Jimi Hendrix and His Experimental Experience

Born on November 27, 1942 in Seattle Washington, musician Jimi Hendrix, born Johnny Allen Hendrix" expanded the capabilities of rock music and specifically the electric guitar more than any other guitarist in history. Hendrix is possibly most remembered for the work he did as a part of the band The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but his musical career, while it was cut short along with his life was marked by many different stylistic advancements and a deepening of the art of guitar playing for musicians across the rock music genre.

While it seemed to many that Jimi Hendrix had come out of nowhere when he exploded into a rock music superstar in 1967, he had actually been honing his guitar craft for many years by playing with a number of R&B groups. His interest in the guitar began when his father gifted him a ukulele at age 15, an act that inspired the young musician to purchase his first guitar for $5 later that year and start an acoustic group called The Velvetones. Encouraged by Hendrix's obvious talent for the instrument, in 1959 his father purchased him an electric guitar that allowed him to join a more ambitious project called The Rocking Kings with whom he made his first live performance.

In 1960, Hendrix took a break from his musical career when he opted not to finish high school, and after several problems with the police, enlisted in the army in 1961. But after he was forced to leave after an injury during training, he returned to the music scene with a friend from the service, Billy Cox and started to work for-hire in clubs throughout the Nashville, Tennessee area. Through this experience came his first signed project, one of the first mixed-race R&B outfits, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, signed to Motown in 1963. Throughout the early and mid-1960's, Hendrix collaborated with R&B/soul legends including Little Richard, the Isley Brothers and King Curtis as a backup guitarist. He recorded occasionally with the Isley Brothers and played on a 1964 single "Testify" that provides early insight into the genius that would later mark his explosive career.

His great showmanship, evident even in his capacity as a background guitarist for other superstars was not appreciated and discouraged, and he found his skills underutilized and his love of experimentation and creation impossible to explore in this role. Eventually he decided to develop his solo skills and moved to New York in the mid-1960's to play with musicians in clubs and improve his craft. This move across the country paid off, and Hendrix' skills and star power were noticed by the Animals bassist Chas Chandler, who was splitting from the band and trying to move into music management. Chandler convinced Hendrix to move to London to record solo and built the group for which he would forever be known around him, The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The trio included Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass, and became stars in the United Kingdom quickly, with infamous songs "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary" becoming Top Ten singles in the first half of 1967. These tracks made up the varied, guitar-ruled and exciting repertoire of the debut album, "Are You Experienced?" an album that remains a staple of psychedelic rock throughout the world.

"Are You Experienced?" was a remarkable debut for Hendrix, then seen as a young R&B guitarist who had rarely sung and never written his own material before his band formed. After Hendrix's legendary performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June, 1967, his establishment of a guitar star in the United States was also secured. What typically made people stop and take note was Hendrix' mastery of the electric guitar and wild exploration of its many possibilities. He was highly skilled at using wah-wah pedals and amplifiers to create never-before-heard sonic phenomena from his guitars. His mastery of his equipment produced feedback-rich solos and distorted guitar riffs and his technical mastery of the guitar allowed him to complete seamless, speedy runs and scales. His guitar of choice was a Fender Stratocaster, which he strung backwards because he was left-handed. His talent as a technical and experimental guitarist was joined by his skill at song-writing, both lyrically and musically. He was able to create, during his short career, pieces of music that blended poetic imagery with pop-infused hooks. And while his vocal stylings were nothing compared to his guitar abilities, the music he created managed to combine all the elements of mod, pop, soul R&B and in general any music of the time, including that of Dylan, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton and take them to another level.

During his four-year tryst as guitar god, Hendrix recorded only three studio albums. "Axiss: Bold as Love" and the double-LP "Electric Ladyland" were far more experimental than his debut album, but equally astounding. On the album "Electric Ladyland" Hendrix used the recording studio itself as an instrument by playing with the electronics and offering creative overdub techniques to explore new territory and get new sounds from not only the guitar, but the vocals and other insturuments. As impressive as his second two albums were, they were much less focused than "Are You Experienced?" and explored tangents that took away from some of the songwriting.

The last two years of Hendrix' life were volatile, both musically, financially and in his personal life. He was a part of many management and record company problems due to poorly-written contracts he had agreed to before his group formed, and he split from the Experience in 1969 to reunite with Billy Cox on bass and drummer Buddy Miles for the Band of Gypsies. This new band was an expression of his desire to experiment with funk music, and it was with these musicians that he closed Woodstock with a meandering, unfocused set that was ended with one of his most famous live performances of "The Star Spangled Banner," which once again brought his shining guitar skills to the forefront.

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