"Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970, Rock and Roll Guitar Hero, Rock and Roll Guitar God"05:47 Sep 19 2017
Times Read: 732
48 years ago today, September 18th 1970, James Marshall Hendrix died in England, at the height of his career, he was only 27 years old, and it seemed he died before he got old, as The Who had said in the song My Generation, a few years earlier. It was a prophetic song that really fit the sixties and what was happening in that generation when i was growing up, listening to The Beatles as they began the second wave of the British Invasion, in the early sixties, as they came here to America for the first time to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show, in winter of 1964, not more than a few months after John F. Kennedy was laid to rest, after being assassinated in Dallas November of 1963. It was a sad time in this country when Kennedy had died, our innocence was gone after the events of that day, and it seems his alleged killer Lee Harvey Oswald, was also shot to death right there in the Dallas police station, on live TV, by then club owner Jack Ruby, whom also had a shady past. The motive he gave was that he was upset that the President had been killed, but i believe otherwise. Jimi Hendrix was born at the height of the war years, in 1942, a year after Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, and also a year after The Fleischer Brothers had started to make their "Superman" cartoons. His parents Al Hendrix and Lucille Jeter had met at a Jitterbug dance contest, and won, and that's how their relationship started. they soon married in March of 1942, before Al went to war, and Lucille had brought their first baby into the world, November 1942. At that time he wasn't named James Marshall Hendrix. He was originally named Johnny Alan Hendrix. At first he was raised by friends of Lucille's who took the boy Johnny to Berkeley where his Father Al found him in 1945, after returning home, from the war. He was then renamed James Marshall Hendrix. He eventually bought Jimi his first guitar, for 5 dollars, and that's how he began his music, as a boy. His Father and Lucille reunited to try being a married couple and had a second son Jimi's Brother Leon, but the marriage never worked, and Jimi spent the next years of his life being shuffled back and forth between relatives in Vancouver, Canada and his Father in Seattle, for ten years. His Mother had died in 1958, and Jimi became withdrawn, and isolated, he was a sad and lonely boy. In 1962, he got a chance to play with The Isley Brothers that he played with for awhile. He later got hired by Little Richard to play back up guitar for him in the early sixties, long before he went to England for the first time. That was in 1966, when The band the "Jimi Hendrix Experience" was born, and the rest as they say is history.They recorded a succession of albums before disbanding in 1969. They played the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967 during the Summer of Love, after their first album was released and The Beatles released the album, "SGT. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band." Rumors were floating around that "The Beatles" were to make an appearance at the Monterey festival, but the rumors proved false, however they did provide artwork for the festival. Monterey was Jimi's homecoming after becoming famous over in England. He was the shock and the hit of the festival, he made a name for himself when he burned then smashed his guitar at the end of his set. After that it was all the fans wanted to see when they saw Jimi play other concerts, but Jimi didn't really want the fans to know him just for that outrageous display he put on at Monterey, he wanted to be taken seriously as a guitar player, because he could play the blues as well as any blues guitar player that had ever played. He grew up listening to the blues masters as a young boy and a young man, and he wanted to model himself after those great blues masters of the blues guitar. He did play blues on the first Experience record in the form of the song Red House. After Monterey, they got called to play warming up for "The Monkees" but they were fired from that tour, because the kids didn't like him, nor did their parents. Jimi had fans in the hippies and those that were more about the age of aquarius. Monterey was the first of the big rock festivals. After the Experience disbanded Jimi formed what would be called "The Band of Gypsys." They moved to upstate New York not too far from where the Woodstock Festival was rumored it was going to be held in that area where they were living in a rented house jamming and rehearsing for that rumored festival being slated to happen in August. That Summer "The Band of Gypsys" played Woodstock they were the last band to play, they closed the festival, and became a part of history. On the night of New Year's Eve Jimi and his "Band of Gypsys" played at the Fillmore East into the new year. 1970 came in and that made Jimi want to change his musical style, to something more progressive. Even before 1970, Jimi was spending alot of time in the studio, he spent more time in the studio from 1967 to 1970 than he did playing or touring. Late in the Summer of 1970, he played the Isle of Wight festival, and it was late at night when the band went onstage. That and a handful of other shows were to be Jimi's last before his untimely death in September of that year. After he went back to Seattle that year it was the last time he was ever to be home. He was living in England with a woman Monica Danneman, she was the last person to ever see him alive. He died of an apparent drug overdose. His loss to the music world, was a devastating blow to the world, and to those that knew and loved him. He was the greatest guitar player ever to live, he did things with the guitar that no one was doing at that time, and no one since has ever been able to come close to doing on guitar what Jimi was able to do, though he has been gone these 48 years, his music still lives on, and will live on into the far off distant future. He was an icon to guitar players all over the music world in those years, and a guitar god to me, to this day only a handful of guitar players have come close to playing the way Jimi did, Robin Trower, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Uli John Roth, and Frank Marino are the only ones that have managed to tap into Jimi from beyond the grave in their respective styles of playing guitar. In 1975 five years after Jimi's passing a hidden stash of tapes were found in a warehouse in Boston Massachusetts. Over six hundred tapes were found with six hundred fifty hours of music on them that Hendrix had recorded between 1967 and 1970. From those tapes, three albums were released. "Crash Landing" "Midnight Lightning" and "Nine To The Universe" which got mixed reviews by the critics and the fans.
COMMENTS
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XSalistaX
16:28 Feb 03 2018
Another great talent that died way to young!
ErebustheDead
00:38 Feb 21 2018
He was good and Freddie Mercury was amazing as well
phycoassassin
04:27 Apr 06 2018
I was basically referring to the sixties rock icons that died way too soon when i wrote this piece, like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, like their rock forefathers before them Richie Valens, buddy Holly, and J.P. Richardson The Big Bopper died way too soon.
HarlyK3253
20:29 Nov 24 2018
I love 60s rock
phycoassassin
23:46 Dec 10 2018
The sixties was the best time to be a kid i enjoyed it when i was younger, especially the music of the psychedelic era.