One of the greatest guitarists, Jimi Hendrix created a completely new landscape of sound and color, developed blues in a modern context, and opened out the structure of rock music. Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1942. Drawn to blues and rock ‘n’ roll through radio and records, he acquired his first guitar at the age of 12 and was playing with local bands by the age of 16. In 1962, he turned professional, working with many leading figures in black music, including Wilson Pickett, The Isley Brothers, and Ike and Tina Turner. In 1965, Hendrix moved to New York City, where he played around the bars and clubs, eventually forming his own group, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. A year later, Chas Chandler, bassist with The Animals, saw Hendrix playing in Greenwich Village at the Cafe Wha?, and persuaded him to move to England to develop his career.

UK SCENE

Jimi Hendrix arrived in England in September 1966, and within days was introduced to the London music scene and encouraged by Chas Chandler to sit in with bands. An extraordinary guitarist and a spectacular showman, he was an immediate sensation. Hendrix had absorbed stage gimmicks from his time on the black music circuit, playing the guitar behind his back and the strings with his teeth. His personality shone through in his playing, and he was able to convey humor as well as great depth. Many leading pop musicians, including The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, were fascinated by his elemental energy and intensity. With encouragement from Chandler, Hendrix began auditioning musicians for the rhythm section of a group that would feature him on guitar. He eventually chose bass player Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. With Redding’s bass as an anchor, and Mitchell’s flamboyant, improvisational style combining jazz and rock techniques, they provided the perfect foil for Hendrix’s guitar.

The new group was called The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Chas Chandler persuaded Hendrix to sing and develop his own material. After rehearsing intensively they played their first live dates in France during October and started recording. Their debut single was “Hey Joe”; a second single, “Purple Haze,” and its B-side “51st Anniversary,” were recorded in January 1967. Just before this session, Hendrix had met Roger Mayer, an electronics engineer who had developed new sound effects for the guitar. These can be heard on “Purple Haze,” a dramatic, powerful rock number defined by the overdriven, heavy sound of the guitar. The opening tritone motif is followed by sweeping melodic riffs, strong crunching chords, and octave fills. “The Wind Cries Mary,” a haunting ballad with ascending chords and a sensitive, delicately transparent solo, was also recorded in January, and released as the group’s third single.

FIRST EXPERIENCE RECORDINGS

With Chas Chandler acting as their producer, The Experience went into De Lane Lea Studios in Kingsway, London, in October 1966 to record their first tracks. The group recorded a cover of “Hey Joe,” a song with tragic lyrics by Billy Roberts that was planned as a single. It is a slow ballad featuring an emotional guitar solo using clean guitar sound with bluesy, vocal melodiousness. For the B-side, Hendrix wrote “Stone Free,” a complete contrast to “Hey Joe,” with distorted texture, a driving funky edge, and an electrifying fast solo. “Hey Joe” was released in December as the group was playing its first major run of UK dates, and reached number 6 in the UK pop charts in January 1967.

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?

Between October 1966 and April 1967, the band accumulated material for their first album Are You Experienced? (1967), which features Jimi Hendrix’s varied and inventive compositions and inspirational playing. The recorded sound has a warm immediacy and is full of techniques and effects with extreme tremolo-arm pitch variations, sound processing such as distortion, echo and reverb and tape manipulation, including changes in speed and backward passages that give strange sounds and create a futuristic otherworldliness. “Foxy Lady” opens with rattling notes and simmering feedback before the chords crash in, bringing a warm power and sensuality. Sinuous, sustaining line-bending and wailing tremolo-arm effects dominate “Love or Confusion,” and “I Don’t Live Today” floats along over ethereal sonic excursions. Cutoff riffs build tension on the fast, complex “Manic Depression” that rides on a driving 3/4 rhythm, and Hendrix plays an ascending line that breaks into a wild, primeval solo. The slow “Red House” is full of expressive blues breaks with a Smokey sound and echo. The songs show that Hendrix was an individualistic writer with a keen awareness of the effectiveness of arrangements. Guitar overdubs provide extra parts and fill out the sound.

On the second album, Axis: Bold as Love (1967), Hendrix further extends his sound with electronic experimentation on the way-out “EXP,” and uses wah-wah on “Up from the Skies.” Among the highlights is “Little Wing,” which has beautiful melodic chords, often with added hammer-ons and pull-offs, and a dramatic detuning drops before the solo. Sliding figures, chordal backdrops, and backward guitar define “Castles Made of Sand,” and “If 6 Was 9″ is minimalist rock with episodes of open exploration. The acerbic “Little Miss Lover” features a churning funkiness with muting, and a variety of tones with screaming lines and vocal wah-wah; chopped, rock-funk rhythms and fast strumming characterize “You Got Me Floatin’.”

LIVE

When Hendrix returned to the US in June 1967 to play at the Monterey Pop Festival, he was virtually unknown and vowed to “pull out all the stops.” One of his set’s highlights was “Wild Thing,” where Hendrix smashed his guitar against the amplifiers to generate chords and open atonal sections before pouring lighter fluid over the instrument and setting it on fire then he smashed it to pieces and threw them into the stunned audience.

In August 1969, Hendrix played the Woodstock Festival with an extended lineup including Billy Cox, who replaced Noel Redding on bass. Hendrix put in a stunning performance, full of improvisational brilliance, and his set contained one of the defining moments in pop culture. As a protest against the Vietnam War, he plays a savage version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” screeching, avant-garde interjections with feedback and whistling turning it into a mocking parody with a grotesque, surrealist edge.

Toward the end of the year, Hendrix formed a new group, called The Band of Gypsys, with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums. They can be heard on the album Band of Gypsys (1970) that features their debut concert, recorded live at Fillmore East in New York City on New Year’s Eve 1970. With simplified, funky drumming, the overall sound is heavy and bassy in comparison to that of The Experience. The grim “Machine Gun” opens with solo guitar heavy with restrained foreboding and Hendrix plays a recurring chopped staccato figure to mimic gunfire. His solo is contorted and full of darkness and pain, with passages of flowing wah-wah, wobbling notes and exclamatory phrasing. In contrast, the upbeat “Power to Love” has a nasal sharpness, with wah-wah and shaking notes.

A few weeks after playing at the Isle of Wight Festival in England in August 1970, Jimi Hendrix died in Notting Hill, London, from a mixture of drugs and alcohol.

LATER ALBUMS

After Hendrix died, a number of records were released containing both finished and unfinished studio tracks. Collections of some of these tracks were released as the albums Rainbow Bridge (1971) and the Cry Of Love (1971). Highlights include “Freedom,” exuberant with funky riffs, the cathartic “Room Full Of Mirrors,” and the capriciously humourous “Dolly Dagger,” with its fast fills, high-register melodic chord additions, and heavily processed solo sound. Hendrix’s gentle, reflective spirituality can be heard on the gently breaking chords and melodic fills of the sublime “Angel,” and on the soft, flowing “Drifting,” that features colorful harmonic changes.

Among the outstanding live albums are Hendrix in the West (1972) and Live At Winterland (1987).There are many studio tapes that show he was always pushing the boundaries and developing with extensive jam sessions with various guests which move toward open-ended jazz. Hendrix left a large body of great work that sounds as vibrant and powerful today as it did back in his heyday.

ELECTRIC LADYLAND

Tracks for this important and innovative album were initially laid down in London and produced by Chas Chandler before Hendrix eventually took over as producer with engineer Eddie Kramer and finished it in New York City in August 1968. On some tracks, Hendrix worked obsessively, recording over 40 takes. In addition to Mitchell and Redding, the album features guests, including Steve Winwood and Jack Casady.

AND THE GODS MADE LOVE (Hendrix)
Described by Hendrix as “a 90-second sound painting of the heavens,” the album’s opening track features backward tapes and echo with drum sounds and voice slowed down.

HAVE You EVER BEEN (TO ELECTRIC LADYLAND) (Hendrix)
This track has a spacey, effect-laden, drifting quality with short melodic fills, a languorous solo, and backward guitar.

CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC (Hendrix)
One of the most exciting and focused tracks, this is driven by a tremendous rhythm and the guitar is mixed with a kazoo sound for the melodic riff.

VOODOO CHILE (Hendrix)
This track opens with a thick-textured, blues-guitar sound. With organ and relaxed groove from the bass and drums, Hendrix plays melodic fills around the vocal before going into a series of open-ended guitar solos that build in intensity.

LITTLE MISS STRANGE (Redding)
Redding plays acoustic guitar parts, and Hendrix adds slide fills and an unusual-sounding melody before going into a solo with varied sections, from dry sounds to a searing sustain, muted staccato, and a rhythmic wah-wah interlude.

LONG HOT SUMMER NiGHt (Hendrix)
This opens with a burning guitar sound followed by a vocal, backed by blues fills. Hendrix takes a blues solo and builds up behind the vocals, before going out with a vibrating, picking solo.

COME ON (LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL) (King)
This has abrasive, distorted rock riffs with a funky rhythmic drive and inspired uptempo solos with wah-wah, and fast-strummed upper-register passages with chords and octaves.

GYPSY EYES (Hendrix)
The coruscating edginess of this track is created by a combination of searing downward slide and guitar lines with vocal and muted rhythmic fills. It goes into a heavy bass-and-drum backing with guitar rhythms and soaring fills before fading away at the end.

BURNING OF THE MIDNIGHT LAMP (Hendrix)
Featuring lines on wah-wah guitar with harpsichord, this track has a mandolin-like sound, created by using taped guitar fills speeded up from 7 1/2 ips (inches per second) to 15 ips. There is a wah-wah solo with a wobbling surrealistic texture.

RAINY DAY, DREAM AWAY (Hendrix)
An open-ended loose shuffle sees Hendrix swapping phrases with organ and saxophone, producing a bright metallic sound and using funky chords. This moves to a descending chordal fill that suddenly breaks into a wah-wah sound, mimicking the human voice

1983 (A MERMAN 1 SHOULD TURN To BE) (Hendrix)
Guitar sound effects move into a short, arpeggiated, chordal melody introducing the linear guitar theme that occurs throughout the song. In the background, guitar overdubs simulate water effects. There are passages on which the guitar builds up repeating scalar patterns and harmonized parts with the drums, solos over the theme, and free, open passages with detuned notes and spacey effects.

MOON, TURN THE TIDES. (Hendrix)
The previous track segues into this drifting piece, in which the guitar part is made up of a short exploratory phrases, chords, and backward tapes. It goes into sections, with a drum solo and a passage in which the bass is brought forward in the mix; the track ends with guitar solos and sonic effects.

STILL RAINING, STILL DREAMING (Hendrix)
On this continuation of “Rainy Day Dream Away,” the guitar plays another expressive vocal wah-wah part that interweaves with the vocals before taking over and going into a powerful stream-of- consciousness exposition.

HOUSE BURNING DOWN (Hendrix)
Using shifts in phrasing, Hendrix creates a searing intensity on this track, which features a rhythmic uplift with explosive screaming guitar that has shattering intensity. The heavily processed solo has dynamic level changes and is mixed to create movement and field depth, giving a three-dimensional soundscape. At the end, pick scrapes produce growling and mechanical effects and there is panning between left and right stereo channels.

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER (Dylan)
With Dave Mason playing acoustic guitar, powerful electric chord overdubs and linear fills give this track a majestic beauty. Hendrix plays one of his greatest solos: four distinct eight-bar passages start expressive melodic lines, there is slide and wah-wah, and funky chords climax with crying, ascending unison notes. The track finishes with a yearning guitar solo ending on one high note.

VOODOO CHILE (SLIGHT RETURN) (Hendrix)
One of the most interesting and complex tracks in rock, this opens with wah-wah and leads to distorted chords and lines. There is a tremendous range of textures from the guitar over a deep rhythm-section groove with chopped passages, unfettered distortion and glissando effects. The solos have a cutting edge and a sense of notes being stretched to their limit, with tremolo and string-bending mixed with a range of touch and expression that is otherworldly.