In November, 1942; a seventeen year old black girl - Lucille - gave birth to baby Johnny Allen. He was the second physically able child his mother would give birth to. His brother Joseph and sister Pamela were born with physical disabilities and were given up for state care at an early age. His other sister Kathy was born blind and was subsequently given up for adoption.
The boy’s father served in the army and was not around during his early childhood. However, after his release from service he collected his son and changed his name to James Marshall. Thus the boy got his name.
James got a guitar for $5 at age 15, around the time his mum was dying, and started playing. With no formal training he picked up licks and riffs by watching others play or by the ear. At 17 he had his first electric guitar, a gift from his father. This was 1959, and Blues artistes such as Muddy Waters and BB King were all over the radios doing exciting new work with the blues scale on the electric guitar, lending the traditional notes born in the swamps of the Mississipi river or the back-alleys of Chicago, a more refined commercially viable sound. Jimmy Rodgers, who played guitar for an upcoming Muddy Waters, and BB King were the earliest inspirations to young James. He tried playing for local bands, but as it were, his style and manner was ‘too loud’ and he often got himself kicked out at the auditions itself. However, he did play a while in a band called The Velvetones, who did local gigs for free.
It was however in the early 60s - after he joined the army to escape a rap for stealing cars - that James Marshall took to the electric guitar with a sincerity and passion that would lead him to experiment for hours with feedbacks and distortions, his mastery over which eventually created the legend who was just being toilet-trained as of now.
Whilst in the Army, he also became friends with bassist Billy Cox with whom he’d perform random gigs under the name The King Kasuals.
The discharge from the Army came sooner than expected after his commanding officer caught James sleeping with his guitar. So off went The Kings Kasuals, James and buddy Billy, down south to Tennessee where they would scratch out a living by performing gigs with various artists on the infamous Chitlin Circuit. It is here that James learnt to play with his teeth, cause well that’s what most artists did there. It has been said that on the streets of Chitlin everyone had something to show. Something to enchant you with, cause if they didn’t they would starve. It is here that James Marshall learnt the thrill of winning crowds by shocking them with what he could do. Or rather, by what was possible to be done. The highlight of his career here was touring with Little Richard as a back up guitar player. Little Richard was a big influence on a struggling James. He showed him how to be freaky and still woo large audiences. The gigs with Little Richard were the largest ones James had played till date. He would later go on to say that he wanted to do with his guitar, what Richard did with his voice.
Some months later James Marshall was to be found in New York, in Greenwich Village. No one exactly knows what happened. Some say Little Richard fired him, some say he missed the tour bus, and some say he never wanted to get on it in the first place. Either ways James Marshall was spotted in New York in early 1965. It is here that he would be introduced to the works of one of America’s greatest songwriters.
Bob Dylan had just released Highway 61 Revisited. Worst of all, blasphemies of blasphemies, Dylan had gone Electric!
Now this was a big deal back then. Bob Dylan was an American folk hero. He was to herald the Peace Movement to draw the Government out of THE WAR. And now he just stabs everyone in the back, or maybe shows everyone what it was really about, with the opening track of the album - Like a rolling stone - often considered in retrospect to be one of the pivotal works in Rock n’ Roll history.
It was Dylan’s first studio album with a full-fledged electric set and a back-up band. He was “Judas” to some, and “genius” to others. The point being however, that he was the man everyone was talking about, atleast in New York.
James Marshall was completely enamoured by what he heard of Dylan. Also till date James had experimented a lot with his guitar and amplifiers; however, he hadn’t dared to sing. He hadn’t ever considered himself a worthy singer. When he heard Dylan, for the first time he realized that “if this guy can sing, so can I”. Hence James started singing alongside playing the guitar.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic, in good ol’ England, a bunch of British kids from industrial counties such as Manchester, Liverpool and London, had taken to the sound of the Mississipi Delta and had made it their own in ways that would’ve been unimaginable to a traditional blues artist. As a result they were selling records not only in their country, but also in the intellectual East Coast of America. Bands like The Animals, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and probably the most significant of them all…Cream; were part of what came to be known as The First British Invasion of America. Immensely popular both at home and abroad, these bands gained a formidable reputation for their live performances, presenting the blues in a manner unheard before. Much like what James was trying to do in America, in vain. Now in New York he found records of people like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck who were creating sounds with feedbacks and distortions much like himself.
He felt like his ‘real friends were miles away across the ocean’. And he hadn’t even met them.
Chapter II : Bold as Love
Early in 1965 The Animals would split up leaving bass guitarist – Chas Chandler – looking out for new talent to manage. Mr. Chandler was looking for an artist cover an old blues number called ‘Hey Joe’ when he walked into a bar in New York and saw a black left handed guitarist present a dark and serene cover of the same song. On asking he learnt that the guy called himself Jimi. Jimi Hendrix.
Chandler would go on to become Jimi’s manager. He knew that the New York scene wasn’t ready for Hendrix’s guitar work yet. In fact there was no market anywhere in America for the kind of electric blues that Jimi was dishing out.
He offered to take Jimi to England. Get him a band, and cut him a record. Chandler recalls Jimi’s one and only query; “Could you introduce me to Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck?”
So in early 1966, after being in New York for less than a year, Jimi Hendrix left for London.
Barely a week in London and Chandler decided to take Jimi to a Cream concert. Chandler, having been part of a high billing act, knew most of the who’s-whos of London’s music underground. Clapton was a personal friend of his, and he was to introduce Jimi at the end of the show. But rarely could anyone, anyone human, ever stick to plans made with Jimi Hendrix.
It is worthy of mention that Cream were regarded as ‘The Royalty’ of the British blues scene, with lead guitarist Eric Clapton being unofficially referred to as God amongst their fans. Most critics and journalists recall that at Cream shows, the entire hall would shut up if any of the Cream members did so much as even whisper. That was the kind of aura surrounding the band when Jimi came in.
Sometime into the performance, the audience received their first shock of the evening. A tall thin black man got onto stage and asked to jam with Cream. This is something no one had ever done or would do. If you were in England in 1966 and you liked the blues, you were definitely and utterly in awe and devoted to a band called Cream. You don’t comment on Cream, you don’t touch Cream, and hell! you definitely don’t get on their stage uninvited and ask to jam with them.
Fortunately the members of Cream were not as arrogant as they presented themselves to be, and so they agreed to jam. Jimi Hendrix, after having been in London for 5 days, was on stage to jam with the biggest electric blues band in the history of blues.
Jack Bruce would, in a television interview, later wonder as to why ‘I did not kill Jimi when he came onstage, cause he plugged his guitar into my bass amp’.
And then came the shock of a lifetime. Jimi blurted out the chords to Killing Floor on his guitar with Clapton struggling to follow. Journalists present at the gig recall Clapton’s hands dropping off his guitar and him standing there for a while before dropping his guitar and walking offstage, leaving an unaware Hendrix still playing onstage.
Chaz Chandler would run backstage to find Clapton struggling to light a cigarette with shaky hands. Clapton’s only reaction was “is he really that good?”
People leaving the concert, not knowing Jimi’s name yet, started whispering about a black left handed guitarist from America who had just killed God!
Jimi Hendrix had officially arrived at the scene.
Jimi Hendrix would go on to form The Jimi Hendrix Experience under Chandler’s guidance, with British musicians Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. Within 6 months of arriving in London, he was the most sought after and billed live act in England. Not only did he draw large crowds for his gigs, but also caught the imagination of most of his peers. A rock critic noted that, ‘if you been to a Hendrix gig in England, chances are you’d run into someone like Townsend, Jeff Beck or maybe one of the lads from Cream on your way out’. The aristocracy of British music was in love with him.
He was hailed as the fastest rising star on the horizon, and at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival his coronation as the most talented live act in the world was complete. The Who and Jimi, both known for their wild and out-of-control live performances were to share the stage together for the first time. Both had a healthy respect for the other and neither wanted to follow the other on stage. The stalemate led to a toss between Jimi and Pete Townsend, the latter won. Thus Jimi was to follow The Who. The Who would go on to deliver one of their trademark outrageous performances.
But Jimi Hendrix was not to be outdone by mere luck. That night Hendrix audaciously became the first artist to cover Like a rolling stone, a song considered so hallowed in the music business that no one had dared to touch it yet. He would then go on to burn his guitar onstage shocking the near 20,000 strong audience.
The power of the same performance would lead Roger Daltrey of The Who to comment “only Jimi could’ve followed The Who that night”.
Later that year, at his last performance in London before returning to America, Jimi would go on to cover Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the title track from the Beatles album that was released just 2 days before the scheduled gig. Most of the British audience present hadn’t heard the song yet.
Noel Redding remembers being too stunned to walk out on stage when Jimi had informed him of his choice for the opening track of the gig, just minutes before they were due onstage. Further Paul McCartney and George Harrision were present in the audience amongst other British rock glitterati.
They pulled it off much to McCartney’s delight and to the relief of the rest of The Experience.
That year they released their first album Are You Experienced? in UK, and it reached #2 on the UK charts second only to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.
Chapter III : Electric Ladyland
Jimi Hendrix was found dead at a hotel in London in September, 1970.
Before his death he had returned home to a frenzy of fans and urban legends about him. America had discovered one of its greatest sons by words and reviews heard from across the Atlantic. His arrival was closely anticipated and watched. In the next 3 years he would go on to record two more albums with The Experience before Noel Redding quit the band. Mitch Mitchell stuck on with Hendrix for a few live projects before Hendrix joined forces with his old friend Billy Cox on bass, and drummer Buddy Miles to form The Band of Gypsys. They released Hendrix’s only complete official live LP.
A few months later Jimi was reunited with The Experience in what was to be his last tour with the band.
After his death, multitudes of artists – blues and otherwise – have come and gone working with the effects and chord structures used by Jimi. It was like Jimi Hendrix had taken the language of the blues and come up with his very own dialect. Peers such as Jeff Beck would later comment on the body of music left behind saying, “By the time he (Jimi) was done, it was like there was nothing left to do…He did all that we were trying to achieve, but what he did we never could have done…you know being white and British, it was impossible for me”.
Jack Bruce while commenting on Eric Clapton and Hendrix, once said “when I first saw Eric I said to myself, now here is a master guitar player…but Jimi…now Jimi was more like a force of nature”.
Personally I believe Jimi Hendrix’s music was a chaotic mix of oneself looking at one’s present through the eyes of another culture and somehow trying to align that to one’s own culture within the existing social structures; thereby giving birth to a most potent, self destructive form of madness that was to eventually consume its own source. With Jimi Hendrix, the blues had come a full circle from the backwaters of Mississipi to the shores of the Thames and riches of Europe, only to be thrust back into the hands of a left handed African-American guitar player.
James Marshall Hendrix, RIP.
