James Marshall Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, the eldest child of James Allen Hendrix and Lucille Jeter, both in their late teens at his birth. His early childhood was unstable: his parents divorced, his mother was frequently absent, and he spent periods in develop care and with relatives. His father Al Hendrix, returned from military service, gained custody of Jimi and provided the first stable home environment of his childhood. Jimi taught himself guitar on a one-string ukulele and then a cheap acoustic guitar, left-handed player on a right-handed instrument strung in reverse — which contributed to his distinctive style. He dropped out of high school and joined the Army in 1961, serving as a paratrooper before receiving a discharge.
After leaving the Army, Hendrix toured the chitlin' circuit as a backing musician for artists including Little Richard and the Isley Brothers, developing his skills in anonymous professional service before his extraordinary talent and increasingly flamboyant performance style began to attract attention in its own right. He moved to New York City's Greenwich Village in 1966, where he formed his own band and began to build a local following. It was Chas Chandler, the former Animals bassist who saw him performing, who recognized that Hendrix's talent was too large for the American circuit and arranged his relocation to London.
London in 1966-1967 was the right place for Jimi Hendrix. The British scene was receptive to his American blues roots, his electric innovation, and his extraordinary showmanship; Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, and Paul McCartney attended his early shows and came away describing what they had seen as something beyond their frame of reference. The Jimi Hendrix Experience released 'Hey Joe,' 'Purple Haze,' and 'The Wind Cries Mary' in rapid succession, each demonstrating a different dimension of his abilities. Are You Experienced (1967) remains one of the most startling debut albums in rock music: it sounded like nothing that had existed before.
Jimi Hendrix died on September 18, 1970, in London, of asphyxiation after taking barbiturates, at age twenty-seven. He had been scheduled to appear at the Isle of Wight Festival the week before his death. In approximately four years of recording and performing as a bandleader, he had produced a body of work — three studio albums, dozens of live recordings, hundreds of hours of studio sessions — that remains one of the most technically inventive and emotionally direct in rock music history. His guitar technique, incorporating feedback, distortion, and the full range of electronic effects as expressive rather than incidental elements, created a vocabulary that every subsequent rock guitarist has had to reckon with.
