Hendrix turned amplifier feedback into a musical instrument
James Marshall Hendrix (1942–1970) is widely ranked among rock’s most influential guitarists. After Army discharge he worked the Chitlin’ Circuit, then exploded in London in 1966 with the Experience. Overdriven amps, controlled feedback, and blues-rooted improvisation remade what “guitar hero” meant.
He was born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle on 27 November 1942, the first of Lucille Jeter's five children, while his father Al sat in an Alabama army stockade, locked up for two months to stop him going absent to see the baby. Relatives and friends did much of the early caring, and Al first met his son in Berkeley after the war. In 1946 the boy was renamed James Marshall. His ancestry was African-American and Cherokee.
He took up guitar at fifteen, joined the US Army in 1961 and was out the following year. Moving to Clarksville and then Nashville, he worked the Chitlin' Circuit, backing the Isley Brothers and then Little Richard until mid-1965 before joining Curtis Knight and the Squires. Late in 1966 Chas Chandler, bassist of the Animals, became his manager and took him to England, where the Experience formed with Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums.
Within months came three British top-ten singles, Hey Joe, Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary. Monterey Pop in 1967 made him famous at home, and Electric Ladyland (1968), his third and last studio album, was his only US number one. The best-paid rock musician on the planet, he headlined Woodstock in 1969 and the Isle of Wight in 1970, then died in London that September, aged 27, of asphyxia linked to barbiturates.
Sonically he pushed overdriven, loud amplifiers and made feedback, once treated as a flaw, into material. He was an early mainstream champion of fuzz, Octavia, wah-wah and Uni-Vibe, and the first to record with stereo phasing. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted the Experience in 1992, calls him arguably rock's greatest instrumentalist.
Source: Jimi Hendrix
