JIMI HENDRIX

Jimi Hendrix, an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists in rock music history. He expanded the vocabulary of the electric rock guitar more than anyone did before or since. His hits include "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe", "Fire", "Little Wing", "Foxy Lady" and "Voodoo Child".

A self-taught left-handed guitarist, Hendrix would play a Fender Stratocaster guitar turned in the opposite direction from how it is usually played, which left the low strings on the bottom unless he rearranged them.

In New York, the Animals bassist Chas Chandler spotted him and convinced him to move to London and record as a solo act in England. Accompanied by Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass, Hendrix achieved instant astonishing success, their hits "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," and "The Wind Cries Mary" all making the Top 10 in the first half of 1967.

Hendrix style was a combination of a blues, jazz, or funk driven rhythm accompaniment, with "space", the high-pitched psychedelic sounds created by his guitar improvisations. What caught most people's attention at first was his virtuosic guitar playing. He was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects during recording.

He was also an excellent blues interpreter and passionate, engaging singer, who built upon the innovations and influences of blues stylists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and T-Bone Walker, and derived style from rhythm and blues and soul guitarists as well as from traditional jazz.

Hendrix's popularity eventually saw him headline the Woodstock music festival on August 18, 1969, where he was considered to be the festival's main attraction. His performance of the "Star-Spangled Banner" - complete with apocalyptic guitar noise - captured the anguish of the Vietnam War era. His impressionistic renditions have been described by some as anti-American.

Hendrix was shunned by much of the black community for playing "white music" and for having white musicians in his band. He was also constantly harassed by various civil rights oriented activist and extremist groups who wished to use his fame to further their own message or cause. The Black Panthers even went as far as posting signs for his appearance at a benefit concert that Hendrix never even knew existed.

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. His career and ill-timed death has grouped him with 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. the circumstances of Hendrix's death have never been fully explained.

In 1992 Hendrix was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the following year he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Listen to: Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze