Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix transformed the expressive range of the electric rock guitar during his four-year ascent to superstardom more profoundly than any player before or after him. He excelled at drawing unanticipated textures from his instrument, frequently by means of novel amplification techniques that yielded feedback of near-cosmic intensity together with ferocious distortion. His trademark tempests of sonic overload and theatrical stagecraft, which included playing behind his back or with his teeth and igniting the guitar onstage, have at times overshadowed his substantial abilities as a composer, vocalist, and versatile interpreter of blues, R&B, and rock idioms.

Although his 1967 emergence as a global icon gave the impression that he had materialized from another planet, Hendrix had already paid his dues on the chitlin circuit with multiple R&B ensembles. Throughout the early and middle years of the 1960s he served as sideman guitarist for R&B and soul luminaries including Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, and King Curtis. He also contributed occasional session work; the sole early recording to hint at his latent brilliance remains the Isley Brothers’ 1964 single “Testify.” Most employers, however, resented his scene-stealing flair and confined him to supporting roles that stifled his development as a lead player. Consequently he struck out independently in mid-1960s New York, performing with assorted musicians in neighborhood venues and spending a period in white blues-rock singer John Hammond, Jr.’s band.

Animals bassist Chas Chandler discovered Hendrix in a New York club. With the original Animals lineup on the verge of dissolving, Chandler, now intent on management, persuaded Hendrix to relocate to London and cut solo sides in England. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was assembled around him, recruiting Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding on bass. The trio achieved rapid stardom in Britain; “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze,” and “The Wind Cries Mary” all reached the Top Ten during the first half of 1967. Those tracks anchored the debut album Are You Experienced?, a psychedelic landmark that became a major American success once Hendrix astonished audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967.

Few debut records have arrived with such impact, especially from a former R&B sideman who had rarely sung lead and had apparently never composed his own material before the Experience coalesced. Initial attention centered on his technical mastery, which deployed an array of effects including wah-wah pedals, sustained feedback lines, heavily distorted power chords, and rapid scalar runs of liquid precision. Yet Hendrix also proved an accomplished songwriter, fusing cosmic lyricism with unexpectedly catchy hooks and gentle emotional nuance. Are You Experienced? encapsulated psychedelia in its broadest form, blending mod pop, soul, R&B, Dylan-inspired narrative, and the electric-guitar advancements pioneered by British figures such as Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, and Eric Clapton.

Remarkably, Hendrix would complete only three fully realized studio albums during his lifetime. Axis: Bold as Love and the double album Electric Ladyland ventured further into diffuse and experimental territory than their predecessor. On Electric Ladyland in particular he treated the studio itself as an instrument, shaping electronics and multilayered overdubs, often in collaboration with engineer Eddie Kramer, to explore previously uncharted sonic landscapes.

Hendrix’s final two years were marked by turbulence on musical, financial, and personal fronts. Ongoing disputes with management and record labels, some rooted in contracts signed before the Experience existed, kept attorneys occupied for years. He disbanded the Experience in 1969 and formed Band of Gypsys with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox to explore funkier directions. At Woodstock he closed the festival with an expansive, uneven performance redeemed by his celebrated machine-gun rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Although Mitchell and Redding had supplied essential rhythmic support for Hendrix’s finest recordings, Band of Gypsys never matched that standard, despite yielding one uneven live album. Early in 1970 the Experience briefly reunited before splitting again. Meanwhile Hendrix felt pulled in conflicting directions by fellow musicians, label expectations, and management, all proposing divergent visions for his next steps. Nearly two years after Electric Ladyland, no new studio album had materialized despite constant recording activity.

External pressures certainly impeded progress, yet Hendrix himself appeared partly responsible for the impasse, unable to settle on a stable band, a clear musical path, or the final assembly of another album amid endless jamming sessions. A few months into 1970 Mitchell, Hendrix’s most trusted musical partner, rejoined on drums while Cox remained; this lineup toured extensively during the guitarist’s last months. Together with numerous guest musicians they worked sporadically on a projected album, tentatively titled First Ray of the New Rising Sun, before Hendrix died in London on September 18, 1970, following a drug-related overdose.

An enormous quantity of unreleased studio recordings accumulated during Hendrix’s lifetime. Much of this material, along with complete live concerts, appeared after his death; while several concerts proved outstanding, the studio tapes sparked intense controversy for more than two decades. Initial posthumous releases emerged in scattered, uneven fashion, with The Cry of Love standing as the strongest early example. In the mid-1970s producer Alan Douglas assumed control and overdubbed additional parts by studio musicians onto many tapes. To numerous admirers this constituted a violation of the meticulous production standards Hendrix had always maintained. As late as 1995 Douglas still commissioned ex-Knack drummer Bruce Gary to add new parts for the compilation Voodoo Soup. Following protracted litigation, control of Hendrix’s estate and all recordings reverted to his father, Al Hendrix, in July 1995.

With assistance from Jimi’s stepsister Janie, Al Hendrix established Experience Hendrix to restore order to the catalog. They engaged John McDermott and original engineer Eddie Kramer to supervise remastering from the long-unissued original master tapes. The first three albums received dramatically improved sound in April 1997; a posthumous compilation drawn from Jimi’s own handwritten track listings, titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun and assembled from Cry of Love, Rainbow Bridge, and War Heroes tracks, accompanied the reissues.

Later that year South Saturn Delta collected further material from earlier posthumous albums such as Crash Landing, War Heroes, and Rainbow Bridge, this time without the 1970s overdubs, plus several previously unheard selections that Chas Chandler had withheld from Alan Douglas for years.

Additional archival projects followed. Radio One was expanded into the two-disc BBC Sessions (1998), while 1999 brought the complete Woodstock performance and further Band of Gypsys concert recordings issued as Live at the Fillmore East. In 2000 the four-disc Jimi Hendrix Experience box set gathered remaining tracks from In the West, Crash Landing, and Rainbow Bridge together with additional rarities and alternates from the Chandler archive.

The family also created Dagger Records, an authorized outlet for limited-interest material aimed at dedicated collectors. Dagger issued several live concerts from shows in Oakland, Ottawa, Clark University in Massachusetts, Paris, San Francisco, Woburn in Bedfordshire, and Cologne, plus the studio-jam collection Morning Symphony Ideas.

Reissue activity persisted through the 2000s and 2010s, highlighted by major live albums recorded at the Isle of Wight (2002), Berkeley (2003), Monterey (2007), Winterland (2011), and the Miami Pop Festival (2013). Sony released the four-disc West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology in 2010, which included an entire disc of recordings from Hendrix’s sideman period.

That same year Legacy, a Sony imprint, issued Valleys of Neptune, containing twelve previously unreleased tracks and inaugurating a series of similar projects. A second compilation, People, Hell and Angels, appeared in 2013 with another twelve unreleased songs recorded during work on the intended follow-up to Electric Ladyland. The final installment in the series arrived in 2018, presenting ten unreleased tracks that featured guest appearances by Stephen Stills and Johnny Winter.