Friday 15 December, 2000
Hendrix - The Legacy
On 18th September 1970, his reflexes swamped by a high dose of sleeping pills, Jimi Hendrix choked on his own vomit and died in the back of an ambulance. He was 27 years old and had a mainstream career of just four years and yet he remains the ultimate icon.
To mark the year of the 30th anniversary of his death, The Music Mix, examines the impact that Hendrix had, and continues to have, on the music scene.
Hendrix the showman
Hendrix’ has become a legend and echoes of his career are all around. Everyone from Motorhead to Metallica, The Pretenders to Prince, has acknowledged their debt to the man with the guitar.
And if the musical echoes aren’t enough, there’s a whole industry devoted to keeping Hendrix alive for the virtual generation. Type his name into the average Internet search engine and you will get more than 35,000 site matches, including Experience Hendrix, a site managed by Hendrix’s own family.
Whilst he was indeed quite a showman, playing guitar with his teeth and famously setting fire to his Stratocaster, the amazing impact that he has had on the music industry is incredible considering the brevity of his success. Journalist and author of seminal Hendrix work, Cross Town Traffic, Charles Sharr Murray comments:
| ‘We must remember, Hendrix came to the UK with virtually nothing to his name but a guitar, a change of socks and a jar of face cream, and he was dead by 1970.’ | |
‘So the entire body of work with which we associate Jimi Hendrix, and that includes previously unreleased material only just surfacing now, all that stuff was done within the space of around four years, barely long enough for a modern group to release two albums, tour and promote them.’
Before the UK
Hendrix became a teenager just as the term was being invented. His heritage was a mix of black, white and Cherokee. His father was said to be authoritarian and hard working. His mother, who was separated from Al Hendrix, drank herself to death before Hendrix was 16 years old. Like many others he found an escape in music, and his father has recalled how he struggled to buy his son a $5 guitar to keep him occupied and off of the streets.
School didn’t work out for Hendrix and, with few other options, in 1961 he joined the army. His military career was undistinguished; he was discharged after injuring his back in a parachute jump in 1962.
Despite his unremarkable army career the travel involved meant that he was exposed to lots of different types of music. Back on civvy street, he ended up on the ruthless R&B circuit backing everyone from Sam Cooke to Little Richard. Playing on seminal tracks like A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin On.
London
By 1966 he’d had enough of life as just another guitarist. In New York he soaked up the new directions offered by Bob Dylan and he British groups bringing their version of rock ‘n’ roll back to America.
Word spread to the white fraternity that Jimi James and the Blue Flames, playing in Greenwich Village, were worth a listen. Among the visitors was Chas Chandler, former bass player with The Animals, who couldn’t believe his ears and quickly offered his services as a manager.
Arriving in London, Hendrix was quickly recognised as a star. Pete Townshend, of The Who, recalls the immediate impact that Hendrix had on musicians and fans alike:
‘What was striking Eric [Clapton] and I at the time was just Jimi’s astonishing voice on the guitar. What you were hearing when you listened to Jimi Hendrix was a connection to outer space. The longing, the deep distant longing of space, of nothing.’
The Hendrix legend
The subsequent details of Hendrix’s career have become the stuff of legend. After tearing up the fledging rock scene in the UK, he returned in triumph to the US for the Monterey Pop Festival. The image of him kneeling before his burning guitar remains one of the most resonant in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. There were three studio albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland, each progressively bridging the gap between The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.
After Monterey came Woodstock, then the pieces started to fall apart. His agent walked away and his band, The Experience, fell apart.
Band of Gypsies, a live album with new musicians, emerged in 1970. It was his last officially sanctioned release. Some called it the birth of funk, others, the worst record of his career.
The final countdown
The final countdown began with The Isle of Wight Pop Festival. It should have marked Hendrix’s triumphant return to Britain, instead it was a mess.
Lemmy, from Hawkwind and later Motorhead, recalls the performance:
‘I saw him at The Isle of Wight in 1970 and he was garbage, and he knew he was garbage, and that was the terrible thing about Hendrix, he knew exactly what he was doing all the time and he knew he was garbage.’
The following European tour veered between massive highs and all time lows. Hounded by the press and fans, Hendrix often seemed dazed and confused.
On the 17th of September 1970 Hendrix took nine of his girlfriend Monika Danneman’s sleeping pills, intending to sleep through the next day before returning to New York to continue work on his fourth studio album. He never woke up.
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Since the death of Jimi Hendrix, more than 300 albums have been released in his name. Anyone who thought they caught half a solo on tape, rushed to the pressing plant. Now the official back catalogue is in the hands of the family.
Earlier this year relatives of Hendrix won a battle giving them the rights to an Internet address bearing the artist’s name. A United Nations arbitrator ruled that www.jimihendrix.com belonged to the family of the late rock star.
It had been registered by American Denny Hammerton, but at a hearing in Geneva, the World International Property Organisation ordered him to surrender ownership, claiming that he had no legitimate interest in the name. |
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