bio

In Washington (USA) on November 27th 1942, James Marshal Hendrix was born.
His descent was of African, European, Cherokee Indian and Mexican blood. Jimi spent much of his early years with his
Cherokee grandmother who lived in Canada due to unrest at home.

When Jimi was 12 he got his very first guitar... the instrument that he would become associated with and recognised for the rest of his life.
At the age of 15 he was taking a more serious interest in music and learning to play the guitar. It was when he was this age that his mother died.

As a black male living in America at that time, life was far from easy. At the age of 16 he was expelled from school, allegedly for holding the hand of
a young white girl in his class. He had been playing rock 'n' roll guitar in various teenage bands before enlisting for the army at the age of 17.

He spent 14 months training as a paratrooper. After suffering an injury he was discharged and decided to persue his love of music in more
proffessional fields.

During the next four years Jimi found himself touring the States, playing backing guitar
for many R&B artists, including Ike and Tina Turner, Little Richard and King Curtis.
However, despite having the opportunity to play professionally with such great artists, the style of guitar
he was playing was less suited to his radical musical preferences.
Soon he was drawn to New York's Greenwich Village where he recorded with the Isley Brothers and Curtis Knight among others

In late 1965 his first band was formed. They were Jimi James and the Blue Flames. They played various Village clubs and bars
until the rising word of this fresh new talent was heard by the Animals ex-bassist, Chas Chandler. It was not long before Jimi was offered Chas'
management and was persuaded to accompany him to England where he would be met by the vastly different 'norm' style of popular guitar
playing. For example The Who, The Beatles, Cream, Clapton, Page and Jeff Beck.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience was formed in 1966 with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding playing bass. The world was in for a shock
As suddenly as he had been discovered, Jimi found himself suddenly on the music scene as a fresh new act, something that had never been
heard of before... never even been dreamed as possible!
Fans, respect, adoration and a record deal were more than inevitable.

The top-ten reaching singles 'Hey Joe', 'Purple Haze' and 'The Wind Cries Mary' created Jimi's household name in England, and rooting
his foundations to succeed in his following appearance at Monterey.
With his burning guitar held high above his head in an astonishing fashion, Jimi gained his fame with an American audience who craved something
new and exciting in music. In the year 1967 Jimi Hendrix scored 4 singles and 2 albums in the British charts and 2 albums in America.
Despite his fame and stardom, many saw that his frustrated loneliness as an isolated individual was almost accentuated by the audience's
reaction to his performances. For example he found that by smashing his guitar at the end of a show for no other reason than for his feelings of anger
at his apparent unsatisfactory playing, made the crowd love the show even more.

'Electric Ladyland' was released in 1968. With it came 'All Along The Watchtower' and *after his death* 'Voodoo Chile'. This phenomenal four-side album
of technically stunning guitar riffs and provoking, rich lyrics was not as well recieved by audiences as was hoped, but remains today a relec of the wonder
and mystery of the music of Jimi Hendrix.

The Experience split up in '69, leaving Jimi to join up with Billy Cox to play the world-reknowned gig at Woodstock, where he performed his politically
fuelled rendition of Star Spangled Banner. He did, in fact, only play one other song before walking off-stage because he felt that the show "was not coming
together".

The hit album 'Band of Gypsies' was recorded in 1970 after Jimi had lay low for a while and finally come together with artists Billy Cox and Buddy Miles.

In 1970 he returned to England with Mitch Mitchell back on drums and they played
at the 3rd Isle of Wight festival, just after having opened his 'Electric Ladyland Studios'.
After Hendrix left the Isle of Wight for a tour in Europe Billy Cox, the bassist for
the band, suffered a nervous breakdown and was flown back to the States.
On September the 14th their last concert was blown out and Jimi returned to
London.
On the 15th (Tuesday), after having booked himself into the Cumberland Hotel, he was due
for a meeting with lawyers representing various management and rival backers. He didn't
attend the meeting and had stayed the night before with a female friend in the Notting Hill
area of London.
On the Thursday (after a two day drug-fest at various London flats) Jimi called his attorney in New York to speak about a cover design for the new record and booked a flight back to New York.
Jimi had been staying with his female friend Monika, and it was she who discovered him dead in the morning after he had taken eight or nine sleeping pills sometime late in the morning.
She called an ambulance which arrived at 11:20. He was seated upright in the ambulance without head support and choked on his own vomit on the way to St. Mary Abbot''s hospital.
Pathologists reports indicated that there was a lot of Seconol in Jimi's bloodstream, but that there was nothing suggesting it was a suicide.