97 Fun Facts About Jimi Hendrix

In which city was Hendrix born in 1942?

Hendrix was born in Seattle on 27 November 1942; his father Al, away in the Army, was locked in the stockade, as he believed, to stop him going AWOL to see the baby.

Hendrix's father renamed him James in 1946; what had his mother named him at birth?

Johnny Allen Hendrix was the name his mother Lucille gave him while his father Al was away in the Army; back home in 1946, Al renamed him after himself and his own brother Leon.

Before he owned a guitar, the young Hendrix picked out tunes on which one-stringed instrument?

A ukulele, old and down to a single string, came home with his father; until then, Hendrix had been strumming a broom as if it were a guitar.

How much did Hendrix's first guitar, a second-hand acoustic, cost in the late 1950s?

$5 bought the second-hand acoustic from a friend of his father's; within months Hendrix was in his first band, the Velvetones, and pressing his father for an electric guitar.

Which soul group hired the unknown Hendrix as their guitarist in New York in 1964?

The Isley Brothers auditioned him soon after he reached New York and put him in their backing band; within weeks he was in the studio with them, playing on their single 'Testify'.

Which Army division was Hendrix assigned to after enlisting in 1961?

The 101st Airborne trained him as a paratrooper at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he earned the Screaming Eagles patch; by his own account, an injury on a parachute jump ended his service after about a year.

Which bassist did Hendrix meet in the Army and later bring into Band of Gypsys?

Billy Cox, a fellow soldier at Fort Campbell, heard Hendrix practising and likened the sound to a mix of John Lee Hooker and Beethoven; the two were soon playing clubs together as the King Kasuals.

Hendrix won first prize at an amateur contest at which venue in February 1964?

The Apollo Theater's amateur contest gave Hendrix first prize in February 1964, soon after he moved to Harlem; he then worked the Harlem club circuit, sitting in with any band that would have him.

Which rock-and-roll pioneer's touring band employed Hendrix until he was fired in 1965?

Hendrix played in Little Richard's touring band in 1965, clashing with him over lateness, wardrobe and stage antics until Richard's brother Robert Penniman sacked him that July.

What was the name of the band Hendrix formed in Greenwich Village before he moved to London?

Jimmy James and the Blue Flames had two members called Randy, so Hendrix renamed them by home state; 15-year-old Randy Wolfe kept the name Randy California when he co-founded Spirit.

At which Greenwich Village club did Chas Chandler first see Hendrix play?

Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street was where Chas Chandler, tipped off by a friend who had watched Hendrix's sets, saw him in the summer of 1966 and resolved to take him to London.

Chas Chandler, who became Hendrix's manager, had been the bassist in which band?

The Animals, the Newcastle band behind 'The House of the Rising Sun', had Chandler on bass; leaving to manage and produce, he brought Hendrix to London in September 1966 and built a band around him.

Who played bass in the Jimi Hendrix Experience?

Noel Redding, a guitarist who had come to audition for another band, was offered the bass job by Chas Chandler; one biographer says what Hendrix really liked was his hairstyle.

Who was the Experience's drummer?

Mitch Mitchell had just left Georgie Fame's band when Chas Chandler called; he won the Experience's drum stool on the toss of a coin against Aynsley Dunbar.

Which Howlin' Wolf song did Hendrix play when he jumped on stage with Cream in October 1966?

"Killing Floor" was the number Hendrix tore through when he sat in with Cream at a London polytechnic, a week after landing in England; it also opened his set at Monterey the following summer.

The Experience played its first shows in October 1966 supporting which French rock singer?

Johnny Hallyday, France's rock-and-roll idol, took the trio on a short tour of his home country only days after it was formed, so its first audiences had come to see someone else.

The managers of which band set up Track Records, the Experience's British label?

The Who's managers, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, hurried over to Chas Chandler after an early London show, eager to get involved; Hendrix already had a manager, so they signed him to the label they were starting.

What was the Experience's first single?

"Hey Joe" reached number six in Britain after its release in December 1966, yet failed to chart at all when it came out as his first American single the following spring.

In 1966 a British model lent the unknown Hendrix a guitar that belonged to her boyfriend, which rock star?

Keith Richards's guitar was lent out by his girlfriend, the model Linda Keith, after she saw Hendrix in a New York club; she then set about getting record men and managers to come and watch him.

London newspapers in 1967 dubbed Hendrix the 'Wild Man of' where?

Borneo's 'wild men' were an old showbiz billing: the pair the showman Barnum exhibited under that name were really two brothers from an Ohio farm; London's press hung the tag on Hendrix along with 'the Black Elvis'.

A British urban legend credits Hendrix with releasing which birds on Carnaby Street?

Parakeets freed on Carnaby Street in the late 1960s are one popular origin story for London's wild flocks; a 2019 study that mapped decades of sightings found no sign the birds spread from there.

Which album was Hendrix's debut, released in 1967?

Are You Experienced came out in Britain in May 1967 and climbed to number two; America had to wait until August, after his Monterey set had made him news at home.

Which album kept Hendrix's debut off the top of the UK chart in June 1967?

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band held the top spot; three days after its release, Hendrix opened a London show with its title track while two of the Beatles watched from the audience.

Which Beatle insisted the Monterey Pop Festival book the Experience?

Paul McCartney sat on the festival's board and pressed the organisers to book the trio, which was still unknown in America, where its only single had failed to chart.

Which Rolling Stone introduced Hendrix on stage at Monterey in June 1967?

Brian Jones walked on at Monterey in June 1967 and told the crowd Hendrix was the most exciting player he had ever heard; the set he introduced ended with a guitar in flames.

Hendrix ended his Monterey set in 1967 by burning his guitar at the close of which cover song?

"Wild Thing" ended with the guitar in flames, and Ed Caraeff, a 17-year-old crouched on a chair at the front, caught the photograph that later made the cover of Rolling Stone.

The Experience quit partway through a 1967 US tour as opening act for which band?

The Monkees were fans and asked for the Experience, but their young audience wanted no part of it; Chas Chandler later said he had set up the mismatch for the publicity.

Where did Hendrix lose the master tape of side one of Axis: Bold as Love?

In the back of a London taxi is where the side-one master vanished in late 1967; most of it was remixed in one overnight session, and 'If 6 Was 9' was saved from a bandmate's wrinkled copy, ironed flat.

The cover of Axis: Bold as Love pastes the band's faces onto a religious poster of which Hindu god?

Vishnu's many forms carry the faces of the three band members; Hendrix disliked the sleeve and said it should have drawn on his American Indian heritage, not the art of India.

Which album was Hendrix's only US number one?

Electric Ladyland topped the Billboard chart for two weeks in November 1968; during the sessions producer Chas Chandler walked out, worn down by endless retakes and a control room full of Hendrix's guests.

Which Bob Dylan cover gave Hendrix his only US top-40 hit?

"All Along the Watchtower" peaked at number 20 in the US in 1968; Dylan liked the remake so much that when he began playing the song live in 1974, he followed Hendrix's arrangement.

Which wah-wah-driven Hendrix track became his only UK number one, weeks after his death?

"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" came out in Britain under the title 'Voodoo Chile' and topped the chart in November 1970; the trio had worked it up in the studio the day after a 15-minute blues jam on the same theme.

Roger Mayer's Octavia pedal is heard on the guitar solo of which Hendrix song?

"Purple Haze" got the pedal, which adds a note an octave higher, within weeks of Hendrix first hearing it; its maker, a naval acoustics engineer by day, built only a handful and sold none at the time.

Which amplifier brand did Hendrix adopt in late 1966 and use for the rest of his career?

Marshall amps came to Hendrix through his drummer, who had known founder Jim Marshall since his schooldays and made the introduction in London in late 1966.

Which guitar model is Hendrix most associated with?

Fender Stratocaster after Stratocaster passed through his hands from 1966 onwards; two went up in flames in 1967, one at London's Astoria and one at Monterey.

Hendrix, a lefty, mostly played what kind of instrument?

Right-handed guitars flipped and restrung were his habit; on his favourite model, turning it over reversed the slant of the bridge pickup, so the low strings rang brighter and the high strings mellower.

After the Woodstock MC announced the Experience, what name did Hendrix tell the crowd his new band was using?

Gypsy Sun and Rainbows was the name he gave, correcting the MC; he added that it was really just a band of gypsies, a phrase that named his next trio a few months later.

Who was the drummer in Band of Gypsys?

Buddy Miles, formerly of Wilson Pickett's band and the Electric Flag, drummed and sang in Band of Gypsys; manager Michael Jeffery fired him after the aborted Madison Square Garden show of 28 January 1970.

At which venue was the Band of Gypsys live album recorded over New Year 1969-70?

Fillmore East hosted all four shows, across New Year's Eve and New Year's Day; the live album cut from them was handed over to settle a contract dispute with producer Ed Chalpin.

What did Hendrix ask architect John Storyk to avoid when designing his New York studio?

Right angles had no place in the studio he wanted, which was nearly a nightclub instead: Hendrix bought the shuttered club meaning to reopen it, until his engineer Eddie Kramer talked him into building a place to record.

Which British festival did Hendrix headline in August 1970, less than three weeks before his death?

Isle of Wight Festival crowds saw him take the stage in the small hours of 31 August; six days later he played his last concert, on the German island of Fehmarn, the day after a storm had forced him to cancel.

Hendrix's last public performance was a jam at Ronnie Scott's with which singer's band?

Eric Burdon judged him unfit to play when he first came to sit in with War, Burdon's new band; Hendrix returned the next night, joined them on stage, and died less than two days later.

Which patriotic song did Hendrix play through howling feedback at Woodstock in 1969?

"The Star-Spangled Banner" came on the Monday morning, as he closed the festival; by then most of its vast crowd had already gone home.

Canadian police arrested Hendrix after a customs search in May 1969 at which city's airport?

Toronto's customs check turned up heroin and hashish in his flight bag; Hendrix told the court a fan had pressed a bottle on him that he took for medicine, and the jury acquitted him that December.

Hendrix's flat at 23 Brook Street, London, neighboured the former home of which composer?

Handel lived next door at number 25 for more than 30 years, two centuries before; Hendrix's upstairs flat has been restored and opened to visitors as part of a joint museum to the two musicians.

Which Canadian inducted the Experience into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992?

Neil Young gave the speech, saying a guitarist can either play or transcend and that Hendrix had shown him that.

Hendrix played to his biggest American crowd on 4 July 1970 at a pop festival named for which Southern city?

Atlanta gave the festival its name, but the stage stood far to the south in a field at Byron, Georgia; Hendrix went on late on the night of the Fourth and played as fireworks burst overhead.

Which household object did the young Jimi Hendrix carry around school for over a year, strumming it like a guitar?

A broom was his stand-in guitar, and a school social worker asked for funds to buy him a real one, warning that going without might harm him. The request failed, and his father refused too.

Which stage trick did Jimi Hendrix say he learned in Tennessee, joking that guitarists there did it or got shot?

Playing with his teeth was a trick Hendrix copied from the second guitarist in his own band, so as not to be upstaged. He joked that the stages down there were littered with broken teeth.

Jimi Hendrix closed the Woodstock festival at what time, after most of the crowd had already gone home?

Monday morning came about because Hendrix gave up a Sunday midnight slot so he could close the show, and rain delays did the rest. Most of the 400,000 had left before he played a note.

The Experience Music Project, home of the largest Jimi Hendrix collection, was founded by a co-founder of which company?

Microsoft money built it: the co-founder behind the museum took up electric guitar at sixteen because of Hendrix. It stands in the guitarist's home city, now as the Museum of Pop Culture.

Which rapper played Jimi Hendrix in the 2013 biopic Jimi: All Is by My Side, which used none of his songs?

André 3000 of OutKast took the lead role, but the Hendrix estate turned down the filmmakers' request for the music. Not one song Hendrix wrote is heard in the film.

Which singer, who also played Monterey and Woodstock, died aged 27 just sixteen days after Jimi Hendrix in 1970?

Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose on 4 October 1970. The two deaths, so close together and at the same age, seeded the notion that was later named the 27 Club.

What did the British sleeve of Jimi Hendrix's 1968 double album show, leading some shops to sell it in a brown wrapper?

Naked women, nineteen of them, lounged across the gatefold, a design produced by his British label's art department. Hendrix voiced surprise and displeasure, and some dealers banned it outright.

What did Jimi Hendrix's road manager fetch before a London show in March 1967 so the guitarist could debut a new stunt?

Lighter fluid let Hendrix set his guitar alight for the first time, at the London Astoria. A journalist had remarked that it was a pity he couldn't, after Hendrix joked about smashing up an elephant.

Why was the teenage Jimi Hendrix fired between sets at his very first gig, held at a synagogue in his home city?

For showing off, his unnamed band dropped him halfway through the night at Temple De Hirsch. The flash that got him sacked would later become the centre of his stage act.

Guitarists speak of the 'Hendrix setting', after Jimi Hendrix's habit of doing what to his amplifier's control knobs?

Turning all to maximum on three 100-watt amplifiers at once gave Hendrix his overdriven roar and his feedback. The maker's founder called him the greatest ambassador the company ever had.

After an onstage stunt in 1967, London's press nicknamed Jimi Hendrix the 'Black' version of which American singer?

Elvis Presley was already his model: as a boy Hendrix learned by ear, playing along to Presley's records. The 'Black Elvis' label followed the night he first set a guitar on fire.

Which Jimi Hendrix ballad did girlfriend Kathy Etchingham say he wrote after a row over her lumpy mashed potatoes?

The Wind Cries Mary borrows Etchingham's middle name; by her account Hendrix wrote the lyrics after the argument. Released as a single, it reached number six in Britain.

Which gentle Jimi Hendrix ballad from 1967 was later covered by Derek and the Dominos and by Stevie Ray Vaughan?

Little Wing lasts only about two and a half minutes, yet it became a guitarists' standard. Hendrix spotted a glockenspiel lying about the studio and added it beneath his vocal.

On Lulu's live BBC show, Jimi Hendrix broke off his own hit to play which Cream song as a farewell tribute?

Sunshine of Your Love saluted the newly split trio, and Hendrix played on through the live show's closing minutes, leaving the producer powerless to stop him. Rock legend says the BBC banned him for it.

Jimi Hendrix, an inductee of the Native American Music Hall of Fame, was partly descended from which nation?

Cherokee ancestry mattered to Hendrix: he complained that the Hindu-themed sleeve of his second album ignored it, saying he was not that kind of Indian.

In which Canadian city did the young Jimi Hendrix sometimes stay with his grandmother Nora, a former vaudeville dancer?

Vancouver was where his father Al had been born in 1919, and where grandmother Nora helped to found a chapel. Relatives sometimes took the boy north to stay with her.

Jimi Hendrix joined the Army in 1961 as the alternative to prison after police twice caught him doing what?

Riding in stolen cars before he was 19 left him that choice, and soldiering never suited him. Within a year his sergeant wrote that the service would benefit if he were discharged.

Jimi Hendrix's If 6 Was 9 appears on the soundtrack of which film released in 1969?

Easy Rider, the biker road film, carried the song on its soundtrack, and the 1991 surfing thriller Point Break used it again.

At which New York venue did Jimi Hendrix walk off partway through a set in January 1970, ending Band of Gypsys?

Madison Square Garden was hosting an anti-war benefit when Hendrix sat down on the drum riser and then left the stage. His manager fired the drummer after the show and the bassist quit.

What kind of business was the Greenwich Village building Jimi Hendrix bought in 1968 before he made it a studio?

A nightclub called the Generation was what Hendrix and his manager bought, meaning to reopen it. They built a studio only after an audit showed what he was paying to block-book other people's.

Jimi Hendrix reportedly approved the Experience's future bassist at a 1966 audition because he liked the man's what?

Hairstyle counted for a lot with Hendrix. The newcomer had turned up to audition as a guitarist for another band, and agreed to switch to bass when the manager asked him.

Jimi Hendrix spent two years after the Army touring Black venues across the South on a network known as what?

The Chitlin' Circuit took its name from chitterlings, the soul-food dish. Hendrix backed Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett and Jackie Wilson on it before deciding he had outgrown its bandleaders' rules.

In which Tennessee city did Jimi Hendrix's early band win a residency on Jefferson Street, the centre of its R&B scene?

Nashville gave Hendrix steady work at the Del Morocco, a popular spot on Jefferson Street. He later said that while living in the city he was a fan of the Grand Ole Opry.

What did Jimi Hendrix and an Army friend call the band they formed in Clarksville after leaving the service in 1962?

The King Kasuals grew out of weekend jams at clubs on the base. The friend, a bassist, would be back at Hendrix's side at Woodstock seven years later.

Which R&B bandleader, met in a New York hotel lobby in 1965, hired Jimi Hendrix for his group the Squires?

Curtis Knight kept him for eight months. A three-year contract Hendrix signed with a producer during that spell stayed in force and later tangled his career in lawsuits.

To settle an old contract dispute, Jimi Hendrix delivered the live Band of Gypsys album to which record label?

Capitol Records had been issuing misleading albums of his early sideman sessions, and the settlement gave it one LP of new music. Hendrix chose to pay the debt with a concert recording.

Reprise Records, the American label that released Jimi Hendrix's studio albums, had been founded by which singer?

Frank Sinatra set up Reprise in 1960 to win more artistic freedom for his own recordings. Seven years later the crooner's label became the American home of the Experience.

Which song, the B-side of the Experience's debut single, was the first Jimi Hendrix wrote after arriving in England?

Stone Free exists because his producer pushed for an original on the flip side, so that Hendrix would earn publishing royalties, when Hendrix had suggested another cover. It was finished in an hour.

Which keyboard did Jimi Hendrix play on Burning of the Midnight Lamp, his first recording with a wah-wah pedal?

Harpsichord was new to him: Hendrix said he could not play piano or anything like it, so he picked out a few notes and built the song's introduction from there.

Which English organist played on the fifteen-minute slow jam recorded for Jimi Hendrix's 1968 double album?

Steve Winwood of Traffic joined in after a late-night jam session and recalled that there were no chord sheets at all. The bassist on the track was borrowed from Jefferson Airplane.

Which twelve-minute track from Band of Gypsys has been called the pinnacle of Jimi Hendrix's career?

Machine Gun uses the guitar to imitate warfare, with sounds like rockets, bombs and diving planes. On stage Hendrix dedicated it to the soldiers fighting in Vietnam.

Which slow blues was cut from the American edition of Jimi Hendrix's debut album and not released there until 1969?

Red House was held back because, Hendrix said, everybody was scared that America did not like the blues. Singles already released took its place, and it surfaced on a hits compilation.

Which British singer released the first cover of Angel, Jimi Hendrix's ballad about a childhood dream of his mother?

Rod Stewart put it on his 1972 album Never a Dull Moment, the first release of the song by anyone after Hendrix. His guitarist Ronnie Wood had once shared a flat with Hendrix.

On which Hawaiian island did Jimi Hendrix play a free outdoor concert on a volcano's slope for a 1971 film?

Maui supplied a former pasture on Haleakalā and a crowd of a few hundred hippies, surfers and locals. His manager, the film's executive producer, brought Hendrix in to bolster the picture.

Jimi Hendrix gave his final concert in September 1970 at a storm-hit festival on Fehmarn, an island of which country?

West Germany gave him a rough send-off: fans booed because he had called off the previous night's slot over torrential rain and the risk of electrocution. He died twelve days later.

The original Jimi Hendrix Experience played its last show in June 1969, amid police tear gas, in which American city?

Denver's football stadium was the scene, and the band escaped in the back of a rental truck that fans partly crushed by climbing on top of it. The bassist quit the next day.

In which country was Jimi Hendrix arrested in January 1968 after smashing a hotel's plate-glass window in a brawl?

Sweden's courts let him go with a large fine after the night at Gothenburg's Hotel Opalen, which also left him needing treatment for an injured hand on the first day of a tour.

Which American talk-show host had Jimi Hendrix on twice in 1969, the second time playing a white Gibson SG Custom?

Dick Cavett drew out a modest Hendrix in July, when the guitarist played down his own abilities before performing with the studio's house band. He returned in September, weeks after Woodstock.

Which angular Gibson guitar did Jimi Hendrix order as a 1969 custom model with arrowhead-shaped fret markers?

Flying V was the shape Hendrix had Gibson customise for him, and the company later recreated that guitar in a limited run of 150 instruments.

Which bluesman was the first electric guitarist the young Jimi Hendrix heard, on a record he said scared him to death?

Muddy Waters frightened him as a small boy with all the sounds on that record. Hendrix later named him, with B.B. King, among the players who inspired the start of his career.

In which London district was the Samarkand Hotel, where Jimi Hendrix spent his final night in September 1970?

Notting Hill's Lansdowne Crescent held the apartment of a German girlfriend, who called an ambulance late that morning. A doctor pronounced Hendrix dead at a nearby hospital at 12:45 p.m.

Monika Dannemann, the only witness to Jimi Hendrix's final hours, was a painter and a former competitor in which sport?

Figure skating took her to the German national championships in 1965. She was later reported to have married Uli Jon Roth of the Scorpions, a guitarist who drew heavily on Hendrix.

What did coroner Gavin Thurston record at the London inquest into Jimi Hendrix's death in September 1970?

An open verdict meant the coroner found no evidence of suicide, but too little evidence of the circumstances to say more. The cause was asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates.

Which South African-born engineer worked on all three Experience studio albums and many later Jimi Hendrix releases?

Eddie Kramer was born in Cape Town to parents who opposed apartheid and moved the family to London for political reasons. He later helped persuade Hendrix to build a studio of his own.

Which documentary maker filmed Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar for the 1968 concert film Monterey Pop?

D. A. Pennebaker had just made the Bob Dylan tour portrait Dont Look Back. His Monterey film put Hendrix's set in cinemas and helped him win over the audience back home.

Which round Dallas Arbiter distortion pedal did Jimi Hendrix place between his wah-wah and his Uni-Vibe on stage?

Fuzz Face pedals were so unreliable that Hendrix took many of them on tour. He preferred the model to a rival fuzz unit largely because it cost much less.

Which future Spirit guitarist, then 15, played in Jimi Hendrix's Greenwich Village band in the summer of 1966?

Randy California owed his stage name to Hendrix, who used it to tell him apart from another Randy in the band, whom he dubbed Randy Texas.

Which 1971 album, the first released after Jimi Hendrix's death, shares its name with his final tour?

The Cry of Love was assembled by his drummer and his engineer from songs Hendrix had been finishing for a fourth studio album. It reached number three in America and number two in Britain.

How did Michael Jeffery, the manager who ran Jimi Hendrix's career until the guitarist's death, die in March 1973?

In a mid-air collision over Nantes, France, aboard an Iberia airliner, eight days before his 40th birthday. In his own last days, Hendrix had been talking to friends about leaving him.

Which side band, formed in 1968 by the Experience's bassist, left Jimi Hendrix playing many bass parts himself?

Fat Mattress let its founder sing lead and go back to guitar, his first instrument. With him busy elsewhere, Hendrix played many of the bass lines on the 1968 double album.