Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is often considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry, and one of the most important and influential musicians of his era across a range of genres. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival ^{Isle of Wight Festival 1970} . Hendrix often favored raw overdriven ^{overdrive (music)} amplifiers with high gain and treble ^{treble response} and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback ^{Audio feedback#Deliberate uses} .
Hendrix was one of the musicians who popularized the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato based around the pentatonic scale. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King ^{B. B. King} , Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul ^{soul music} guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by some modern jazz. In 1966, Hendrix, who played and recorded with Little Richard's band from 1964 to 1965, said, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice."

As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas. He was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic ^{stereophonic sound} and phasing effects for rock recording.

Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime, and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage blue plaque was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London, in September 1997. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut US album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry, and Rolling Stone ^{Rolling Stone (magazine)} named Hendrix the top guitarist on its list ^{list of guitarists considered the greatest} of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time in 2003.
He was also the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.

 
Early life

Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, while his father was stationed at an Army base in Oklahoma. He was named Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth by his mother, 17-year-old Lucille Hendrix née Jeter.. In March 1968, Jim Morrison of The Doors joined Hendrix onstage at New York's Scene Club. Albums of this Electric Ladyland-era bootleg recording were released under various titles, some falsely claiming the presence of Johnny Winter, who has denied, several times, being a participant at that jam session, and to ever having met Morrison.


Breakup of Jimi Hendrix Experience

After a year based in the US, Hendrix temporarily moved back to London and into his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham's rented Brook Street flat, next door to the Handel House Museum, in the West End of London. During this time The Jimi Hendrix Experience toured Scandinavia, Germany, and included a final French concert. They later performed two sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall on February 18 and February 24, 1969, which were the last European appearances of this line-up of the "Jimi Hendrix Experience". A Gold and Goldstein-produced film titled Experience was also recorded at these two shows, which, according to Experience Hendrix LLC, "Elements of these recordings are sure to be utilized when the official release of this material is finally made."

Noel Redding felt increasingly frustrated by the fact that he was not playing his original and favored instrument, the guitar. In 1968, he decided to form his own band Fat Mattress, which would sometimes open for the Experience (Hendrix would jokingly refer to them as "Thin Pillow"). Redding and Hendrix would begin seeing less and less of each other, which also had an effect in the studio, with Hendrix playing many of the bass parts on Electric Ladyland.

Fruitless recording sessions at Olympic in London; Olmstead and the Record Plant in New York that ended on April 9, which only produced a remake of Stone Free for a possible single release, were the last to feature Redding. Jimi then flew Billy Cox up to New York and started recording and rehearsing with him on April 21 as a replacement for Noel.

In a recorded interview by Nancy Carter on June 15 at his hotel in Los Angeles, Hendrix announced that he had been recording with Cox and that he would be replacing Noel as bass player in "The Jimi Hendrix Experience".

The last Experience concert took place on June 29, 1969 at Barry Fey's Denver Pop Festival, a three-day event held at Denver's ^Denver Mile High Stadium that was marked by police firing tear gas into the audience as they played "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)". The band escaped from the venue in the back of a rental truck which was partly crushed by fans trying to escape the tear gas. The next day, Noel Redding announced that he had quit the Experience.


Gypsy Sun and Rainbows

After the departure of Noel Redding from the group, Hendrix rented the eight-bedroom 'Ashokan House' in the hamlet of Boiceville near Woodstock in upstate New York, where he spent some time through the summer of 1969. Manager Michael Jeffery, who had a house in Woodstock, arranged the stay, with hopes that the respite would produce a new album. To replace Redding as bassist, Hendrix had been rehearsing and recording with Billy Cox, his old and trusted Army buddy, since at least April 21.


Woodstock

, Woodstock ^{Woodstock Festival} , 1969

Mitchell was unavailable to help fulfill Hendrix's commitments at this time, which include his first appearance on US TV - on the Dick Cavett show - where he was backed by the studio orchestra, and an appearance on The Tonight Show where he appeared with his new bass player Billy Cox, and session drummer Ed Shaughnessy sitting in for Mitchell. Mitchell returned in time for the Woodstock music festival ^{Woodstock Festival} on August 18, 1969, for which—in an effort to expand his sound beyond the power trio format—Hendrix then added rhythm guitarist Larry Lee (another old friend from his R&B days), and percussionists Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez.

On the day he dubbed this hired group "Gypsy Sun And Rainbows’ they recorded some jam-based material such as "Jam Back at the House", "Shokan Sunrise" (posthumous title for untitled jam), "Villanova Junction", and early renditions of the funk-driven centerpieces of Hendrix's post-Experience sound: "Machine Gun", "Message to Love" and "Izabella".

Bad weather and logistical problems caused long delays, so that Hendrix did not appear on stage until Monday morning. By this time, the audience (which had peaked at over 500,000 people) had been reduced to, at most, 180,000, many of whom merely waited to catch a glimpse of Hendrix before leaving. Festival MC ^{Master of ceremonies} Chip Monck introduced the band as "The Jimi Hendrix Experience", but Hendrix quickly corrected this to "Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, for short it's nothin’ but ‘A Band Of’ Gypsies" and launched into a two hour set, the longest of his career. As well as the two percussionists, the performance notably featured Larry Lee performing two songs and Lee sometimes soloing while Hendrix played rhythm in places. Most of this has been edited out of the officially released recordings, including Lee's two songs, reducing the sound to basically a three piece. The concert was relatively free of the technical difficulties that frequently plagued Hendrix's performances, although one of his guitar strings snapped while performing "Red House" ^{Red House (song)} (he kept playing regardless). The band, unused to playing large audiences and exhausted after being up all night, could not always keep up with Hendrix's pace, but in spite of this the guitarist managed to deliver a memorable performance, climaxing with his highly-regarded rendition of the The Star-Spangled Banner, a solo improvisation which is now regarded as a special symbol of the 1960s era.

This expanded band did not last long. After the Woodstock festival they appeared on only two more occasions. The first was a street benefit in Harlem where, in a scenario similar to the festival, most of the audience had left and only a fraction remained by the time Hendrix took the stage. Within seconds of Hendrix arriving at the site two youths had stolen his guitar from the back seat of his car, although it was later recovered. The band's only other appearance was at the Salvation club in Greenwich Village, New York. After some studio recordings, Hendrix disbanded the group. Some of this band's recordings can be heard on the MCA Records ^{Music Corporation of America} box set The Jimi Hendrix Experience ^{The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Box Set)} and on South Saturn Delta. Their final work together was a session on September 6. Hendrix's September 9 appearance on TV's Dick Cavett Show ^{Dick Cavett} , backed by Cox, Mitchell and Juma Sultan, was credited as the "Jimi Hendrix Experience".


Band of Gypsys

In 1969, a contractual dispute arose in relation to an agreement Hendrix had entered into with producer Ed Chalpin in 1965. The resolution for the dispute included Hendrix having to record an LP of new material for Chalpin company, which wouldn't feature the Experience band, and wouldn't be associated with the Experience band name. In addition, Chalpin was granted 2% of profits from Hendrix's back catalog sold in US. For the agreed upon album, Hendrix chose to record Band of Gypsys, a live album.

Along with Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles (formerly with Wilson Pickett and The Electric Flag) with whom he had been jamming together since September, Hendrix wrote and rehearsed material which they then performed at a series of four concerts over two nights, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day at Fillmore East. The second night produced the material for the Band Of Gypsys LP, which was produced by Hendrix (under the name "Heaven Research").

Since the Band of Gypsys project, there have been rumors that Hendrix formed the band with black musicians (Cox and Miles both had black ethnicity.) instead of white ones (Mitchell and Redding both had white ethnicity.) in order to court the black sector of the music-buying public. Such ideas ignored the fact that Jimi was already popular in the black community, and the fact that Hendrix cautioned against racial barriers in music, saying: "Black kids think the music is white now, which it isn't. The argument is not between black and white; that's just another game the establishment set up to turn us against one another..." He then sat down on the drum riser for a minute and then walked off stage. Various unverifiable assertions have been proffered to explain this bizarre scene. Buddy Miles claimed that manager Michael Jeffery dosed Hendrix with LSD in an effort to sabotage the current band and bring about the return of the Experience lineup. But no one else closely associated with Hendrix agrees with his statement.


Cry of Love tour

A week after the botched Band of Gypsys show Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding gave an interview to Rolling Stone for the upcoming tour dates as a reunited Jimi Hendrix Experience. But Redding never even got to rehearse, as Hendrix just continued to work with Billy Cox. Noel was only told that he wasn't going to be playing during the rehearsals before the tour began. Fans refer to this final "Jimi Hendrix Experience" lineup as the "Cry of Love" band, named after The Cry of Love Tour to distinguish it from the original. Billy Cox has several times commented on this, to make it clear that this lineup considered themselves "The Jimi Hendrix Experience" before they even went on tour and that any other title is bogus. All billing, adverts, tickets etc. on the tour used "Jimi Hendrix Experience" or occasionally, as previously, just "Jimi Hendrix".

Two of Hendrix's later recordings were the lead guitar parts on "Old Times Good Times ^{Stephen Stills (album)} " from Stephen Stills hit eponymous album ^{Stephen Stills (album)} (1970), and on "The Everlasting First ^{False Start (Love album)} " from Arthur Lee ^{Arthur Lee (musician)} 's new incarnation of Love ^{Love (band)} 's, not so successful and aptly named LP False Start ^{False Start (Love album)} both tracks were recorded with these old friends on a fleeting and unexplained visit to London in March 1970, following Kathy Etchingham's marriage.

He spent the next four months of 1970 recording during the week and playing live on the weekends. "The Cry of Love" tour, designed to earn money to repay the studio loans, temper Hendrix's mounting back taxes and legal fees, and fund the production of his next album, tentatively titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun. The tour began in April at the LA Forum, was structured to accommodate this pattern. Performances on this tour featured Hendrix, Cox, and Mitchell playing new material alongside extended versions of older recordings. The USA leg of the tour included 30 performances and ended at Honolulu, Hawaii on August 1, 1970. A number of these shows were recorded and produced some of Hendrix's most memorable live performances.


Electric Lady Studios

In 1968, Hendrix and Jeffery had invested jointly in the purchase of the Generation Club in Greenwich Village. Their initial plans to reopen the club were scrapped when the pair decided that the investment would serve them much better as a recording studio. The studio fees for the lengthy Electric Ladyland sessions were astronomical, and Hendrix was constantly in search of a recording environment that suited him. In August 1970, Electric Lady Studios was opened in New York.

Designed by architect and acoustician John Storyk, the studio was made specifically for Hendrix, with round windows and a machine capable of generating ambient lighting in a myriad of colors. It was designed to have a relaxing feel to encourage Hendrix's creativity, but at the same time provide a professional recording atmosphere. Engineer Eddie Kramer upheld this by refusing to allow any drug use during session work.

Hendrix spent only two and a half months recording in Electric Lady, most of which took place while the final phases of construction were still ongoing. Following a recording/dubbing session on August 26, an opening party was held later that day. He then boarded an Air India flight for London with Billy Cox, joining Mitch Mitchell to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival ^{Isle of Wight Festival 1970} .


European tour

The group then commenced the European leg of the tour. Longing for his new studio and creative outlets, the tour was a commitment that the already restless Hendrix was not eager to perform. In Aarhus, Hendrix abandoned his show after only two songs, remarking: "I've been dead a long time". In the months before Hendrix's death, a British music paper alleged that Hendrix had plans to join the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. On September 6, 1970, his final concert performance, Hendrix was greeted with some booing and jeering by fans at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany, due to his non-appearance at the end of the previous nights bill, (due to the torrential rain and risk of electrocution). Shortly after he left the stage, in a riot-like atmosphere reminiscent of the Altamont Festival ^{Altamont Music Festival} , it went up in flames during the first stage appearance of Ton Steine Scherben. Billy Cox quit the tour and headed home to Memphis, Tennessee, reportedly suffering paranoia after taking LSD or being given it unknowingly, earlier in the tour.

Hendrix returned to London, where he reportedly spoke to Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, and others about leaving his manager, Michael Jeffery. Hendrix's last public performance was an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War ^{War (band)} .


Death



Early on September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix died in London under circumstances which have never been fully explained. He had spent the latter part of the previous evening at a party and was picked up by girlfriend Monika Dannemann and driven to her flat at the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill. According to the estimated time of death, from autopsy data and statements by friends about the evening of September 17, he would have died within a few hours after midnight, though no precise estimate was made at the original inquest.
Dannemann claimed in her original testimony that after they returned to her lodgings the evening before, Hendrix, unknown to her, had taken nine of her prescribed Vesperax ^Secobarbital sleeping pills. The normal medical dose was half a tablet, but Hendrix was unfamiliar with this very strong German brand. According to surgeon John Bannister, the doctor who initially attended to him, Hendrix had asphyxiated in his own vomit, mainly red wine which had filled his airways, as the autopsy was to show.
Later, Dannemen claimed that former road managers Gerry Stickels and Eric Barrett had been present before the ambulance was called and had removed some of Hendrix's possessions including some of his most recent messages. Two weeks before, Hendrix had fired the roadies, and on September 6, at the Open Air Love & Peace Festival in Fehmarn, Germany, Stickells reportedly stormed the box office in an attempt to shut the concert down. Stickels began taunting Hendrix offstage, and Hendrix responded by telling the crowd that Stickels and Barrett were lovers. By the end of the concert, a group of Hells Angels had fired automatic weapons and attacked some of the concert-goers, frightening the crowd and Hendrix, who fled the stage shortly after the end of the set. Photographs of Hendrix at the time show him brandishing a pistol as he travelled, elevating concerns that he feared for his life.

Lyrics written by Hendrix, which were found in the apartment, led Eric Burdon to make a premature announcement on the BBC-TV program 24 Hours that he believed Hendrix had committed suicide. Burdon often claimed he had been telephoned by Dannemann after she discovered that Jimi failed to wake up.

Following a libel case brought in 1996 by Hendrix's long-term English girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, Monika Dannemann committed suicide, though her later lover, Uli Jon Roth, has made accusations of foul play.

A former Animals ^{The Animals} "roadie," James "Tappy" Wright, published a book in May 2009 claiming Hendrix's manager, Mike Jeffery, admitted to him that he had Hendrix killed because the rock star wanted to end his management contract. This claim was given added weight when John Bannister, the doctor who attended the scene of his death in 1970 stated publicly in 2009 "The amount of wine that was over him was just extraordinary. Not only was it saturated right through his hair and shirt but his lungs and stomach were absolutely full of wine. I have never seen so much wine. We had a sucker that you put down into his trachea, the entrance to his lungs and to the whole of the back of his throat. We kept *** him out and it kept surging and surging. He had already vomited up masses of red wine and I would have thought there was half a bottle of wine in his hair. He had really drowned in a massive amount of red wine."
This testimony is contradicted by everyone else involved, the ambulance drivers and Dr Donald Teare etc.
Bannister according to the Daily Mail was struck off for "fraudlent conduct", thus making his testimony questionable.on display at the Hard Rock Cafe, Hollywood
Hendrix was well known for his unique sense of fashion and wardrobe and his Afro hairstyle. A set of hair curlers was one of the few possessions that traveled with him to England when he was first discovered in 1966. When his first advance check arrived, Hendrix immediately took to the streets of London in search of clothing at famous boutiques like I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet and Granny Takes a Trip, both of which specialized in vintage fashion. He purchased at least two army dress uniform jackets, including an old Hussar's jacket adorned with tasseled ropes. A group of policemen once ordered him to remove a Royal Veterinary Corps dress jacket, saying it was an offense to the men who had worn it.

Many photographs of Hendrix show him wearing various scarves, rings, medallions, and brooches, and in the early days Hendrix occasionally wore badges (pins or buttons) that professed his support for the hippie movement or his fascination with Bob Dylan. He initially wore a dark suit and plain silk shirts that progressively became "louder" and more psychedelically patterned. He later favored a bright blue velvet suit, then a bright red one, antique military dress jackets, a very broadly striped suit, psychedelically patterned silk jackets, various exotic waistcoats and brightly colored flared trousers. At Monterey, he wore a hand-painted silk jacket by Chris Jagger (Mick Jagger's brother) and a bright pink feather boa. In late 1967 he started to wear a wide-brimmed Western style hat (brand name "The Westerner"). It was adorned with a narrow purple band and various brooches, as shown in the original Jimi Plays Monterey film. This hat was stolen in 1968, and replaced later with another, crowned variously with a longer purple scarf, a star-like brooch in front and a set of silver bangles, sometimes with an angled feather, though he went hatless for protracted periods after this.

From late 1968 he began tying scarves to one leg and one arm, and in mid-1969 he gave up the hat permanently for bandanas. He started wearing increasingly fantastic custom-made stage costume with long trailing sleeves, culminating in his African-styled "Fire Angel" outfit that he wore throughout most of his final "Cry Of Love" tour, until it began to come apart during the Isle of Wight concert. He appeared in this outfit only once more (in just the jacket) at the disastrous concert in Aarhus, Denmark. His only non-work-related vacation was a two-week trip to Morocco in July 1969 with friends Colette Mimram, Stella Benabou (Douglas), the ex-wife of Alan Douglas (record producer) and Deering Howe. Upon his return Hendrix decorated his Greenwich Village apartment with Moroccan objets d'art and fabrics. Mimram and Benabou created some of Hendrix's most memorable later attire, the shortened blue kimono-style jacket that he wore in three TV appearances and the white fringed jacket, ornamented with blue glass beads, he wore at the Woodstock Festival.Hendrix is widely known for and associated with the use of psychedelic drugs, most notably lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) ^{lysergic acid diethylamide} , as were many other famous musicians and celebrities of that time. He supposedly had never taken psychedelic drugs until the night he met Linda Keith, but smoked cannabis ^{cannabis (drug)} and drank alcohol previously. Amphetamine is also recorded as being used by Hendrix during tours.
Hendrix was notorious among friends and bandmates for sometimes becoming angry and violent when he drank too much alcohol.
Kathy Etchingham spoke of an incident that took place in a London pub in which an intoxicated Hendrix beat her with a public telephone handset because he thought she was calling another man on the pay phone.
Carmen Borrero, another girlfriend, says she required stitches after he hit her with a bottle after drinking and becoming jealous.
Alcohol was also cited as the cause of Hendrix's 1968 rampage that badly damaged a Stockholm hotel room and led to his arrest. Paul Caruso's friendship with Hendrix ended in 1970 when Hendrix, while under the influence, punched him and accused him of stealing from him. of the drug possession charges.

On May 3, 1969, while checking through Canadian customs at Toronto Pearson International Airport, Hendrix was arrested when small amounts of heroin and hashish were found in his luggage. After being released on a $10,000 cash bail and being required to appear in court at a later date, the Experience rushed to make their concert at Maple Leaf Gardens. Hendrix opened the show with the greeting, "We want you to forget about today, about yesterday, and about tomorrow. Tonight we're gonna create a whole new world." In its review of the concert, The Globe and Mail printed: "[H]is guitar became the voice of the Rave New World. It screamed, hissed, and shrieked with the ferocity of a thousand dentist drills plunged into a single tooth."

In his trial defense, Hendrix claimed that that the drugs were slipped into his bag by a fan without his knowledge. He was acquitted.
A point of controversy exists around whether Hendrix's alleged use of heroin was a contributing factor to his death. There was, however, no mention of heroin at the autopsy. Later untrue statements about special toxicology reports were only released to quiet the unfounded speculation that Hendrix had overdosed on heroin, as was the statement about the lack of needle marks, although no-one had specifically accused him of injecting and this has never been a point of contention.Hendrix's body was returned to Seattle and he was interred in Greenwood Memorial Park, Renton, Washington. As the popularity of Hendrix and his music grew over the decades following his death, concerns began to mount over fans damaging the adjoining graves at Greenwood, and the growing, extended Hendrix family further prompted his father to create an expanded memorial site separate from other burial sites in the park. The memorial was announced in late 1999, but Al Hendrix's deteriorating health led to delays and he died two months before its scheduled completion in 2002. Later that year, the remains of Jimi Hendrix, his father Al Hendrix, and grandmother Nora Rose Moore Hendrix were moved to the new site. The headstone contains a depiction of a Fender Stratocaster guitar, the instrument he was most famed for using —– although the guitar is shown right-side up, rather than the way Hendrix played it, upside down (left-handed).

The memorial is a granite dome supported by three pillars under which Jimi Hendrix and other family members are interred. Hendrix's autograph is inscribed at the base of each pillar, while two stepped entrances and one ramped entrance provide access to the dome's center where the original Stratocaster adorned headstone has been incorporated into a statue pedestal. A granite sundial complete with brass gnomon adjoins the dome, along with over 50 family plots that surround the central structure, half of which are currently adorned with raised granite headstones.

To date, the memorial remains incomplete: brass accents for the dome and a large brass statue of Hendrix were announced as being under construction in Italy, but since 2002, no information as to the status of the project has been revealed to the public. A second memorial statue of Jimi playing a Stratocaster stands near the corner of Broadway and Pine Streets in Seattle.

In May 2006 Seattle honored the music, artistry and legacy of Jimi Hendrix with the naming of a new park near Seattle's historic Colman School in the heart of the Central District.Hendrix's recordings were originally released in North America on Reprise Records (a division of Warner Communications) from 1967 until 1993 and were released in Europe and Japan on Polydor Records. (Because it was recorded to settle a legal dispute, the Band of Gypsys album was released on Capitol Records in North America.) British releases of his first three albums were first issued on the independent label Track Records, which was originally created by the managers of The Who. The label was later absorbed by Polydor.

In 1994, the Hendrix family prevailed in in its long standing legal attempt to gain control of Jimi's music, and subsequently licensed the recordings to MCA Records (later Universal Music) through the family-run company Experience Hendrix. 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.Reports that Hendrix's tapes for a concept album Black Gold ^{Black Gold (Jimi Hendrix recordings)} had been stolen and lost from the London flat, are incorrect. Hendrix gave those tapes to Mitch Mitchell at the Isle of Wight Festival three weeks prior to his death. They are now in the possession of Experience Hendrix LLC.

Hendrix's unfinished album was partly released as the 1971 title The Cry of Love. The album was well received and charted in several countries. However, the album's producers, Mitchell and Kramer, would later complain that they were unable to make use of all the tracks they wanted. This was due to some tracks being used for 1971's Rainbow Bridge ^{Rainbow Bridge (album)} and 1972's War Heroes for contractual reasons.

Material from the The Cry of Love album was re-released in 1997 as First Rays of the New Rising Sun, along with the rest of the tracks that Mitchell and Kramer wanted to include.

Many of Hendrix's personal items, tapes, and many pages of lyrics and poems are now in the hands of private collectors and have attracted considerable sums at the occasional auctions.
These materials surfaced after two employees, under the instructions of Mike Jeffery, removed items from Hendrix's Greenwich Village apartment following his death.

In 2010, Legacy Recordings and Experience Hendrix LLC launched the 2010 Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project, starting with the release of Valleys of Neptune in March. Legacy is also planning to release deluxe CD/DVD editions of the Hendrix albums Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland and First Rays of the New Rising Sun, as well as reissuing the 1968 compilation album Smash Hits.Hendrix synthesized many styles in creating his musical voice and his guitar style was unique, later to be abundantly imitated by others. Despite his hectic touring schedule and notorious perfectionism, he was a prolific recording artist and left behind more than 300 unreleased recordings.

His career and untimely death has grouped him with Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison as one of the 27 Club, iconic 1960s rock stars that suffered drug-related deaths at age 27 ^{27 Club} within months of each other, leaving legacies in death that have eclipsed the popularity and influence they experienced during their lifetimes.

Musically, Hendrix did much to further the development of the electric guitar's repertoire, establishing it as a unique sonic source, rather than merely an amplified version of the acoustic guitar. Likewise, his feedback, wah-wah and fuzz-laden soloing moved guitar distortion well beyond mere novelty, incorporating other effects pedals and units specifically designed for him by his sound technician Roger Mayer (such as the Octavia and Univibe) with dramatic results.

Hendrix affected popular music with similar profundity; along with earlier bands such as The Who and Cream ^{Cream (band)} , he established a sonically heavy yet technically proficient bent to rock music as a whole, significantly furthering the development of hard rock and paving the way for heavy metal ^{heavy metal music} . He took blues to another level. His music has also had a great influence on funk and the development of funk rock especially through the guitarists Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers and Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic, Prince ^{Prince (musician)} and Jesse Johnson of The Time ^{The Time (band)} . His influence even extends to many hip hop artists, including Questlove, Chuck D of Public Enemy ^{Public Enemy (band)} , Ice-T (who covered "Hey Joe" with his heavy metal ^{heavy metal music} band Body Count), El-P and Wyclef Jean. Miles Davis was also deeply impressed by Hendrix and compared his improvisational skills with those of saxophonist John Coltrane, and Davis would later want guitarists in his bands to emulate Hendrix. Hendrix was ranked number 3 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock behind Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Hendrix was ranked number 3 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock N' Roll, behind the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. He has been voted by Rolling Stone, Guitar World, and a number of other magazines and polls as the best electric guitarist of all time.

Guitar World's readers voted six of Hendrix's solos ^{guitar solo} among the top "100 Greatest" of all time: "Purple Haze" (70), "The Star-Spangled Banner" (52), "Machine Gun ^{Machine Gun (Jimi Hendrix song)} " (32), "Little Wing" (18), "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (11) and "All Along the Watchtower (5).

In 1992, Hendrix was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.


Financial legacy

When Al Hendrix died of congestive heart failure in 2002, his will stipulated that Experience Hendrix, LLC was to exist as a trust designed to distribute profits to a list of Hendrix family beneficiaries. Upon his death, it was revealed that Al had signed a revision to his will which removed Hendrix's brother Leon Hendrix as a beneficiary. A 2004 probate lawsuit merged Leon's challenge to the will with charges from other Hendrix family beneficiaries that Janie Hendrix, Al's adopted daughter, was improperly handling the company finances. The suit argued that Janie and a cousin of Jimi Hendrix (Robert Hendrix) paid themselves exorbitant salaries and covered their own mortgages and personal expenses from the company's coffers while the beneficiaries went without payment and the Hendrix gravesite in Renton went uncompleted.

Janie and Robert's defense was that the company was not profitable yet, and that their salary and benefits were justified given the work that they put into running the company. Leon charged that Janie bilked Al Hendrix, then old and frail, into signing the revised will, and sought to have the previous will reinstated. The defense argued that Al willingly removed Leon from his will because of Leon's problems with alcohol and gambling. In early 2005, presiding judge Jeffrey Ramsdell handed down a ruling that left the final will intact, but replaced Janie and Robert's role at the financial helm of Experience Hendrix with an independent trustee. To date, the gravesite of Jimi Hendrix remains incomplete.


The Jimi Hendrix Foundation

In 1987, Leon Hendrix commissioned the James (Jimi) Marshall Hendrix Foundation. This foundation is based in Renton, Washington. Though run for some time by Jimi's brother Leon Hendrix, in August, 2006 Leon asked a child-hood friend of Jimi Hendrix - James (Jimmy) Williams, to take control of the Foundation.


Guitar legacy


Fender Stratocaster

Hendrix owned and used a variety of guitars during his career. His guitar of choice however, and the instrument that became most associated with him, was the Fender Stratocaster, or "Strat". He started playing Stratocasters in 1966 and thereafter used it almost exclusively for his stage performances and recordings.

Hendrix bought many Strats and gave some away as gifts. The original sunburst Stratocaster that Hendrix burnt at the Astoria in 1967, and that he kept as a souvenir, was given to Frank Zappa by a Hendrix roadie at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival; Zappa assumed it was the one Hendrix had played there.

Hendrix used right-handed guitars, turned upside-down for left-hand playing, and re-strung so that the heavier strings were in their standard position at the top of the neck. This had an important effect on his guitar sound: because of the slant of the Strat's bridge pickup, his lowest string had a bright sound while his highest string had a mellow sound, the opposite of the Stratocaster's intended design.

Heavy use of the tremolo bar necessitated frequent tuning; Hendrix often asked the audience for a "minute to tune up."

In addition to Fender Stratocasters, Hendrix was also photographed playing Jazzmasters ^{Fender Jazzmaster} , Duosonics ^{Fender Duosonic} , two different Gibson Flying Vs, a Gibson Les Paul, three Gibson SGs, a Gretsch Corvette he used at the 1967 Curtis Knight sessions and miming with a right strung Fender Jaguar on the "Top Of The Pop's" TV show, as well as several other brands. Hendrix borrowed a Fender Telecaster from Noel Redding to record "Hey Joe" and "Purple Haze", used a white Gibson SG Custom for his performances on the Dick Cavett show in the summer of 1969, and the Isle of Wight film shows him playing his second Gibson Flying V. While Jimi had previously owned a Flying V that he'd painted with a psychedelic design, the Flying V used at the Isle of Wight was a unique custom left-handed guitar with gold plated hardware, a bound fingerboard and "split-diamond" fret markers that were not found on other 60s-era Flying Vs.

On December 4, 2006, one of Hendrix's 1968 Fender Stratocaster guitars with a sunburst design was sold at a Christie's auction for USD$168,000.


Amplifiers and effects

Hendrix was a catalyst in the development of modern guitar effects pedals. His high volume and use of feedback ^{Audio feedback} required robust and powerful amplifiers. For the first few rehearsals he used Vox ^{Vox (musical equipment)} and Fender ^{Fender Musical Instruments Corporation} amplifiers. Sitting in with Cream, Hendrix played through a new range of high-powered guitar amps being made by London drummer turned audio engineer Jim Marshall ^{Marshall Amplification} , and they proved perfect for his needs. Along with the Stratocaster, the Marshall stack and amplifiers were crucial in shaping his heavily overdriven sound, enabling him to master the use of feedback as a musical effect, and he created a "definitive vocabulary for rock guitar."

While his mainstays were the Arbiter ^{Dallas Arbiter} Fuzz Face and a Vox wah-wah pedal,). A clear demonstration of this thumb technique can be witnessed in the Woodstock video; during the song Red House there are excellent closeups of Hendrix's fretting hand.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience

*Are You Experienced (1967)
*Axis: Bold as Love (1967)
*Electric Ladyland (1968)


Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsys

*Band of Gypsys (1970) (live)


Posthumous studio albums

*The Cry of Love (1971)
*Rainbow Bridge ^{Rainbow Bridge (album)} (1971)
*War Heroes (1972)
*Loose Ends ^{Loose Ends (Jimi Hendrix album)} (1974)
*Crash Landing ^{Crash Landing (album)} (1975)
*Midnight Lightning (1975)
*Nine to the Universe (1980)
*Radio One ^{Radio One (album)} (1988)
*First Rays of the New Rising Sun (1997)
*South Saturn Delta (1997)
*Valleys of Neptune (2010)