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| Jimi Hendrix was born in Seattle in 1942 and grew up there
in a middle class neighborhood. When he was 5 years old his father gave him
a guitar which he turned upside down to play (he was left-handed). As a
youth he listened to the music of blues artists Muddy Waters, Elmore James,
and B.B. King. In 1961 he enlisted in the Army and served about a year in
the 101st Airborne before receiving a medical discharge. After leaving the
Army he worked backing up a variety of artists including Sam Cooke, Jackie
Wilson, Little Richard, and the Supremes, before moving to New York in 1964.
There he lead a blues group called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. This
group caught the attention of The Animal's Chas Chandler who urged Hendrix
to relocate to London. There, Chandler hooked him up with Noel Redding and
Mitch Mitchell and got him to use his surname again. In 1966 the Jimi
Hendrix Experience recorded two singles, Hey Joe and Stone Free.
In 1967, they released their first album called Are You Experienced?
and it reached #2 in the UK. The group made its U.S. debut at the Monterrey
Pop Festival concluding their performance with Hendrix lighting his guitar
on fire. Incredibly, the group was booked to tour with The Monkees but left
the tour after eight gigs.
Over the next two years Hendrix toured incessantly. After Redding and
Mitchell left his band, Hendrix formed another group, Band of Gypsys. In
August of 1969 he performed his now famous version of the Star Spangled
Banner at Woodstock.
Increasingly alienated and disillusioned, Hendrix died in London in 1970
having choked on his own vomit after taking barbiturates. During his short
but meteoric career, Hendrix redefined the electric guitar---no one since
has surpassed his creative genius.
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