Jimi Hendrix

Johnny Allen Hendrix was born November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington. Renamed James Marshall Hendrix as a child, he taught himself guitar on a beat-up acoustic at age 15, then graduated to a cheap electric, playing along to Muddy Waters and B.B.

King records. He never learned to read music. He played right-handed guitars strung upside down because he was left-handed — a detail that shaped his entire sound.

After a brief stint in the Army as a paratrooper, Jimi spent years on the American R&B circuit backing acts like the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, and Curtis Knight. He was a sideman who couldn't stay in the background. In 1966, Animals bassist Chas Chandler discovered him playing in a New York club and brought him to London, where the Jimi Hendrix Experience was formed with Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums.

In just three years, Hendrix recorded three studio albums and the Band of Gypsys live album, set a guitar on fire at Monterey Pop, played the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock, and headlined the Isle of Wight. He died September 18, 1970, in London at age 27. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction came in 1992.

Rolling Stone has ranked him #1 guitarist of all time more than once.

Are You Experienced landed in May 1967 and the world of rock guitar shifted overnight. Purple Haze, Foxy Lady, Hey Joe, The Wind Cries Mary — the debut didn't just contain hits, it contained techniques nobody had attempted before. The feedback intro to Foxy Lady, the octave fuzz on Purple Haze, the backward guitar on Are You Experienced itself.

Eric Clapton reportedly walked out of an early Hendrix show, shaken. Pete Townshend said "the guitar was like a flamethrower.

Axis: Bold as Love (December 1967) was more melodic, more meditative. Little Wing became one of the most-covered songs in rock history — Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton, Gil Evans, everyone took a crack at it. Castles Made of Sand, If 6 Was 9, and Bold as Love showed Hendrix could write with the delicacy of a folk songwriter when he wanted to.

The album was almost lost — Jimi left the master tapes in a London taxi and had to quickly re-record the missing tracks from memory.

Electric Ladyland (1968) was the masterpiece. A double album recorded mostly at the brand-new Record Plant in New York, it contained Voodoo Child (Slight Return), the definitive cover of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower (Dylan himself said Hendrix's version was superior), the 15-minute jam Voodoo Chile with Steve Winwood on organ, and Crosstown Traffic. It was the sound of Hendrix becoming a studio producer as much as a guitarist.

Then came Woodstock in August 1969, the famous Star-Spangled Banner, the Experience breaking up, and the short-lived Band of Gypsys with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles. They recorded one live album at the Fillmore East on January 1, 1970. Machine Gun — 12 minutes of anti-war guitar protest — is arguably the greatest live guitar performance ever captured on tape.

Nine months later Jimi was dead.

Every guitarist who's picked up an electric since 1967 is playing in the shadow of Jimi Hendrix. Stevie Ray Vaughan built his entire career on a Hendrix vocabulary. Prince studied him.

John Mayer's tone is Hendrix via a filter. Eddie Van Halen called him the biggest influence on his playing. The phrase "playing guitar" itself means something different because of what Hendrix did with it.

Beyond technique, Hendrix expanded what the electric guitar could mean. He made it sound like a violin, a sitar, a dive-bombing jet, a crying voice, a thunderstorm. He treated effects pedals — the wah, the fuzz, the Octavia — not as gimmicks but as compositional tools.

Every pedalboard in the world traces back to him.

The tragedy is what we lost. Hendrix was 27 when he died. He was working on a double album called First Rays of the New Rising Sun and had designs on orchestral composition.

He had already outgrown rock and was moving toward something closer to jazz fusion. Miles Davis wanted to record with him. What Hendrix would have done in the 1970s is one of music's great unanswered questions.