They say the good die young. Maybe they’re right. Especially in this case. Well, Jimi Hendrix died young and he was good. As a matter of fact, he was the greatest, perhaps of all the guitarists put together.

In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine named him number 1 on their list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of all time.

If you ever got to see Jimi Hendrix perform, consider yourself blessed. He was truly one of a kind. He was a self-taught guitarist. For someone who was only 27 when he died, he had a long musical history.

When he was young, he got into trouble with the law for riding in a stolen car. He was given a choice of going to prison for two years or joining the army (he joined up). He was later released for sleeping on duty and had little regard for regulations, but it was there that he met Billy Cox, who became his bass player when they later formed The Band of Gypsies. He and Billy Cox moved to Tennessee where they played in low paying clubs (sometimes even lived in the clubs) in the south on what was called the Chitlin Circuit. The Chitlin Circuit was a significant part of Jimi’s career because this is where his roots developed. However, he did experience plenty of racism and poverty which left a mark on him.

He went to New York City and lived in Harlem, where he had some desperate years there, too. In February 1964, he won first prize at an Apollo Theater amateur contest. He hung around other musicians in Greenwich Village. One of them was Frank Zappa from the Mothers of Invention, who introduced him to the newly invented wah-wah petal.

He went to London and was introduced to Noel Redding and Mitch Michell by Chas Chandler who was the bassist for The Animals. They became the Jimi Hendrix Experience. And there you have it.

Purple Haze

Although the Jimi Hendrix Experience was great, I preferred the music of Hendrix when he played with a band called The Band of Gypsies. Billy Cox played the bass and Buddy Miles played the drums. Forget about the fact that Hendrix played his guitar with his teeth or behind his back or set it on fire. I just think his music sounded better with this band, but that’s my opinion. They made an album on New Year’s Eve at the Fillmore East Theater in 1969 that I think was probably the best performance he made.