them.
The elbows are used for rubbing the strings- and in every case it is the master who is playing.
Jimi Hendrix must be seen and experienced. It is true that his music is in a special class,
but it is just as much his overall performing, behavior, and appearance which makes him a phenomenon.
”(AK5-22-67) “... in 67 he came to Sweden. Sweden was a test, if it went great for him they would stake a
lot on him internationally. The same with the Beatles in 63. They made
their first foreign tour in Sweden before they tried the USA....
Fifteen thousand showed up for Jimi’s first concert at Grona Lund, audience record in all classes.
Later he played... in Stockholm 67 and as many people showed up.” ( Vi i tonaren9-6-70) On June 18,1967 The
Experience played their first American concert, at the Monterey Pop Festival in
California. They were very successful and became a hot act in America as well. July 8,1967,
Hendrix and The Experience began their first US tour, with The Monkees. The tour was a
mismatch, because The Monkees drew a younger audience (often younger than nine). On July
16,1967, Hendrix and The Experience played their last date on the tour,
because of supposed complaints about obscenities by the Daughters of The American
Revolution. Nevertheless, Jimi became a sensation world-wide. One Danish newspaper
wrote: “1967 will be remembered...Beatles had to leave the 1st place on the British top-20-charts.
First because of Engelbert Humpeldinck....‘Hump was soon expelled by Jimi Hendrix. Jimi meant
something new to popmusic.”(Vi Unge8-31-67) In the year of 1966, two albums are released by Jimi Hendrix and The
Experience. They are: “Are You Experienced” and “Axis: Bold as Love”. Jimi toured into the beginning of 1968.
“On the concertfront, the new year will start with nothing less than THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE....
The tickets to the...show were sold out in three days. The guitar-dynamo, Hendrix, became one of
the beatworld’s biggest names in 1967...because of his untraditional treatment of the guitar and
because of those space-sounds he gets from it.”(Politiken1-3-68)
“The English critics call Jimi Hendrix, guitarist and vocalist, for a genius.
The man who has added a new dimension...says ‘I think that I would like to run away from it all...and just study music.’”(BT1-4-68)
On January 4,1968, Jimi is arrested in Gothenburg, Sweden for damaging his hotel room.
Jimi gave the following interview a few days later: “I will perform in Stockholm and on Tuesday I will be back in Gothenburg to clear up this incident.
Something like this has never happened before....Someone must have put some kind of tablet in my glass, otherwise I would never have become like that.
...Everything has gone so fast, I have never had a chance to relax....I want peace and quietness and maybe write the pop musical I have in mind.”(Expressen1-8-68)
As you can tell, Jimi was tired and was beginning to grow weary of touring. Unfortunately, his managers kept booking tours without telling him.
The album “Electric Ladyland” was released in 1968. Jimi wanted a picture of the band on the cover;
a controversial one with naked women on the cover was released by his managers in order to preserve his image.
The ploy worked. The following article tells about the wild cover:
“Pop music in England gets wilder and wilder and Jimi Hendrix is the wildest one.
In the tough world of pop music, in which it gets harder to sell records, he releases an LP with a lot of naked bodies on the cover.
...To advertise the record and to ‘electrify the dying pop music’ Jimi Hendrix now plays a lot of concerts to promote the new style.”(Expressen2-11-69)
In the beginning of 1969, “Jimi Hendrix Experience is one of the world’s best playing and paid concertnames of today.”(Berlingske Tidende1-8-69)
Jimi had not lost any of his fame, but he began trying to change his image. To his disadvantage,
all of his efforts were stopped by his management, aware the image brought in money.
On May 3,1969, Jimi was arrested for possession of heroin at the Toronto Airport.
He went on trial and was found not guilty when a witness said someone put them in Jimi’s bag, Jimi unaware. June 29,1969,
The Experience give their final show together; they were having musical differences and decided to split up.

AFTER THE EXPERIENCE

On August 18,1969, Jimi Hendrix and the Gypsy Sons & Rainbows Band headlined
Woodstock. Jimi Hendrix got paid $32,000 for Woodstock while all of the
other performers got $15,000.
Hendrix was to be the finale of Woodstock. His contract said no one could
follow him. At around 9am, Jimi launched into the national anthem-
a moment which would go into the history of rock and roll. After Woodstock,
Jimi forms The Band of Gypsys and goes on tour.
“Jimi Hendrix is now so avant-garde that he plays above most popheads. It
was hard to follow when the...guitar and improvisations go where only Jimi is.
His style has been copied by thousands of more or less equilibristic guitarists.
But no one has made a meaningful collage of all his glides on the fingerboard.
One example is...his version of the ‘Starspangled Banner’.”(Goteborgs Handels9-1-70)

HIS LAST YEAR

The Band of Gypsys disbanded early in 1970.
In March, Mitch Mitchell returned to Jimi’s group along with Billy Cox, a bass player Jimi knew from
his days in the army; they form the Cry Of Love Band. The Cry Of Love Band go on tour
for the first part of 1970, and on August 1 Jimi gave his last performance.
On August 26, Jimi’s studio complex, The Electric Lady, is opened in New York.
Jimi then flew to England, on tour there.

HIS DEATH

The night before his death Jimi stayed at his fiancee’s, Monika Danneman.
They got home at 8:15pm and had dinner with wine. They discussed their plans
to marry, and Jimi wrote a poem to Monika before she took him to a party at 1:15am. At 3:00am,
Monika went to pick him up, when he came out he emptied his pockets and showed her all of the drugs
people had tried to give him. They came home, talked for several hours and than Monika fell asleep.
Jimi had a hectic day ahead
of him, so he took nine Vesperax pills (the average dose was a half pill,
but Jimi had taken two a few days prior to this and it took over an hour
to take effect).
Monika woke up the next day and Jimi was sleeping. Later, Jimi was on his
side, and she noticed a trickle of fluid coming out of his mouth- he was
still alive though.
She called the ambulance and it arrived at 11:27am; they took Jimi to the
ambulance, put him on his back, and went to the Mary Abbots Hospital. Jimi
arrived at the hospital at
11:45am, and was pronounced dead at 12:45pm. Private funeral services were
held September 31,1970, at the Dunlap Baptist Church with the Rev.
Blackburn performing the ceremony. Jimi is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in
Renton Washington. The following article was wrote about his death:
“Jimi Hendrix is dead. That’s only four words, but their pretty heavy.
Twenty-seven years old, he had a lot in front of him.
...It’s not easy creating...Listen to the Redding-Hendrix Monterey LP...
dig him talking to the people. That was his first big gig in the US- he was
established in England,
but hardly heard of here. He puts himself down and at times almost pleads
with the audience. Later he would...walk off-stage when there were equipment
hassles....
But it wasn’t just an ego trip- he really cared about getting the right
sound....His guitar and life style have left a permanent dent on rock music.
He was here for awhile,
he changed the heads of anybody who ever tripped with him...and now he’s
gone for awhile.”(Circus Magazine12-70)

MISCONCEPTIONS

1. Jimi was a drug addict.
Jimi never used any hard drugs. Jimi only used marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes,
and only experimented with LSD a few times. “If Jimi is to be called a drug
addict, then everyone who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic” (Monika Danneman).

2. “Purple Haze” was wrote about drugs.
This is completely false. He wrote it about a dream. He was walking under the
sea, surrounded by purple haze. He became lost and Jesus saved him . The
song was originally called “Purple Haze-Jesus saves.”

3. Jimi died of a heroin overdose.
Jimi died of suffocation due to the inhalation of vomit.
He had no heroin needle marks-the marks of a heroin user never leave.

4. Jimi committed suicide.
Jimi took 9 vesperax pills. Several doctors have confirmed that it
was not a lethal amount. There were 45 pills in the packet; if he was
to commit suicide, he would have taken more than 9.

HIS IMPACT

Jimi Hendrix was without a doubt one of the most original, most inspired
artists who ever lived. but Jimi felt people did not understand him,
Jimi was not granted enough time to alter the skillfully manipulated
image which had been thrust upon him by his management. Jimi was very a very
spiritual person. He sometimes referred to his music as “sky church music,”
because he felt music could unite people by drawing them towards the
spiritual
world and God . Jimi was not a missionary though; he was a poet with a
mission. “To this day, Jimi Hendrix is considered one of rock’s greatest
guitarists. His innovations may, in fact, have not been equaled... Hendrix
was a brilliant songwriter, penning one classic after another. His influence
can be felt throughout rock, from metal to alternative’”(Addicted to Noise).
“Jimi Hendrix was the most influential and most imitated
guitarist of rock’n’roll, harnessing distortion and feedback and adopting a
psychedelic image that defined the ‘60’s”. As of today, Jimi has three songs
in the Hall of Fame: ‘Purple Haze,’’All Along The Watchtower,’ and
‘Voodoo Child’(Slight Return). “As for radical innovators in the history of
African-American music, the amazing Jimi Hendrix deserves a unique place.
He re-invented the electric guitar, no-one who has played it since has been unmoved.
In a few short years, he had converted guitar solos mired in the blues and
the comparatively undisciplined rock playing into a domineering, aggressive,
controlling lead sound. His use of devices such as the wah-wah pedal have virtually
prohibited their use except to imitate Jimi himself, so complete was his dominance.
No rock player today plays without his influence....Hendrix’s was a new idea, something
spiritual that radiated not only over his guitar, but over all instruments. The new electrifying
aggressiveness of sound stems from Hendrix and concerns not only all guitarists who follow him.
It also concerns, for example, the best electric pianists in contemporary jazz;
it even concerns the horn men who use electronics--insofar as they use them more
imaginatively than merely for “effect.”(African American Baseline Essay) Jimi is
constantly being rediscovered by new generations. Over 60% of Hendrix’s fans are 21 or
younger. Over 2 million records of Jimi have been sold in each year after his death.
Even today, Jimi still performs. Not live, but by virtual reality. “The first time I heard Jimi Hendrix,
he made me forget everyone else. He somehow reinvented every musical sound that came before him.
Nobody in the world has played the guitar like that since...”(USA Today 94) There
have even been days set in his honor: “Jimi Hendrix, pioneering guitarist, of the 1960’s...
Jimi Hendrix...continues to be mourned by music lovers everywhere;