Equipment

Guitars and amplifiers

The Fender Stratocaster Hendrix played at Woodstock

Hendrix's Gibson Flying V guitar

Hendrix played a variety of guitars throughout his career, but the instrument that became most associated with him was the Fender Stratocaster.^[300] He acquired his first Stratocaster in 1966, when a girlfriend loaned him enough money to purchase a used one that had been built around 1964.^[301] He thereafter used the model prevalently during performances and recordings.^[302] In 1967, he described the instrument as "the best all-around guitar for the stuff we're doing"; he praised its "bright treble and deep bass sounds".^[303]
With few exceptions, Hendrix played right-handed guitars that were turned upside down and restrung for left-hand playing.^[304] This had an important effect on the sound of his guitar; because of the slant of the bridge pickup, his lowest string had a brighter sound while his highest string had a darker sound, which was the opposite of the Stratocaster's intended design.^[305] In addition to Stratocasters, Hendrix also used Fender Jazzmasters, Duosonics, two different Gibson Flying Vs, a Gibson Les Paul, three Gibson SGs, a Gretsch Corvette, and a Fender Jaguar.^[306] He used a white Gibson SG Custom for his performances on The Dick Cavett Show in September 1969, and a black Gibson Flying V during the Isle of Wight festival in 1970.^{[307][nb 38]}
During 1965 and 1966, while Hendrix was playing back-up for soul and R&B acts in the U.S., he used an 85-watt Fender Twin Reverb amplifier.^[309] When Chandler brought Hendrix to England in October 1966, he supplied him with 30-watt Burns amps, which Hendrix thought were too small for his needs.^{[310][nb 39]} After an early London gig when he was unable to use his preferred Fender Twin, he asked about the Marshall amps that he had noticed other groups using.^[310] Years earlier, Mitch Mitchell had taken drum lessons from the amp builder, Jim Marshall, and he introduced Hendrix to Marshall.^[311] At their initial meeting, Hendrix bought four speaker cabinets and three 100-watt Super Lead amplifiers; he would grow accustomed to using all three in unison.^[310] The equipment arrived on October 11, 1966, and the Experience used the new gear during their first tour.^[310] Marshall amps were well-suited for Hendrix's needs, and they were paramount in the evolution of his heavily overdriven sound, enabling him to master the use of feedback as a musical effect, creating what author Paul Trynka described as a "definitive vocabulary for rock guitar".^[312] Hendrix usually turned all of the amplifier's control knobs to the maximum level, which became known as the Hendrix setting.^[313] During the four years prior to his death, he purchased between 50 and 100 Marshall amplifiers.^[314] Jim Marshall said that he was "the greatest ambassador" his company ever had.^[315]

Effects

A 1968 King Vox-Wah pedal similar to one that was owned by Hendrix^[316]

One of Hendrix's signature effects was the wah-wah pedal, which he first heard used with an electric guitar in Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses", released in May 1967.^[317] In July of that year, while playing gigs at the Scene club in New York City, Hendrix met Frank Zappa, whose band, the Mothers of Invention were performing at the adjacent Garrick Theater. Hendrix was fascinated by Zappa's application of the pedal, and he experimented with one later that evening.^{[318][nb 40]} He used a wah pedal during the opening to "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", creating one of the best-known wah-wah riffs of the classic rock era.^[320] He can also be heard using the effect on "Up from the Skies", "Little Miss Lover", and "Still Raining, Still Dreaming".^[319]
Hendrix consistently used a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face and a Vox wah pedal during recording sessions and live performances, but he also experimented with other guitar effects.^[321] He enjoyed a fruitful long-term collaboration with electronics enthusiast Roger Mayer, whom he once called "the secret" of his sound.^[322] Mayer introduced him to the Octavia, an octave doubling effect pedal, in December 1966, and he first recorded with the effect during the guitar solo to "Purple Haze".^[323]
Hendrix also utilized the Uni-Vibe, which was designed to simulate the modulation effects of a rotating Leslie speaker by providing a rich phasing sound that could be manipulated with a speed control pedal. He can be heard using the effect during his performance at Woodstock and on the Band of Gypsys track "Machine Gun", which prominently features the Uni-vibe along with an Octavia and a Fuzz Face.^[324] His signal flow for live performance involved first plugging his guitar into a wah-wah pedal, then connecting the wah-wah pedal to a Fuzz Face, which was then linked to a Uni-Vibe, before connecting to a Marshall amplifier.^[325]

Influences

As an adolescent during the 1950s, Hendrix became interested in rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry.^[326] In 1968, he told Guitar Player magazine that electric blues artists Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and B.B. King inspired him during the beginning of his career; he also cited Eddie Cochran as an early influence.^[327] Of Muddy Waters, the first electric guitarist of which Hendrix became aware, he said: "I heard one of his records when I was a little boy and it scared me to death because I heard all of these sounds."^[328] In 1970, he told Rolling Stone that he was a fan of western swing artist Bob Wills and while he lived in Nashville, the television show the Grand Ole Opry.^[329]

I don't happen to know much about jazz. I know that most of those cats are playing nothing but blues, though—I know that much.

—Hendrix on jazz music^[330]

Cox stated that during their time serving in the U.S. military he and Hendrix primarily listened to southern blues artists such as Jimmy Reed and Albert King. According to Cox, "King was a very, very powerful influence".^[327] Howlin' Wolf also inspired Hendrix, who performed Wolf's "Killing Floor" as the opening song of his U.S. debut at the Monterey Pop Festival.^[331] The influence of soul artist Curtis Mayfield can be heard in Hendrix's guitar playing, and the influence of Bob Dylan can be heard in Hendrix's songwriting; he was known to play Dylan's records repeatedly, particularly Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.^[332]

Legacy

Death, post-mortem, and burial

Main article: Death of Jimi Hendrix

The Samarkand Hotel, where Hendrix spent his final hours

Although the details of Hendrix's last day and death are widely disputed, he spent much of September 17, 1970, in London with Monika Dannemann, the only witness to his final hours.^[272] Dannemann said that she prepared a meal for them at her apartment in the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, sometime around 11 p.m., when they shared a bottle of wine.^[273] She drove Hendrix to the residence of an acquaintance at approximately 1:45 a.m., where he remained for about an hour before she picked him up and drove them back to her flat at 3 a.m.^[274] Dannemann said they talked until around 7 a.m., when they went to sleep. She awoke around 11 a.m., and found Hendrix breathing, but unconscious and unresponsive. She called for an ambulance at 11:18 a.m., which arrived on the scene at 11:27 a.m.^[275] Paramedics then transported Hendrix to St Mary Abbot's Hospital where Dr. John Bannister pronounced him dead at 12:45 p.m. on September 18, 1970.^[276]
To determine the cause of death, coroner Gavin Thurston ordered a post-mortem examination on Hendrix's body, which was performed on September 21 by Professor Robert Donald Teare, a forensic pathologist.^[277] Thurston completed the inquest on September 28, and concluded that Hendrix aspirated his own vomit and died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates.^[278] Citing "insufficient evidence of the circumstances", he declared an open verdict.^[279] Dannemann later revealed that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescribed Vesparax sleeping tablets, 18 times the recommended dosage.^[280]
After Hendrix's body had been embalmed by Desmond Henley,^[281] it was flown to Seattle, Washington, on September 29, 1970.^[282] After a service at Dunlop Baptist Church on October 1, it was interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Renton, Washington, the location of his mother's gravesite.^[283] Hendrix's family and friends traveled in twenty-four limousines and more than two hundred people attended the funeral, including several notable musicians such as original Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, as well as Miles Davis, John Hammond, and Johnny Winter.^{[284][nb 35]}

Unauthorized and posthumous releases

By 1967, as Hendrix was gaining in popularity, many of his pre-Experience recordings were marketed to an unsuspecting public as Jimi Hendrix albums, sometimes with misleading later images of Hendrix.^[286] The recordings, which came under the control of producer Ed Chalpin of PPX, with whom Hendrix had signed a recording contract in 1965, were often re-mixed between their repeated reissues, and licensed to record companies such as Decca and Capitol.^[287] Hendrix publicly denounced the releases, describing them as "malicious" and "greatly inferior", stating: "At PPX, we spent on average about one hour recording a song. Today I spend at least twelve hours on each song."^[288] These unauthorized releases have long constituted a substantial part of his recording catalogue, amounting to hundreds of albums.^[289]
Some of Hendrix's unfinished material was released as the 1971 title The Cry of Love.^[232] Although the album reached number three in the U.S. and number two in the UK, producers Mitchell and Kramer later complained that they were unable to make use of all the available songs because some tracks were used for 1971's Rainbow Bridge; still others were issued on 1972's War Heroes.^[290] Material from The Cry of Love was re-released in 1997 as First Rays of the New Rising Sun, along with the other tracks that Mitchell and Kramer had wanted to include.^{[291][nb 36]}
In 1993, MCA Records delayed a multimillion-dollar sale of Hendrix's publishing copyrights because Al Hendrix was unhappy about the arrangement.^[293] He acknowledged that he had sold distribution rights to a foreign corporation in 1974, but stated that it did not include copyrights and argued that he had retained veto power of the sale of the catalogue.^[293] Under a settlement reached in July 1995, Al Hendrix prevailed in his legal battle and regained control of his son's song and image rights.^[294] He subsequently licensed the recordings to MCA through the family-run company Experience Hendrix LLC, formed in 1995.^[295] In August 2009, Experience Hendrix announced that it had entered a new licensing agreement with Sony Music Entertainment's Legacy Recordings division which would take effect in 2010.^[296] Legacy and Experience Hendrix launched the 2010 Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project, starting with the release of Valleys of Neptune in March of that year.^[297] In the months before his death, Hendrix recorded demos for a concept album tentatively titled Black Gold, which are now in the possession of Experience Hendrix LLC; as of 2013 no official release date has been announced.^{[298][nb 37]}

Drugs and alcohol

In July 1962, after Hendrix was discharged from the U.S. Army, he entered a small club in Clarksville, Tennessee. Drawn in by live music, he stopped for a drink and ended up spending most of the $400 he had saved. He explained: "I went in this jazz joint and had a drink. I liked it and I stayed. People tell me I get foolish, good-natured sometimes. Anyway, I guess I felt real benevolent that day. I must have been handing out bills to anyone that asked me. I came out of that place with sixteen dollars left."^[254] According to the authors Steven Roby and Brad Schreiber: "Alcohol would later be the scourge of his existence, driving him to fits of pique, even rare bursts of atypical, physical violence."^[255]

Like most acid-heads, Jimi had visions and he wanted to create music to express what he saw. He would try to explain this to people, but it didn't make sense because it was not linked to reality in any way.

—Kathy Etchingham^[256]

While Roby and Schreiber assert that Hendrix first used LSD when he met Linda Keith in late 1966, according to the authors Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek, the earliest that Hendrix is known to have taken it was in June 1967, while attending the Monterey Pop Festival.^[257] According to Hendrix biographer Charles Cross, the subject of drugs came up one evening in 1966 at Keith's New York apartment; when one of Keith's friends offered Hendrix acid, a street name for lysergic acid diethylamide, Hendrix asked for LSD instead, showing what Cross described as "his naivete and his complete inexperience with psychedelics".^[258] Before that, Hendrix had only sporadically used drugs, with his experimentation limited to cannabis, hashish, amphetamines and occasionally cocaine.^[258] After 1967, he regularly smoked cannabis and hashish, and used LSD and amphetamines, particularly while touring.^[259] According to Cross, by the time of his death in September 1970, "few stars were as closely associated with the drug culture as Jimi".^[260]

Substance abuse and violence

Hendrix would often become angry and violent when he drank too much alcohol or when he mixed alcohol with drugs.^[261] His friend Herbie Worthington explained: "You wouldn't expect somebody with that kind of love to be that violent ... He just couldn't drink ... he simply turned into a bastard".^[262] According to journalist and friend Sharon Lawrence, Hendrix "admitted he could not handle hard liquor, which set off a bottled-up anger, a destructive fury he almost never displayed otherwise".^[263]
In January 1968, the Experience travelled to Sweden for a one-week tour of Europe. During the early morning hours of the first day, Hendrix became engaged in a drunken brawl in the Hotel Opalen, in Gothenburg, smashing a plate-glass window and injuring his right hand, for which he received medical treatment.^[262] The incident culminated in his arrest and release, pending a court appearance that resulted in a large fine.^[264]
After the 1969 burglary of a house Hendrix was renting in Benedict Canyon, California, and while he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol, he punched his friend Paul Caruso and accused him of the theft. He then chased Caruso away from the residence while throwing stones at him.^[265] A few days later, one of Hendrix's girlfriends, Carmen Borrero, required stitches after he hit her above her eye with a vodka bottle during a drunken, jealous rage.^[262]

Canadian drug charges and trial

Main article: Canadian drug charges and trial of Jimi Hendrix

On May 3, 1969, while Hendrix was passing through customs at Toronto International Airport, authorities detained him after finding a small amount of what they suspected to be heroin and hashish in his luggage.^[266] Four hours later, he was formally charged with drug possession and released on $10,000 bail. He was required to return on May 5 for an arraignment hearing.^[267] The incident proved stressful for Hendrix, and it weighed heavily on his mind during the seven months that he awaited trial, which took place in December of that year.^[266] For the Crown to prove possession they had to show that Hendrix knew the drugs were there.^[268] During the jury trial he testified that a fan had given him a vial of what he thought was legal medication, which he put in his bag not knowing what was in it.^[269] He was acquitted of the charges.^[270] Mitchell and Redding later revealed that everyone had been warned about a planned drug bust the day before flying to Toronto; both men also stated they believed that the drugs had been planted in Hendrix's bag without his knowledge.^[271]

European tour

When the European leg of the Cry of Love tour began, Hendrix was longing for his new studio and creative outlet, and was not eager to fulfill the commitment. On September 2, 1970, he abandoned a performance in Aarhus after three songs, stating: "I've been dead a long time".^[244] Four days later, he gave his final concert appearance, at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany.^[245] He was met with booing and jeering from fans in response to his cancellation of a show slated for the end of the previous night's bill due to torrential rain and risk of electrocution.^{[246][nb 34]} Immediately following the festival, Hendrix, Mitchell, and Cox travelled to London.^[248]
Three days after the performance, Cox, who was suffering from severe paranoia after either taking LSD or being given it unknowingly, quit the tour and went to stay with his parents in Pennsylvania.^[249] Within days of Hendrix's arrival in England, he had spoken with Chas Chandler, Alan Douglas, and others about leaving his manager, Michael Jeffery.^[250] On September 16, Hendrix performed in public for the last time during an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Eric Burdon and his latest band, War.^[251] They began by playing a few of their recent hits, and after a brief intermission Hendrix joined them during "Mother Earth" and "Tobacco Road". His performance was uncharacteristically subdued; he quietly played backing guitar, and refrained from the histrionics that people had come to expect from him.^[252] He died less than 48 hours later.^[253]

Electric Lady Studios

Main article: Electric Lady Studios

In 1968, Hendrix and Jeffery jointly invested in the purchase of the Generation Club in Greenwich Village.^[181] They had initially planned to reopen the establishment, but after an audit revealed that Hendrix had incurred exorbitant fees by block-booking lengthy sessions at peak rates they decided that the building would better serve them as a recording studio.^[238] With a facility of his own, Hendrix could work as much as he wanted while also reducing his recording expenditures, which had reached a reported $300,000 annually.^[239] Architect and acoustician John Storyk designed Electric Lady Studios for Hendrix, who requested that they avoid right angles where possible. With round windows, an ambient lighting machine, and a psychedelic mural, Storyk wanted the studio to have a relaxing environment that would encourage Hendrix's creativity.^[239] The project took twice as long as planned and cost twice as much as Hendrix and Jeffery had budgeted, with their total investment estimated at $1 million.^{[240][nb 33]}
Hendrix first used Electric Lady on June 15, 1970, when he jammed with Steve Winwood and Chris Wood of Traffic; the next day, he recorded his first track there, "Night Bird Flying".^[241] The studio officially opened for business on August 25, and a grand opening party was held the following day.^[241] Immediately afterwards, Hendrix left for England; he never returned to the States.^[242] He boarded an Air India flight for London with Cox, joining Mitchell for a performance as the headlining act of the Isle of Wight Festival.^[243]

Cry of Love Tour

Main article: The Cry of Love Tour

Soon after the abruptly ended Band of Gypsys performance and their subsequent dissolution, Jeffery made arrangements to reunite the original Experience line-up.^[228] Although Hendrix, Mitchell, and Redding were interviewed by Rolling Stone in February 1970 as a united group, Hendrix never intended to work with Redding.^[229] When Redding returned to New York in anticipation of rehearsals with a re-formed Experience, he was told that he had been replaced with Cox.^[230] During an interview with Rolling Stone's Keith Altham, Hendrix defended the decision: "It's nothing personal against Noel, but we finished what we were doing with the Experience and Billy's style of playing suits the new group better."^[228] Although the lineup of Hendrix, Mitchell, and Cox became known as the Cry of Love band, after their accompanying tour, billing, advertisements, and tickets were printed with the New Jimi Hendrix Experience or occasionally just Jimi Hendrix.^[231]
During the first half of 1970, Hendrix sporadically worked on material for what would have been his next LP.^[222] Many of the tracks were posthumously released in 1971 as The Cry of Love.^[232] He had started writing songs for the album in 1968, but in April 1970 he told Keith Altham that the project had been abandoned.^[222] Soon afterward, he and his band took a break from recording and began the Cry of Love tour at the L.A. Forum, performing for 20,000 people.^[233] Set-lists during the tour included numerous Experience tracks as well as a selection of newer material.^[233] Several shows were recorded, and they produced some of Hendrix's most memorable live performances. At one of them, the second Atlanta International Pop Festival, on July 4, he played to the largest American audience of his career.^[234] According to authors Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz, as many as 500,000 people attended the concert.^[234] On July 17, they appeared at the New York Pop Festival; Hendrix had again consumed too many drugs before the show, and the set was considered a disaster.^[235] The American leg of the tour, which included 32 performances, ended at Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 1, 1970.^[236] This would be Hendrix's final concert appearance in the U.S.^[237]

Band of Gypsys

Main article: Band of Gypsys

A legal dispute arose in 1966 regarding a record contract that Hendrix had entered into the previous year with producer Ed Chalpin.^[211] After two years of litigation, the parties agreed to a resolution that granted Chalpin the distribution rights to an album of original Hendrix material. Hendrix decided that they would record the LP, Band of Gypsys, during two live appearances.^[212] In preparation for the shows he formed an all-black power-trio with Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, formerly with Wilson Pickett, the Electric Flag, and the Buddy Miles Express.^[213] Critic John Rockwell described Hendrix and Miles as jazz-rock fusionists, and their collaboration as pioneering.^[214] Others identified a funk and soul influence in their music.^[215] Concert promoter Bill Graham called the shows "the most brilliant, emotional display of virtuoso electric guitar" that he had ever heard.^[216] Biographers have speculated that Hendrix formed the band in an effort to appease members of the Black Power movement and others in the black communities who called for him to use his fame to speak-up for civil rights.^[217]

	"Machine Gun" Menu 0:00 An excerpt from the first guitar solo that demonstrates Hendrix's innovative use of high gain and overdrive to achieve an aggressive, sustained tone.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Hendrix had been recording with Cox since April and jamming with Miles since September, and the trio wrote and rehearsed material which they performed at a series of four shows over two nights on December 31 and January 1, at the Fillmore East. They used recordings of these concerts to assemble the LP, which was produced by Hendrix.^[218] The album includes the track "Machine Gun", which musicologist Andy Aledort described as the pinnacle of Hendrix's career, and "the premiere example of [his] unparalleled genius as a rock guitarist ... In this performance, Jimi transcended the medium of rock music, and set an entirely new standard for the potential of electric guitar."^[219] During the song's extended instrumental breaks, Hendrix created sounds with his guitar that sonically represented warfare, including rockets, bombs, and diving planes.^[220]
The Band of Gypsys album was the only official live Hendrix LP made commercially available during his lifetime; several tracks from the Woodstock and Monterey shows were released later that year.^[221] The album was released in April 1970 by Capitol Records; it reached the top ten in both the U.S. and the UK.^[216] That same month a single was issued with "Stepping Stone" as the A-side and "Izabella" as the B-side, but Hendrix was dissatisfied with the quality of the mastering and he demanded that it be withdrawn and re-mixed, preventing the songs from charting and resulting in Hendrix's least successful single; it was also his last.^[222]
On January 28, 1970, a third and final Band of Gypsys appearance took place; they performed during a music festival at Madison Square Garden benefiting the anti-Vietnam War Moratorium Committee titled the "Winter Festival for Peace".^[223] American blues guitarist Johnny Winter was backstage before the concert; he recalled: "[Hendrix] came in with his head down, sat on the couch alone, and put his head in his hands ... He didn't move until it was time for the show."^[224] Minutes after taking the stage he snapped a vulgar response at a woman who had shouted a request for "Foxy Lady". He then began playing "Earth Blues" before telling the audience: "That's what happens when earth fucks with space".^[224] Moments later, he briefly sat down on the drum riser before leaving the stage.^[225] Both Miles and Redding later stated that Jeffery had given Hendrix LSD before the performance.^[226] Miles believed that Jeffery gave Hendrix the drugs in an effort to sabotage the current band and bring about the return of the original Experience lineup.^[225] Jeffery fired Miles after the show and Cox quit, ending the Band of Gypsys.^[227]