Jimi Hendrix

**James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix** (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music".

Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin' circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals became his manager. Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the **Jimi Hendrix Experience**: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary". He achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the US. The double LP was Hendrix's most commercially successful release and his first and only number one album. The world's highest-paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before his accidental death in London from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970.

Hendrix was inspired by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in popularizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units in mainstream rock, such as fuzz distortion, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe. He was the first musician to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented: "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began.

## Links to Kershaw

Kershaw would often play material from Jimi Hendrix and his Jimi Hendrix Experience band, especially his cover of Bob Dylan's Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? on his BBC Radio One shows, although it seems never played much of the guitarist on his BBC Radio 3 programmes. In his controversial tweet about the death of George Michael in 2016, Kershaw considered George not to be the caliber of people like Jimi Hendrix and other musicians, who he felt were one of the greats. [1]

## Shows Played

1986
* 03 November 1986 (John Peel): Are You Experienced? (LP - Are You Experienced?) Reprise
* 05 November 1986 (John Peel): Various BBC session tracks recorded in 1967

1987
* 06 August 1987: Killing Floor (LP - Live At Winterland) Polydor

1988
* 01 December 1988: Radio 1 Theme (single- The Peel Sessions) Strange Fruit
* 01 December 1988: Day Tripper (single- The Peel Sessions) Strange Fruit

1994
* 30 April 1994: Bleeding Heart (CD - Blues) Polydor

   1998
* 15 June 1998: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (CD - The BBC Sessions) MCA

1999
* 28 January 1999: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (CD - BBC Sessions) MCA
* 04 February 1999: Driving South (CD - The BBC Sessions) MCA

2004
* 31 October 2004: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (BBC session)

2022
* Andy Kershaw Podcast Episode 14: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (album - BBC Sessions) MCA

2023
* Andy Kershaw Podcast Episode 24: Hey Joe (album - Experience Hendrix - The Best Of Jimi Hendrix) MCA

## External Links

* Wikipedia
* Discogs
* Official Website