Stationed in Alabama at the time of Hendrix’s birth, Al was denied the standard military furlough afforded servicemen for childbirth; his commanding officer placed him in the stockade to prevent him from going AWOL to see his infant son in Seattle. He spent two months locked up without trial, and while in the stockade received a telegram announcing his son’s birth. During Al’s three-year absence, Lucille struggled to raise their son. When Al was away, Hendrix was mostly cared for by family members and friends, especially Lucille’s sister Delores Hall and her friend Dorothy Harding. Al received an honorable discharge from the US Army on September 1, 1945. Two months later, unable to find Lucille, Al went to the Berkeley, California, home of a family friend named Mrs. Champ, who had taken care of and had attempted to adopt Hendrix; this is where Al saw his son for the first time.

After returning from service, Al reunited with Lucille, but his inability to find steady work left the family impoverished. They both struggled with alcohol, and often fought when intoxicated. The violence sometimes drove Hendrix to withdraw and hide in a closet in their home. His relationship with his brother Leon (born 1948) was close but precarious; with Leon in and out of foster care, they lived with an almost constant threat of fraternal separation. In addition to Leon, Hendrix had three younger siblings: Joseph, born in 1949, Kathy in 1950, and Pamela, 1951, all of whom Al and Lucille gave up to foster care and adoption. The family frequently moved, staying in cheap hotels and apartments around Seattle. On occasion, family members would take Hendrix to Vancouver to stay at his grandmother’s. A shy and sensitive boy, he was deeply affected by his life experiences. In later years, he confided to a girlfriend that he had been the victim of sexual abuse by a man in uniform. On December 17, 1951, when Hendrix was nine years old, his parents divorced; the court granted Al custody of him and Leon.

In 1957, while helping his father with a side-job, Hendrix found a ukulele amongst the garbage they were removing from an older woman’s home. She told him that he could keep the instrument, which had only one string. Learning by ear, he played single notes, following along to Elvis Presley songs, particularly “Hound Dog”. By the age of 33, Hendrix’s mother Lucille had developed cirrhosis of the liver, and on February 2, 1958, she died when her spleen ruptured. Al refused to take James and Leon to attend their mother’s funeral; he instead gave them shots of whiskey and instructed them that was how men should deal with loss. In 1958, Hendrix completed his studies at Washington Junior High School and began attending, but did not graduate from, Garfield High School.

In mid-1958, at age 15, Hendrix acquired his first acoustic guitar, for $5 (equivalent to $44 in 2019). He played for hours daily, watching others and learning from more experienced guitarists, and listening to blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, and Robert Johnson. The first tune Hendrix learned to play was the television theme “Peter Gunn”. Around that time, Hendrix jammed with boyhood friend Sammy Drain and his keyboard-playing brother. In 1959, attending a concert by Hank Ballard & the Midnighters in Seattle, Hendrix met the group’s guitarist Billy Davis. Davis showed him some guitar licks and got him a short gig with the Midnighters. The two remained friends until Hendrix’s death in 1970.

Before Hendrix was 19 years old, law authorities had twice caught him riding in stolen cars. Given a choice between prison or joining the Army, he chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing eight weeks of basic training at Fort Ord, California, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He arrived on November 8, and soon afterward he wrote to his father: “There’s nothing but physical training and harassment here for two weeks, then when you go to jump school … you get hell. They work you to death, fussing and fighting.” In his next letter home, Hendrix, who had left his guitar in Seattle at the home of his girlfriend Betty Jean Morgan, asked his father to send it to him as soon as possible, stating: “I really need it now.” His father obliged and sent the red Silvertone Danelectro on which Hendrix had hand-painted the words “Betty Jean” to Fort Campbell. His apparent obsession with the instrument contributed to his neglect of his duties, which led to taunting and physical abuse from his peers, who at least once hid the guitar from him until he had begged for its return. In November 1961, fellow serviceman Billy Cox walked past an army club and heard Hendrix playing. Impressed by Hendrix’s technique, which Cox described as a combination of “John Lee Hooker and Beethoven”, Cox borrowed a bass guitar and the two jammed. Within weeks, they began performing at base clubs on the weekends with other musicians in a loosely organized band, the Casuals.

Hendrix completed his paratrooper training in just over eight months, and Major General C. W. G. Rich awarded him the prestigious Screaming Eagles patch on January 11, 1962. By February, his personal conduct had begun to draw criticism from his superiors. They labeled him an unqualified marksman and often caught him napping while on duty and failing to report for bed checks. On May 24, Hendrix’s platoon sergeant, James C. Spears, filed a report in which he stated: “He has no interest whatsoever in the Army … It is my opinion that Private Hendrix will never come up to the standards required of a soldier. I feel that the military service will benefit if he is discharged as soon as possible.” On June 29, 1962, Hendrix was granted a general discharge under honorable conditions. Hendrix later spoke of his dislike of the army and lied that he had received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump.

Hendrix entered a small club in Clarksville, Tennessee, in July 1962, drawn in by live music. He stopped for a drink and ended up spending most of the $400 that he had saved during his time in the Army. “I went in this jazz joint and had a drink,” he explained. “I liked it and I stayed. People tell me I get foolish, good-natured sometimes. Anyway, I guess I felt real benevolent that day. I must have been handing out bills to anyone that asked me. I came out of that place with sixteen dollars left.” Alcohol eventually became “the scourge of his existence, driving him to fits of pique, even rare bursts of atypical, physical violence”.

In September 1963, after Cox was discharged from the Army, he and Hendrix moved about twenty miles (32 km) across the state line from Fort Campbell to Clarksville, Tennessee, and formed a band, the King Kasuals. In Seattle, Hendrix saw Butch Snipes play with his teeth and now the Kasual’s second guitarist, Alphonso “Baby Boo” Young, was performing this guitar gimmick. Not to be upstaged, Hendrix also learned to play in this way. He later explained: “The idea of doing that came to me … in Tennessee. Down there you have to play with your teeth or else you get shot. There’s a trail of broken teeth all over the stage.”

In January 1964, feeling he had outgrown the circuit artistically, and frustrated by having to follow the rules of bandleaders, Hendrix decided to venture out on his own. He moved into the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where he befriended Lithofayne Pridgon, known as “Faye”, who became his girlfriend. A Harlem native with connections throughout the area’s music scene, Pridgon provided him with shelter, support, and encouragement. Hendrix also met the Allen twins, Arthur and Albert. In February 1964, Hendrix won first prize in the Apollo Theater amateur contest. Hoping to secure a career opportunity, he played the Harlem club circuit and sat in with various bands. At the recommendation of a former associate of Joe Tex, Ronnie Isley granted Hendrix an audition that led to an offer to become the guitarist with the Isley Brothers’ back-up band, the I.B. Specials, which he readily accepted.

In March 1964, Hendrix recorded the two-part single “Testify” with the Isley Brothers. Released in June, it failed to chart. In May, he provided guitar instrumentation for the Don Covay song, “Mercy Mercy”. Issued in August by Rosemart Records and distributed by Atlantic, the track reached number 35 on the Billboard chart.

Hendrix toured with the Isleys during much of 1964, but near the end of October, after growing tired of playing the same set every night, he left the band. Soon afterward, Hendrix joined Little Richard’s touring band, the Upsetters. During a stop in Los Angeles in February 1965, he recorded his first and only single with Richard, “I Don’t Know What You Got (But It’s Got Me)”, written by Don Covay and released by Vee-Jay Records. Richard’s popularity was waning at the time, and the single peaked at number 92, where it remained for one week before dropping off the chart. Hendrix met singer Rosa Lee Brooks while staying at the Wilcox Hotel in Hollywood, and she invited him to participate in a recording session for her single, which included the Arthur Lee penned “My Diary” as the A-side, and “Utee” as the B-side. Hendrix played guitar on both tracks, which also included background vocals by Lee. The single failed to chart, but Hendrix and Lee began a friendship that lasted several years; Hendrix later became an ardent supporter of Lee’s band, Love.

In July 1965, Hendrix made his first television appearance on Nashville’s Channel 5 Night Train. Performing in Little Richard’s ensemble band, he backed up vocalists Buddy and Stacy on “Shotgun”. The video recording of the show marks the earliest known footage of Hendrix performing. Richard and Hendrix often clashed over tardiness, wardrobe, and Hendrix’s stage antics, and in late July, Richard’s brother Robert fired him. On July 27, Hendrix signed his first recording contract with Juggy Murray at Sue Records and Copa Management. He then briefly rejoined the Isley Brothers, and recorded a second single with them, “Move Over and Let Me Dance” backed with “Have You Ever Been Disappointed”. Later that year, he joined a New York-based R&B band, Curtis Knight and the Squires, after meeting Knight in the lobby of a hotel where both men were staying. Hendrix performed with them for eight months. In October 1965, he and Knight recorded the single, “How Would You Feel” backed with “Welcome Home”. Despite his two-year contract with Sue, Hendrix signed a three-year recording contract with entrepreneur Ed Chalpin on October 15. While the relationship with Chalpin was short-lived, his contract remained in force, which later caused legal and career problems for Hendrix. During his time with Knight, Hendrix briefly toured with Joey Dee and the Starliters, and worked with King Curtis on several recordings including Ray Sharpe’s two-part single, “Help Me”. Hendrix earned his first composer credits for two instrumentals, “Hornets Nest” and “Knock Yourself Out”, released as a Curtis Knight and the Squires single in 1966.

During 1965, and 1966, while Hendrix was playing back-up for soul and R&B acts in the US, he used an 85-watt Fender Twin Reverb amplifier. When Chandler brought Hendrix to England in October 1966, he supplied him with 30-watt Burns amps, which Hendrix thought were too small for his needs. After an early London gig when he was unable to use his Fender Twin, he asked about the Marshall amps he had noticed other groups using. Years earlier, Mitch Mitchell had taken drum lessons from Marshall founder Jim Marshall, and he introduced Hendrix to Marshall. At their initial meeting, Hendrix bought four speaker cabinets and three 100-watt Super Lead amplifiers; he grew accustomed to using all three in unison. The equipment arrived on October 11, 1966, and the Experience used it during their first tour.

Feeling restricted by his experiences as an R&B sideman, Hendrix moved in 1966 to New York City’s Greenwich Village, which had a vibrant and diverse music scene. There, he was offered a residency at the Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street and formed his own band that June, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, which included future Spirit guitarist Randy California. The Blue Flames played at several clubs in New York and Hendrix began developing his guitar style and material that he would soon use with the Experience. In September, they gave some of their last concerts at the Cafe au Go Go, as John Hammond Jr.’s backing group.

By May 1966, Hendrix was struggling to earn a living wage playing the R&B circuit, so he briefly rejoined Curtis Knight and the Squires for an engagement at one of New York City’s most popular nightspots, the Cheetah Club. During a performance, Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, noticed Hendrix and was “mesmerised” by his playing. She invited him to join her for a drink, and the two became friends.

While Hendrix was playing with Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, Keith recommended him to Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham and producer Seymour Stein. They failed to see Hendrix’s musical potential, and rejected him. Keith referred him to Chas Chandler, who was leaving the Animals and was interested in managing and producing artists. Chandler saw Hendrix play in Cafe Wha?, a Greenwich Village, New York City nightclub. Chandler liked the Billy Roberts song “Hey Joe”, and was convinced he could create a hit single with the right artist. Impressed with Hendrix’s version of the song, he brought him to London on September 24, 1966, and signed him to a management and production contract with himself and ex-Animals manager Michael Jeffery. That night, Hendrix gave an impromptu solo performance at The Scotch of St James, and began a relationship with Kathy Etchingham that lasted for two and a half years.

On October 1, 1966, Chandler brought Hendrix to the London Polytechnic at Regent Street, where Cream was scheduled to perform, and where Hendrix and guitarist Eric Clapton met. Clapton later said: “He asked if he could play a couple of numbers. I said, ‘Of course’, but I had a funny feeling about him.” Halfway through Cream’s set, Hendrix took the stage and performed a frantic version of the Howlin’ Wolf song “Killing Floor”. In 1989, Clapton described the performance: “He played just about every style you could think of, and not in a flashy way. I mean he did a few of his tricks, like playing with his teeth and behind his back, but it wasn’t in an upstaging sense at all, and that was it … He walked off, and my life was never the same again”.

In mid-October 1966, Chandler arranged an engagement for the Experience as Johnny Hallyday’s supporting act during a brief tour of France. Thus, the Jimi Hendrix Experience performed their first show on October 13, 1966, at the Novelty in Evreux. Their enthusiastically received 15-minute performance at the Olympia theatre in Paris on October 18 marks the earliest known recording of the band. In late October, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, managers of the Who, signed the Experience to their newly formed label, Track Records, and the group recorded their first song, “Hey Joe”, on October 23. “Stone Free”, which was Hendrix’s first songwriting effort after arriving in England, was recorded on November 2.

In mid-November, they performed at the Bag O’Nails nightclub in London, with Clapton, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Kevin Ayers in attendance. Ayers described the crowd’s reaction as stunned disbelief: “All the stars were there, and I heard serious comments, you know ‘shit’, ‘Jesus’, ‘damn’ and other words worse than that.” The performance earned Hendrix his first interview, published in Record Mirror with the headline: “Mr. Phenomenon”. “Now hear this … we predict that [Hendrix] is going to whirl around the business like a tornado”, wrote Bill Harry, who asked the rhetorical question: “Is that full, big, swinging sound really being created by only three people?” Hendrix said: “We don’t want to be classed in any category … If it must have a tag, I’d like it to be called, ‘Free Feeling’. It’s a mixture of rock, freak-out, rave and blues”. Through a distribution deal with Polydor Records, the Experience’s first single, “Hey Joe”, backed with “Stone Free”, was released on December 16, 1966. After appearances on the UK television shows Ready Steady Go! and the Top of the Pops, “Hey Joe” entered the UK charts on December 29 and peaked at number six. Further success came in March 1967 with the UK number three hit “Purple Haze”, and in May with “The Wind Cries Mary”, which remained on the UK charts for eleven weeks, peaking at number six. On March 12, 1967, he performed at the Troutbeck Hotel, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, where, after about 900 people turned up (the hotel was licensed for 250) the local police stopped the gig due to safety concerns.

A legal dispute arose in 1966 regarding a record contract that Hendrix had entered into the previous year with producer Ed Chalpin. After two years of litigation, the parties agreed to a resolution that granted Chalpin the distribution rights to an album of original Hendrix material. Hendrix decided that they would record the LP, Band of Gypsys, during two live appearances. In preparation for the shows he formed an all-black power trio with Cox and drummer Buddy Miles, formerly with Wilson Pickett, the Electric Flag, and the Buddy Miles Express. Critic John Rockwell described Hendrix and Miles as jazz-rock fusionists, and their collaboration as pioneering. Others identified a funk and soul influence in their music. Concert promoter Bill Graham called the shows “the most brilliant, emotional display of virtuoso electric guitar” that he had ever heard. Biographers have speculated that Hendrix formed the band in an effort to appease members of the Black Power movement and others in the black communities who called for him to use his fame to speak-up for civil rights.

Roby and Schreiber assert that Hendrix first used LSD when he met Linda Keith in late 1966. Shapiro and Glebbeek, however, assert that Hendrix used it in June 1967 at the earliest while attending the Monterey Pop Festival. According to Hendrix biographer Charles Cross, the subject of drugs came up one evening in 1966 at Keith’s New York apartment. One of Keith’s friends offered Hendrix acid, a street name for LSD, but Hendrix asked for LSD instead, showing what Cross describes as “his naivete and his complete inexperience with psychedelics”. Before that, Hendrix had only sporadically used drugs, experimenting with cannabis, hashish, amphetamines, and occasionally cocaine. After 1967, he regularly used cannabis, hashish, LSD, and amphetamines, particularly while touring. According to Cross, “few stars were as closely associated with the drug culture as Jimi”.

Hendrix played a variety of guitars, but was most associated with the Fender Stratocaster. He acquired his first in 1966, when a girlfriend loaned him enough money to purchase a used Stratocaster built around 1964. He used it often during performances and recordings. In 1967, he described the Stratocaster as “the best all-around guitar for the stuff we’re doing”; he praised its “bright treble and deep bass”.

Hendrix used a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face and a Vox wah pedal during recording sessions and performances, but also experimented with other guitar effects. He enjoyed a fruitful long-term collaboration with electronics enthusiast Roger Mayer, whom he once called “the secret” of his sound. Mayer introduced him to the Octavia, an octave-doubling effect pedal, in December 1966, and he first recorded with it during the guitar solo to “Purple Haze”.

On March 31, 1967, while the Experience waited to perform at the London Astoria, Hendrix and Chandler discussed ways in which they could increase the band’s media exposure. When Chandler asked journalist Keith Altham for advice, Altham suggested that they needed to do something more dramatic than the stage show of the Who, which involved the smashing of instruments. Hendrix joked: “Maybe I can smash up an elephant”, to which Altham replied: “Well, it’s a pity you can’t set fire to your guitar”. Chandler then asked road manager Gerry Stickells to procure some lighter fluid. During the show, Hendrix gave an especially dynamic performance before setting his guitar on fire at the end of a 45-minute set. In the wake of the stunt, members of London’s press labeled Hendrix the “Black Elvis” and the “Wild Man of Borneo”.

Released in the UK on May 12, 1967, Are You Experienced spent 33 weeks on the charts, peaking at number two. It was prevented from reaching the top spot by the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. On June 4, 1967, Hendrix opened a show at the Saville Theatre in London with his rendition of Sgt. Pepper’s title track, which was released just three days previous. Beatles manager Brian Epstein owned the Saville at the time, and both George Harrison and Paul McCartney attended the performance. McCartney described the moment: “The curtains flew back and he came walking forward playing ‘Sgt. Pepper’. It’s a pretty major compliment in anyone’s book. I put that down as one of the great honors of my career.” Released in the US on August 23 by Reprise Records, Are You Experienced reached number five on the Billboard 200.

Although popular in Europe at the time, the Experience’s first US single, “Hey Joe”, failed to reach the Billboard Hot 100 chart upon its release on May 1, 1967. Their fortunes improved when McCartney recommended them to the organizers of the Monterey Pop Festival. He insisted that the event would be incomplete without Hendrix, whom he called “an absolute ace on the guitar”. McCartney agreed to join the board of organizers on the condition that the Experience perform at the festival in mid-June.

On June 18, 1967, introduced by Brian Jones as “the most exciting performer [he had] ever heard”, Hendrix opened with a fast arrangement of Howlin’ Wolf’s song “Killing Floor”, wearing what author Keith Shadwick described as “clothes as exotic as any on display elsewhere”. Shadwick wrote: “[Hendrix] was not only something utterly new musically, but an entirely original vision of what a black American entertainer should and could look like.” The Experience went on to perform renditions of “Hey Joe”, B.B. King’s “Rock Me Baby”, Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing”, and Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”, and four original compositions: “Foxy Lady”, “Can You See Me”, “The Wind Cries Mary”, and “Purple Haze”. The set ended with Hendrix destroying his guitar and tossing pieces of it out to the audience. Rolling Stone’s Alex Vadukul wrote:

Axis featured psychedelic cover art that depicts Hendrix and the Experience as various avatars of Vishnu, incorporating a painting of them by Roger Law, from a photo-portrait by Karl Ferris. The painting was then superimposed on a copy of a mass-produced religious poster. Hendrix stated that the cover, which Track spent $5,000 producing, would have been more appropriate had it highlighted his American Indian heritage. He said: “You got it wrong … I’m not that kind of Indian.” Track released the album in the UK on December 1, 1967, where it peaked at number five, spending 16 weeks on the charts. In February 1968, Axis: Bold as Love reached number three in the US.

During the Electric Ladyland recording sessions, Hendrix began experimenting with other combinations of musicians, including Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady and Traffic’s Steve Winwood, who played bass and organ, respectively, on the 15-minute slow-blues jam, “Voodoo Chile”. During the album’s production, Hendrix appeared at an impromptu jam with B.B. King, Al Kooper, and Elvin Bishop. Electric Ladyland was released on October 25, and by mid-November it had reached number one in the US, spending two weeks at the top spot. The double LP was Hendrix’s most commercially successful release and his only number one album. It peaked at number six in the UK, spending 12 weeks on the chart. Electric Ladyland included Hendrix’s cover of a Bob Dylan song, “All Along the Watchtower”, which became Hendrix’s highest-selling single and his only US top 40 hit, peaking at number 20; the single reached number five in the UK. “Burning of the Midnight Lamp”, his first recorded song to feature a wah-wah pedal, was added to the album. It was originally released as his fourth single in the UK in August 1967 and reached number 18 on the charts.

By 1967, as Hendrix was gaining in popularity, many of his pre-Experience recordings were marketed to an unsuspecting public as Jimi Hendrix albums, sometimes with misleading later images of Hendrix. The recordings, which came under the control of producer Ed Chalpin of PPX, with whom Hendrix had signed a recording contract in 1965, were often re-mixed between their repeated reissues, and licensed to record companies such as Decca and Capitol. Hendrix publicly denounced the releases, describing them as “malicious” and “greatly inferior”, stating: “At PPX, we spent on average about one hour recording a song. Today I spend at least twelve hours on each song.” These unauthorized releases have long constituted a substantial part of his recording catalogue, amounting to hundreds of albums.

One of Hendrix’s signature effects was the wah-wah pedal, which he first heard used with an electric guitar in Cream’s “Tales of Brave Ulysses”, released in May 1967. That July, while performing at the Scene club in New York City, Hendrix met Frank Zappa, whose band the Mothers of Invention were performing at the adjacent Garrick Theater. Hendrix was fascinated by Zappa’s application of the pedal, and he experimented with one later that evening. He used a wah pedal during the opening to “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, creating one of the best-known wah-wah riffs of the classic rock era. He also uses the effect on “Up from the Skies”, “Little Miss Lover”, and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming”.

Hendrix received several prestigious rock music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year. In 1968, Rolling Stone declared him the Performer of the Year. Also in 1968, the City of Seattle gave him the Keys to the city. Disc & Music Echo newspaper honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970 Guitar Player magazine named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year.

Recording for the Experience’s third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, began as early as December 20, 1967, at Olympic Studios. Several songs were attempted; however, in April 1968, the Experience, with Chandler as producer and engineers Eddie Kramer and Gary Kellgren, moved the sessions to the newly opened Record Plant Studios in New York. As the sessions progressed, Chandler became increasingly frustrated with Hendrix’s perfectionism and his demands for repeated takes. Hendrix also allowed numerous friends and guests to join them in the studio, which contributed to a chaotic and crowded environment in the control room and led Chandler to sever his professional relationship with Hendrix. Redding later recalled: “There were tons of people in the studio; you couldn’t move. It was a party, not a session.” Redding, who had formed his own band in mid-1968, Fat Mattress, found it increasingly difficult to fulfill his commitments with the Experience, so Hendrix played many of the bass parts on Electric Ladyland. The album’s cover stated that it was “produced and directed by Jimi Hendrix”.

In 1968, Hendrix and Jeffery jointly invested in the purchase of the Generation Club in Greenwich Village. They had initially planned to reopen the establishment, but when an audit of Hendrix’s expenses revealed that he had incurred exorbitant fees by block-booking recording studios for lengthy sessions at peak rates they decided to convert the building into a studio of his own. Hendrix could then work as much as he wanted while also reducing his recording expenditures, which had reached a reported $300,000 annually. Architect and acoustician John Storyk designed Electric Lady Studios for Hendrix, who requested that they avoid right angles where possible. With round windows, an ambient lighting machine, and a psychedelic mural, Storyk wanted the studio to have a relaxing environment that would encourage Hendrix’s creativity. The project took twice as long as planned and cost twice as much as Hendrix and Jeffery had budgeted, with their total investment estimated at $1 million.

In January 1968, the Experience travelled to Sweden to start a one-week tour of Europe. During the early morning hours of the first day, Hendrix got into a drunken brawl in the Hotel Opalen in Gothenburg, smashing a plate-glass window and injuring his right hand, for which he received medical treatment. The incident culminated in his arrest and release, pending a court appearance that resulted in a large fine.

As an adolescent in the 1950s, Hendrix became interested in rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry. In 1968, he told Guitar Player magazine that electric blues artists Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and B.B. King inspired him during the beginning of his career; he also cited Eddie Cochran as an early influence. Of Muddy Waters, the first electric guitarist of which Hendrix became aware, he said: “I heard one of his records when I was a little boy and it scared me to death because I heard all of these sounds.” In 1970, he told Rolling Stone that he was a fan of western swing artist Bob Wills and while he lived in Nashville, the television show the Grand Ole Opry.

In January 1969, after an absence of more than six months, Hendrix briefly moved back into his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham’s Brook Street apartment, which was next door to what is now the Handel House Museum in the West End of London. After a performance of “Voodoo Child”, on BBC’s Happening for Lulu show in January 1969, the band stopped midway through an attempt at their first hit “Hey Joe” and then launched into an instrumental version of “Sunshine of Your Love”, as a tribute to the recently disbanded band Cream, until producers brought the song to a premature end. Because the unplanned performance precluded Lulu’s usual closing number, Hendrix was told he would never work at the BBC again. During this time, the Experience toured Scandinavia, Germany, and gave their final two performances in France. On February 18 and 24, they played sold-out concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall, which were the last European appearances of this lineup.

By February 1969, Redding had grown weary of Hendrix’s unpredictable work ethic and his creative control over the Experience’s music. During the previous month’s European tour, interpersonal relations within the group had deteriorated, particularly between Hendrix and Redding. In his diary, Redding documented the building frustration during early 1969 recording sessions: “On the first day, as I nearly expected, there was nothing doing … On the second it was no show at all. I went to the pub for three hours, came back, and it was still ages before Jimi ambled in. Then we argued … On the last day, I just watched it happen for a while, and then went back to my flat.” The last Experience sessions that included Redding—a re-recording of “Stone Free” for use as a possible single release—took place on April 14 at Olmstead and the Record Plant in New York. Hendrix then flew bassist Billy Cox to New York; they started recording and rehearsing together on April 21.

The last performance of the original Experience lineup took place on June 29, 1969, at Barry Fey’s Denver Pop Festival, a three-day event held at Denver’s Mile High Stadium that was marked by police using tear gas to control the audience. The band narrowly escaped from the venue in the back of a rental truck, which was partly crushed by fans who had climbed on top of the vehicle. Before the show, a journalist angered Redding by asking why he was there; the reporter then informed him that two weeks earlier Hendrix announced that he had been replaced with Billy Cox. The next day, Redding quit the Experience and returned to London. He announced that he had left the band and intended to pursue a solo career, blaming Hendrix’s plans to expand the group without allowing for his input as a primary reason for leaving. Redding later said: “Mitch and I hung out a lot together, but we’re English. If we’d go out, Jimi would stay in his room. But any bad feelings came from us being three guys who were traveling too hard, getting too tired, and taking too many drugs … I liked Hendrix. I don’t like Mitchell.”

By 1969, Hendrix was the world’s highest-paid rock musician. In August, he headlined the Woodstock Music and Art Fair that included many of the most popular bands of the time. For the concert, he added rhythm guitarist Larry Lee and conga players Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez. The band rehearsed for less than two weeks before the performance, and according to Mitchell, they never connected musically. Before arriving at the engagement, Hendrix heard reports that the size of the audience had grown enormously, which concerned him as he did not enjoy performing for large crowds. He was an important draw for the event, and although he accepted substantially less money for the appearance than his usual fee, he was the festival’s highest-paid performer.

In 1969, Hendrix rented a house in Benedict Canyon, California, that was burglarized. Later, while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, he accused his friend Paul Caruso of the theft, threw punches and stones at him, and chased him away from his house. A few days later Hendrix hit his girlfriend, Carmen Borrero, above her eye with a vodka bottle during a drunken, jealous rage, and gave her a cut that necessitated stitches.

Hendrix was passing through customs at Toronto International Airport on May 3, 1969 when authorities found a small amount of heroin and hashish in his luggage. Four hours later, he was formally charged with drug possession and released on $10,000 bail. He was required to return on May 5 for an arraignment hearing. The incident proved stressful for Hendrix, and it weighed heavily on his mind during the seven months that he awaited trial, which took place in December 1969. For the Crown to prove possession, they had to show that Hendrix knew that the drugs were there. During the jury trial, he testified that a fan had given him a vial of what he thought was legal medication which he put in his bag. He was acquitted of the charges. Mitchell and Redding later revealed that everyone had been warned about a planned drug bust the day before flying to Toronto; both men also stated that they believed that the drugs had been planted in Hendrix’s bag without his knowledge.

Hendrix mainly played right-handed guitars that were turned upside down and restrung for left-hand playing. Because of the slant of the Stratocaster’s bridge pickup, his lowest string had a brighter sound, while his highest string had a darker sound, the opposite of the intended design. Hendrix also used Fender Jazzmasters, Duosonics, two different Gibson Flying Vs, a Gibson Les Paul, three Gibson SGs, a Gretsch Corvette, and a Fender Jaguar. He used a white Gibson SG Custom for his performances on The Dick Cavett Show in September 1969, and a black Gibson Flying V during the Isle of Wight festival in 1970.

Hendrix’s performance included a rendition of the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, with copious feedback, distortion, and sustain to imitate the sounds made by rockets and bombs. Contemporary political pundits described his interpretation as a statement against the Vietnam War. Three weeks later Hendrix said: “We’re all Americans … it was like ‘Go America!’… We play it the way the air is in America today. The air is slightly static, see.” Immortalized in the 1970 documentary film, Woodstock, his guitar-driven version would become part of the sixties Zeitgeist. Pop critic Al Aronowitz of the New York Post wrote: “It was the most electrifying moment of Woodstock, and it was probably the single greatest moment of the sixties.” Images of the performance showing Hendrix wearing a blue-beaded white leather jacket with fringe, a red head-scarf, and blue jeans are regarded as iconic pictures that capture a defining moment of the era. He played “Hey Joe” during the encore, concluding the 3⁄2-day festival. Upon leaving the stage, he collapsed from exhaustion. In 2011, the editors of Guitar World named his performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” the greatest performance of all time.

The Band of Gypsys album was the only official live Hendrix LP made commercially available during his lifetime; several tracks from the Woodstock and Monterey shows were released later that year. The album was released in April 1970 by Capitol Records; it reached the top ten in both the US and the UK. That same month a single was issued with “Stepping Stone” as the A-side and “Izabella” as the B-side, but Hendrix was dissatisfied with the quality of the mastering and he demanded that it be withdrawn and re-mixed, preventing the songs from charting and resulting in Hendrix’s least successful single; it was also his last.

On January 28, 1970, a third and final Band of Gypsys appearance took place; they performed during a music festival at Madison Square Garden benefiting the anti-Vietnam War Moratorium Committee titled the “Winter Festival for Peace”. American blues guitarist Johnny Winter was backstage before the concert; he recalled: “[Hendrix] came in with his head down, sat on the couch alone, and put his head in his hands … He didn’t move until it was time for the show.” Minutes after taking the stage he snapped a vulgar response at a woman who had shouted a request for “Foxy Lady”. He then began playing “Earth Blues” before telling the audience: “That’s what happens when earth fucks with space”. Moments later, he briefly sat down on the drum riser before leaving the stage. Both Miles and Redding later stated that Jeffery had given Hendrix LSD before the performance. Miles believed that Jeffery gave Hendrix the drugs in an effort to sabotage the current band and bring about the return of the original Experience lineup. Jeffery fired Miles after the show and Cox quit, ending the Band of Gypsys.

Soon after the abruptly ended Band of Gypsys performance and their subsequent dissolution, Jeffery made arrangements to reunite the original Experience lineup. Although Hendrix, Mitchell, and Redding were interviewed by Rolling Stone in February 1970 as a united group, Hendrix never intended to work with Redding. When Redding returned to New York in anticipation of rehearsals with a re-formed Experience, he was told that he had been replaced with Cox. During an interview with Rolling Stone’s Keith Altham, Hendrix defended the decision: “It’s nothing personal against Noel, but we finished what we were doing with the Experience and Billy’s style of playing suits the new group better.” Although an official name was never adopted for the lineup of Hendrix, Mitchell, and Cox, promoters often billed them as the Jimi Hendrix Experience or just Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix first used Electric Lady on June 15, 1970, when he jammed with Steve Winwood and Chris Wood of Traffic; the next day, he recorded his first track there, “Night Bird Flying”. The studio officially opened for business on August 25, and a grand opening party was held the following day. Immediately afterwards, Hendrix left for England; he never returned to the States. He boarded an Air India flight for London with Cox, joining Mitchell for a performance as the headlining act of the Isle of Wight Festival.

When the European leg of the Cry of Love tour began, Hendrix was longing for his new studio and creative outlet, and was not eager to fulfill the commitment. On September 2, 1970, he abandoned a performance in Aarhus after three songs, stating: “I’ve been dead a long time”. Four days later, he gave his final concert appearance, at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany. He was met with booing and jeering from fans in response to his cancellation of a show slated for the end of the previous night’s bill due to torrential rain and risk of electrocution. Immediately following the festival, Hendrix, Mitchell, and Cox traveled to London.

During the first half of 1970, Hendrix sporadically worked on material for what would have been his next LP. Many of the tracks were posthumously released in 1971 as The Cry of Love. He had started writing songs for the album in 1968, but in April 1970 he told Keith Altham that the project had been abandoned. Soon afterward, he and his band took a break from recording and began the Cry of Love tour at the L.A. Forum, performing for 20,000 people. Set-lists during the tour included numerous Experience tracks as well as a selection of newer material. Several shows were recorded, and they produced some of Hendrix’s most memorable live performances. At one of them, the second Atlanta International Pop Festival, on July 4, he played to the largest American audience of his career. According to authors Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz, as many as 500,000 people attended the concert. On July 17, they appeared at the New York Pop Festival; Hendrix had again consumed too many drugs before the show, and the set was considered a disaster. The American leg of the tour, which included 32 performances, ended in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 1, 1970. This would be Hendrix’s final concert appearance in the US.

In 1989, Noe Goldwasser, the founding editor of Guitar World magazine, described Are You Experienced as “the album that shook the world … leaving it forever changed”. In 2005, Rolling Stone called the double-platinum LP Hendrix’s “epochal debut”, and they ranked it the 15th greatest album of all time, noting his “exploitation of amp howl”, and characterizing his guitar playing as “incendiary … historic in itself”.

In 1989, Noe Goldwasser, the founding editor of Guitar World magazine, described Electric Ladyland as “Hendrix’s masterpiece”. According to author Michael Heatley, “most critics agree” that the album is “the fullest realization of Jimi’s far-reaching ambitions.” In 2004, author Peter Doggett wrote: “For pure experimental genius, melodic flair, conceptual vision and instrumental brilliance, Electric Ladyland remains a prime contender for the status of rock’s greatest album.” Doggett described the LP as “a display of musical virtuosity never surpassed by any rock musician.”

A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated to Hendrix on November 14, 1991, at 6627 Hollywood Boulevard. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. In 1998, Hendrix was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame during its first year. In 1999, readers of Rolling Stone and Guitar World ranked Hendrix among the most important musicians of the 20th century. In 2005, his debut album, Are You Experienced, was one of 50 recordings added that year to the United States National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress, “[to] be preserved for all time … [as] part of the nation’s audio legacy”. In Seattle, November 27, 1992, which would have been Hendrix’s 50th birthday, was made Jimi Hendrix Day, largely due to the efforts of his boyhood friend, guitarist Sammy Drain.

Hendrix’s music has received a number of Hall of Fame Grammy awards, starting with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992, followed by two Grammys in 1999 for his albums Are You Experienced and Electric Ladyland; Axis: Bold as Love received a Grammy in 2006. In 2000, he received a Hall of Fame Grammy award for his original composition, “Purple Haze”, and in 2001, for his recording of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”. Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was honored with a Grammy in 2009.

In 1993, MCA Records delayed a multimillion-dollar sale of Hendrix’s publishing copyrights because Al Hendrix was unhappy about the arrangement. He acknowledged that he had sold distribution rights to a foreign corporation in 1974, but stated that it did not include copyrights and argued that he had retained veto power of the sale of the catalogue. Under a settlement reached in July 1995, Al Hendrix regained control of his son’s song and image rights. He subsequently licensed the recordings to MCA through the family-run company Experience Hendrix LLC, formed in 1995. In August 2009, Experience Hendrix announced that it had entered a new licensing agreement with Sony Music Entertainment’s Legacy Recordings division, to take effect in 2010. Legacy and Experience Hendrix launched the 2010 Jimi Hendrix Catalog Project starting with the release of Valleys of Neptune in March of that year. In the months before his death, Hendrix recorded demos for a concept album tentatively titled Black Gold, now in the possession of Experience Hendrix LLC, but it has not been released.

Some of Hendrix’s unfinished fourth studio album was released as the 1971 title The Cry of Love. Although the album reached number three in the US and number two in the UK, producers Mitchell and Kramer later complained that they were unable to make use of all the available songs because some tracks were used for 1971’s Rainbow Bridge; still others were issued on 1972’s War Heroes. Material from The Cry of Love was re-released in 1997 as First Rays of the New Rising Sun, along with the other tracks that Mitchell and Kramer had wanted to include. Four years after Hendrix’s death, producer Alan Douglas acquired the rights to produce unreleased music by Hendrix; he attracted criticism for using studio musicians to replace or add tracks.

The blue plaque identifying Hendrix’s former residence at 23 Brook Street, London, (next door to the former residence of George Frideric Handel) was the first issued by English Heritage to commemorate a pop star. A memorial statue of Hendrix playing a Stratocaster stands near the corner of Broadway and Pine Streets in Seattle. In May 2006, the city renamed a park near its Central District Jimi Hendrix Park, in his honor. In 2012, an official historic marker was erected on the site of the July 1970 Second Atlanta International Pop Festival near Byron, Georgia. The marker text reads, in part: “Over thirty musical acts performed, including rock icon Jimi Hendrix playing to the largest American audience of his career.”

The United States Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Hendrix in 2014. On August 21, 2016, Jimi Hendrix was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan. The James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix United States Post Office in Renton Highlands near Seattle, about a mile from Hendrix’s grave and memorial, was renamed for Hendrix in 2019.

On June 23, 2019, the Band of Gypsys were inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History in Detroit, Michigan. Billy Cox, the last surviving member of the group was on hand to accept, along with representatives of the Buddy Miles and Hendrix estates.