Jimi Hendrix

It is difficult to argue with those who say Jimi Hendrix was the greatest rock guitarist of all time. While others may be argued to be more technically proficient, Hendrix married his own incredible technical prowess to delicate and inventive songcraft and a legendary flair for live performance.

James Marshall Hendrix was born in Seattle in 1942. After years perfecting his guitar skills on the chitlin' circuit, he was spotted by the bassist of The Animals, Chas Chandler, in 1966. Chandler instantly offered to be his manager and took him to London with promises of stardom. He soon developed a live reputation that left guitar heroes like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck awestruck. With Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell on bass and drums respectively, the Jimi Hendrix Experience then recorded and released their debut album, Are You Experienced, in May 1967. A milestone in rock history, with strong funk and psychedelic tendencies, it is considered one of rock's greatest ever debut albums, and starred such classic songs as "Foxy Lady" and "Purple Haze". It was followed just seven months later by Axis: Bold as Love, another major work, featuring "Little Wing" and "If 6 Was 9". Ten months after that, Hendrix' final studio album, the double-LP Electric Ladyland was unleashed. It was a more ambitious and experimental set that included "Crosstown Traffic", "Voodoo Chile" and an exhilarating cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". Though all three albums are fixtures in the established rock canon, the first and last of the trio are most often suggested to be Hendrix' best.

By this stage however, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was fragmenting. With a new band dubbed Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, Hendrix headlined the Woodstock festival in 1969. Many stories are told about his performances at particular concerts or festivals, where he could play guitar solos behind his back, or with his teeth, or where he would set his guitar on fire. Woodstock '69 is his most famous show of all, as it included the prime example of a rock musician using nothing but his instrument to convey a political message. Using his guitar to simulate noises of war (like planes, explosions and screams) in between the normal Star Spangled Banner melody, it was a rendition which was seen to express the widespread public discontent with the war in Vietnam. It is now considered a landmark cultural moment of that decade, one of the greatest guitar solos of all time and one of the greatest live performances of all time.

Forming another new band, the Band of Gypsys, Hendrix' final lifetime release was a live album of the same name. Recorded on New Year's Eve 1969/70, it included another anti-war song which used guitar effects to simulate weapon-fire: "Machine Gun". Band of Gypsys is regarded as a seminal live album.

The remainder of 1970 was spent touring and recording new material, but in September 1970 Jimi Hendrix died of an accidental drug overdose. His most recent recordings were posthumously collected on First Rays of the New Rising Sun in 1997. Mostly comprised of unfinished demos, it would be unfair to compare these songs to his finished work, but it's still an essential document for any self-respecting Hendrix fan.