James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 as a part of his band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience; the institution describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music".
Hendrix began playing guitar at age 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the Chitlin' Circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires.
Hendrix moved to England in late 1966, after bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals became his manager. Within months, he formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience (with its rhythm section consisting of bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell) and achieved three UK top-ten hits: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary". He achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. His third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland (1968), became his most successful release and his only number-one album on the US Billboard 200 chart. The world's highest-paid rock musician, Hendrix headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. He died in London from barbiturate-related asphyxia in September 1970, at the age of 27.
Hendrix was inspired by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in popularizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units in mainstream rock, such as fuzz distortion, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe. He was the first musician to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings. Rolling Stone wrote: "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began."
Ancestry and childhood
Hendrix was of African-American and Cherokee descent. His paternal grandfather, Bertran Philander Ross Hendrix, was born in 1866 from an extramarital affair between a woman named Fanny and a wealthy grain merchant.: (primary source); , : (secondary source). Hendrix's paternal grandmother, Zenora "Nora" Rose Moore, was a dancer and vaudeville performer who co-founded Fountain Chapel in Hogan's Alley. Hendrix and Moore relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where they had a son they named James Allen Hendrix on June 10, 1919; the family called him "Al".: Jimi's father's full name; : Al Hendrix's birthdate; : Hendrix family tree.
In 1941, after moving to Seattle, Washington, Al met Lucille Jeter at a dance; they married on March 31, 1942.: Al and Lucille meeting at a dance in 1941; : Al and Lucille married in 1942. Lucille's father (Jimi's maternal grandfather) was Preston Jeter, whose mother was born in similar circumstances as Bertran Hendrix. Lucille's mother, Clarice (née Lawson), had African-American ancestors who had been slaves. Al, who had been drafted by the US Army to serve in World War II, left to begin his basic training three days after the wedding.: Al went to basic training three days after the wedding. (secondary source); : Al went to war three days after the wedding. (primary source). Johnny Allen Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle; he was the first of Lucille's five children. In 1946, Johnny's parents changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix, in honor of Al and his late brother Leon Marshall.
Stationed in Alabama at the time of Hendrix's birth, Al was denied the standard military furlough afforded servicemen for childbirth; his commanding officer placed him in the stockade to prevent him from going AWOL to see his infant son. He spent two months locked up without trial, during which he received a telegram announcing his son's birth. During Al's three-year absence, Lucille struggled to raise their son. Hendrix was mostly cared for by family members and friends, especially Lucille's sister Delores Hall and her friend Dorothy Harding.; . Al received an honorable discharge from the US Army on September 1, 1945. Two months later, unable to find Lucille, Al went to the Berkeley, California, home of a family friend named Mrs. Champ, who had taken care of and attempted to adopt Hendrix; this is where Al saw his son for the first time.; .
After returning from service, Al reunited with Lucille, but his inability to find steady work left the family impoverished. They both struggled with alcohol, and often fought when intoxicated. The violence sometimes drove Hendrix to withdraw and hide in a closet in their home. His relationship with his brother Leon (born 1948) was close but precarious; with Leon in and out of foster care, they lived with an almost constant threat of fraternal separation.: Leon's birthdate; : Leon, in and out of foster care. In addition to Leon, Hendrix had three younger siblings: Joseph, born in 1949, Kathy in 1950, and Pamela in 1951, all of whom Al and Lucille gave up to foster care and adoption. The family frequently moved, staying in cheap hotels and apartments around Seattle. On occasion, family members would take Hendrix to Vancouver to stay at his grandmother's. A shy and sensitive boy, he was deeply affected by his life experiences. In later years, he confided to a girlfriend that he had been the victim of sexual abuse by a man in uniform. On December 17, 1951, when Hendrix was nine years old, his parents divorced; the court granted Al custody of him and Leon.
First instruments At Horace Mann Elementary School in Seattle during the mid-1950s, Hendrix's habit of carrying a broom with him to emulate a guitar gained the attention of the school's social worker. After more than a year of his clinging to a broom like a security blanket, she wrote a letter requesting school funding intended for underprivileged children, insisting that leaving him without a guitar might result in psychological damage. Her efforts failed, and his father, Al, refused to buy him a guitar.
In 1957, while helping his father with a side-job, Hendrix found a ukulele among the garbage they were removing from an older woman's home. She told him that he could keep the instrument, which had only one string. Learning by ear, he played single notes, following along to Elvis Presley songs, particularly "Hound Dog".: Hendrix playing along with "Hound Dog" (secondary source); : Hendrix playing along with Presley's version of "Hound Dog" (primary source); : Hendrix playing along with Presley songs (primary source). By the age of 33, Hendrix's mother Lucille had developed cirrhosis of the liver, and on February 2, 1958, she died when her spleen ruptured. Al refused to take James and Leon to attend their mother's funeral; he instead gave them shots of whiskey and told them that was how men should deal with loss. In 1958, Hendrix completed his studies at Washington Junior High School and began attending, but did not graduate from, Garfield High School.: Hendrix did not graduate from James A. Garfield High School; : Hendrix completed his studies at Washington Middle School.
In mid-1958, at age 15, Hendrix acquired his first acoustic guitar, for $5 (). He played for hours daily, watching others and learning from more experienced guitarists, and listening to blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, and Robert Johnson.: (primary source); : (secondary source). The first tune Hendrix learned to play was the television theme "Peter Gunn".: (primary source); : (secondary source). Around that time, Hendrix jammed with boyhood friend Sammy Drain and his keyboard-playing brother. In 1959, attending a concert by Hank Ballard & The Midnighters in Seattle, Hendrix met the group's guitarist Billy Davis. Davis showed him some guitar licks and got him a short gig with the Midnighters. The two remained friends until Hendrix's death in 1970.
Soon after he acquired the acoustic guitar, Hendrix formed his first band, the Velvetones. Without an electric guitar, he could barely be heard over the sound of the group. After about three months, he realized that he needed an electric guitar. In mid-1959, his father relented and bought him a white Supro Ozark. Hendrix's first gig was with an unnamed band in the Jaffe Room of Seattle's Temple De Hirsch, but they fired him between sets for showing off. He joined the Rocking Kings, which played professionally at venues such as the Birdland club. When his guitar was stolen after he left it backstage overnight, Al bought him a red Silvertone Danelectro.
Military service
Before Hendrix was 19 years old, law authorities had twice caught him riding in stolen cars. Given a choice between prison or joining the Army, he chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961.: Hendrix choosing the Army over jail; : Hendrix's enlistment date; : Hendrix was twice caught in stolen cars. After completing eight weeks of basic training at Fort Ord, California, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.: Hendrix completed eight weeks of basic training at Fort Ord, California; : the Army stationed Hendrix at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He arrived on November 8, and soon afterward he wrote to his father: "There's nothing but physical training and harassment here for two weeks, then when you go to jump school ... you get hell. They work you to death, fussing and fighting." In his next letter home, Hendrix, who had left his guitar in Seattle at the home of his girlfriend Betty Jean Morgan, asked his father to send it to him as soon as possible, stating: "I really need it now." His father obliged and sent to Fort Campbell the red Silvertone Danelectro on which Hendrix had hand-painted the words "Betty Jean."; . Hendrix's apparent obsession with the instrument contributed to his neglect of his military duties, which led to taunting and physical abuse from his peers who, at least once, hid the guitar from him until he begged for its return. In November 1961, fellow serviceman Billy Cox walked past an army club and heard Hendrix playing inside. Impressed by Hendrix's technique, which Cox described as a combination of "John Lee Hooker and Beethoven", Cox borrowed a bass guitar and the two jammed. Within weeks, they began performing at base clubs on the weekends with other musicians in a loosely organized band called the Casuals.