Jimi Hendrix — Innovator and Inventor

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~ Jimi Hendrix

I rant about hippies and the counter cutlure having messed up our country, but there are some things that came out of it all that I can’t deny that I love.

There are bands, there are musicians, there are songwriters and then there’s James Marshall Hendrix.  He was born Johnny Allen Hendrix and was known as Buster to friends and family.  After Jimi was discharged from the Army his father, Al Marshall Hendrix change Jimi’s name to James Marshall Hendrix, in honor of his deceased son and Jimi’s brother, Leon Marshall.

Jimi was dumped off on the porch by his mother when he was just a baby.  He grew up in the Yessler slums of Seattle with nothing but a head full of talent and dreams.  Hendrix had a passion for guitar so fierce, and it is reported that when he was five years old his caretaker told his father he better get Jimi a guitar or it would damage him psychologically; he wanted one that bad.  Jimi found an old, one stringed ukele in the garage that he used to compose several songs on and when he was fiftteen his father paid five dollars for Jimi’s first guitar, a used acoustic which he acquired from a friend.

When he was a teenager he got arrested for stealing cars.  The judge gave him the option of doing his time in the military in lieu of jail, so he made that choice then after boot camp got sent out with the 101st airborne.  He wasn’t the greatest of soldiers and was discharged after one year of service.  While in the military he was distracted by his dreams of playing guitar; there are reports that he would fall asleep on duty and play air guitar all the time and didn’t have much regard for military regulations.  It seems he was born for one thing and one thing only.

There are two guitarists that have passed through this world who took music to new levels with their individual and unique styles.  I’m not talking about someone merely coming up with something new and interesting; I’m talking about blowing the roof off, turning music inside out and showing everyone something they’ve never imagined before.  Those two people are Jimi Hendrix and Robert Johnson.

Robert Johnson was born in 1911.  He came up with a style of playing the blues that changed music.  Johnson used to follow around fellow blues guitarist Son House and attempt to emulate his style of playing, but was unable to.  Robert Johnson then disappeared for two years and when Son House saw him again he was a master of the guitar and had developed his own style of playing the blues.  Johnson’s story was that he had met the devil at the crossroads and sold his soul in return for a mastery of the guitar.  Another account by Ike Zimmerman’s daughter says that he and Ike spent their time practicing and learning the guitar sitting out in the Hazelhurst cemetary on gravestones where it was quiet and nobody would disturb them.  Robert Johnson chronicled his story in the song, “Cross Road Blues” which has been covered by Eric Clapton, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers and others.

Jimi was born just four years after Robert Johnson died.  Jimi quickly became a master blues player but he was also a man who developed his own style.  I see him as having taken the reigns from Mr. Johnson in that he became the new innovator and boundary breaker although there was a new explosion of blues greats in addition to Jimi.  He was so innovative that he once said, “I’ve been immitated so well I’ve heard people copy my mistakes.”

About the blues Jimi said, “The blues is easy to play but hard to feel.”  He did his time on the Chitlin Circuit, down in New Orleans and made a name for himself among some of the greatest black artists of the time, including having backed up Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner and Wilson Pickett.

Soon Jimi Hendrix found himself in London with his new band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience where he was backed up by guitarist Noel Redding on bass and a phenominal jazz sensation on drums named Mitch Mitchell.  Mitch used his jazz background and amazing chops to play off of and improvise upon Jimi’s psychedelic, experimental jams.  This created a whole new psychedelic rock fusion known as Acid Rock and took music to an entirely new place than it had ever been before.

Jimi Hendrix not only raised the level of what musicians could imagine and do at this time on stage and with their instruments, but he was an innovator in the studio, behind the controls and was one of the first to experiment with steriophonic and phasing techniques.  He used his imagination, talents and his psychedelic vision with great success on The Experience’s recorded music.  Later in his band’s career, Jimi took to spending countless hours in the studio and far less time out in front of an audience with his band, much to the chagrin of his band mates, and particularly Noel Redding, who felt somewhat stifled as an artist being stuck playing bass rhythms in this incredibly experimental band.

Jimi’s goal with his music was to change the world.  He saw music as a tool to greater things, he called it the safest high.  His wish after he died was that people would just keep playing his records.  Jimi once said, “I’m gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked.”

Jimi was a brilliant poet and it shows in the irony of this quote.  Not only is it funny but it has greater meaning if you think about the way he loved and viewed what he did through music.  Being completely naked meant not being shackled with prejudices and hangups that keep you from being free.

After The Experience broke up Jimi went on to play with a more fusion oriented jam band called A Band of Gypsies.  They were not received well by the critics, but Jimi didn’t care; he just wanted to make music, and make music they did.  Hendrix continued to push the proverbial envelope and break new ground with his Band of Gypsies.

James Marshall Hendrix died young at the age of 27, the same age that Robert Johnson died and incidentally the same ages that Jim Morrison of The Doors, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana all died.

Some people are put here for a very short time and do much with their talent.  Some do great things and some waste their talents.  I believe that Jimi Hendrix, although he lived a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll, brought us some beautiful music and beautiful messages through his music.  His life was not a life to emulate, but his music and messages are.

Rest in Peace, Jimi Hendrix — November 27, 1942 – September 18,  1970.

Some quotes attributed to Jimi Hendrix:

• “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
• “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
• “I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.”
• “I’m gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked.”
• “Music is a safe kind of high.”
• “It’s funny how most people love the dead, once you’re dead your made for life.”
• “I wish they’d had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would’ve been straightened out.”
• “Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.”
• “If my baby don’t love me no more, I know her sister will.”