Purple Haze Days

Image borrowed from Bing

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. Born Johnny Allen Hendrix on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, the first of five children to James Allen "Al" Hendrix and Lucille Jeter. His father was a soldier in the United States Army stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma at the time of his birth, before he was shipped to France in World War II. When he was two years old, his mother placed him in the temporary care of friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army on September 1, 1945, and retrieved his eldest son and legally changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix in memory of his late brother, Leon Marshall Hendrix. He was known as "Buster" to friends and family, from birth. After his return, Al reunited with Lucille. He found it difficult to gain steady employment after the Second World War, and the family was impoverished.

Jimi is widely considered the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music, and one of the most influential musicians of his era across a range of genres. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. He often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Hendrix popularized use of the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by funk and some modern jazz. As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas. He was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic phasing effects for rock recording.

Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime, and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage blue plaque was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London, in September 1997. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut US album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry, and Rolling Stone named Hendrix the top guitarist on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time in 2003. He was the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.

Hendrix sometimes had a camp sense of humor, specifically with the song "Purple Haze". A mondegreen had appeared, in which the line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" was misheard as "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy." In a few performances, Hendrix humorously used this, deliberately singing "kiss this guy" while pointing to Mitch or Noel, as he did at Monterey. In the Woodstock DVD he deliberately points to the sky at this point, to make it clear. A volume of misheard lyrics has been published, using this mondegreen itself as the title, with Hendrix on the cover.

Jimi Hendrix died September 18, 1970 in London. He was 28 years old. He had spent the latter part of the previous evening at a party and was picked up by girlfriend Monika Dannemann and driven to her flat at the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill. According to the estimated time of death, from autopsy data and statements by friends about the evening of September 17, he died within a few hours after midnight, though no precise estimate was made at the original inquest.

All I'm gonna do is just go on and do what I feel.
Jimi Hendrix

All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland.
Jimi Hendrix

Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.
Jimi Hendrix

Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually.
Jimi Hendrix

Every city in the world always has a gang, a street gang, or the so-called outcasts.
Jimi Hendrix

Excuse me while I kiss the sky.
Jimi Hendrix

I don't have nothing to regret at all in the past, except that I might've unintentionally hurt somebody else or something.
Jimi Hendrix

I got a pet monkey called Charlie Chan.
Jimi Hendrix

I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just call me helium, the lightest known gas to man.
Jimi Hendrix

I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.
Jimi Hendrix

I try to use my music to move these people to act.
Jimi Hendrix

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.
Jimi Hendrix

I was trying to do too many things at the same time, which is my nature. But I was enjoying it, and I still do enjoy it.
Jimi Hendrix

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.
Jimi Hendrix

I'm gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked.
Jimi Hendrix

I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to.
Jimi Hendrix

I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.
Jimi Hendrix

If I'm free, it's because I'm always running.
Jimi Hendrix

If it was up to me, there wouldn't be no such thing as the establishment.
Jimi Hendrix

Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction.
Jimi Hendrix