Artist Profile: Jimi Hendrix (part #1)

When Little Richard was once asked in an interview, "In all of your years of playing, has anybody ever upstaged you"? Without skipping a beat, he answered "Uh yes, Jimi Hendrix. He was my guitar player, and you know, we didn't know he could play with his mouth. One night I heard all this screaming and hollerin' for him! I thought they were screaming for me. But he was back there playing the guitar with his mouth. He didn't do it again, 'cause we made sure that the lights didn't come on that area no more. We fixed that." Well maybe for the time he was with Little Richard anyway. But playing the guitar with his teeth was just one of Jimi Hendrix's stage antics that would have seemed little more than window dressing if he didn't have the chops to back it up. And back it up he did and then some.

Jimi Hendrix's early life in Seattle's Central District was practically Dickensian in ways – alcoholic parents, being raised, time and again, by family and friends, poor to the point where he often did not know where his next meal was coming from, to hiding out in a closet in their tiny apartment to avoid the fighting of his parents and being separated from his siblings early and often left Jimi a very quiet and reflective child. However, in a moment of graciousness, Al Hendrix once presented Jimi with a guitar and began teaching him to play (after Jimi had spent months pretending to play along to records on an old straw broom).

In various interviews, Jimi claimed have learned more about playing the guitar from listening to a variety of styles of music but settling mostly on the blues and R&B records that his parents had in the apartment. "I was influenced,"" Jimi once said "by everything at the same time … Like I used to like Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran and Muddy Waters and Elvin (sic) James. See a mixture of those things and hearing those things at the same time, which way do you go?" He continued on saying "The first guitarist I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I heard one of his old records when I was a little boy and it scared me to death, because I heard all those sounds. Wow, what was that all about? It was great!"

Jimi had spent some time playing in the Seattle area with a few local bands while still in school but his failing grades and lack of interest in school brought him to the point where he dropped out after just beginning his junior year of high school. Increasing difficulties with his father and a few run ins with the local law enforcement agencies served to propel Jimi to his first major life decision. He left Seattle for Fort Ord, California for Basic Training in the US Army on May 29th, 1961.

He had requested assignment to 101st Airborne as a clerk, having been enamored by sight of their screaming eagle patch while back in Seattle. For a young man who had lived essentially an unstructured and abusive early life, the rigors and structure of the Army was a welcome site. Here he was also having three square meals a day, which was more than he had counted on through the majority of his young life. Although he did not flourish while in the Army , based on letters home, he did seem to tolerate it well enough. However, it smacks in opposition to what he told reporters later in his life. He said in more than one interview, that he "hated the Army immediately", although several writers have theorized that this was in hind site based on his celebrity and the clearly anti-war sentiment that had gripped the nation in the mid to late sixties.

It was while stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, Jimi Hendrix met up with another Army recruit, bass player Billy Cox. Gathering up a few other band mates, they formed 'The Kasuals" and began to play gigs both on base and off at local clubs, some as far away as North Carolina. Since none of the other band mates would, or could, sing very well, Jimi took the task of fronting the band for the first time in his life.

Ten months into a thirty-six month enlistment, Jimi began to spend more time with the band and plotting ways to escape the Army . Although the generally accepted story, which was the one that Jimi gave the press and his family for his discharge being that he broke an ankle on a jump, the truth is a little different. As reported by Charles Cross in his definitive biography of Hendrix, "Room Full Of Mirrors", Hendrix began to see the base psychiatrist complaining that he was developing homosexual tendencies, had fallen in love with a bunk mate and that was afraid of being the recipient of a 'blanket party' or worse, a shell to the back while out in the field. He manufactured a host of other physical and mental problems in an effort to secure his discharge. In the days before the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, his story of his developing homosexual tendencies was enough to get his discharge from the Army . Hendrix never revealed the truth throughout the remainder of his life.

It was after his stint in the Army that Hendrix entered his journeyman phase of his musical career. After Cox secured his discharge from the Army, the pair landed in Nashville with the intent of becoming professional musicians. From a somewhat non-descript start and stop they took their newly formed band, "The King Kasuals" to Clarksdale, Mississippi where the band lived a hand to mouth existence, grabbing whatever local gigs they could. It was during this period that Jimi's obsession with the guitar started to become more apparent. It was so pronounced that locals began to refer to him as "Marbles". He was known to fall asleep practicing, sleeping with the guitar across his chest and he would begin to practice when he first opened his eyes in the morning. Alphonso Young, rhythm guitarist for "The King Casuals" observed that "he (Hendrix) put twenty-five years of practice into five". He would practice on his way to the gig, play the five-hour gigs and continue to practice in the car back to their cramped apartment. There are stories that he was seen actually taking his guitar with him into movie theatres and restaurants.

This singular obsession paid off in time. By 1962, his band mates often joked that he could play blindfolded, upside down and behind his back. Ironically, in time, he was able to do all of these things and more.

"The King Kasuals" were a reasonably successful dance band on the Chitlin' Circuit for a few years but each member of the band held part time jobs to supplement their income. Everyone with the exception of Jimi. Hendrix took to playing in other bands, backing up the other performers to earn a little extra income. In 1963, Hendrix toured behind Solomon Burke, the first real "star" to have Hendrix in his band. And as would happen several times in his early career, Hendrix could not contain himself in the background of any group. As Burke relayed the story: "Five dates would go beautifully and then at the next show, he'd go into this wild stuff that wasn't part of the song. I just couldn't handle it anymore." One night on the tour bus, Burke "traded" Hendrix to Otis Redding for two horn players. Again, Jimi let his fingers fly during a show and in less than a week, Redding left Jimi Hendrix by the side of the road after a gig one night.

He met similar fates while playing for Marvellettes and Bobby Womack. However he plodded on, grabbing up whatever work he could get. He even had a quick gig with one of his major influences, Curtis Mayfield. However that ended quickly when Jimi accidentally destroyed one of Mayfields amplifiers.

Conveniently, as his interest in "The King Kasuals" and being a Nashville/Clarksdale cover band had begun to wane, a New York promoter caught their set and offered Jimi studio work in New York City. With nothing but his guitar on his back, a beige overcoat given to him by a band mate and his personal effects in a small gym back, Jimi jumped at the chance and left the Chitlin' Circuit for the City.

Hendrix settled into Harlem, again living hand to mouth, struggling to break into the New York music scene. Although he had expected the going to be easier, the truth was much harsher. New York's Harlem scene was very strict in what was acceptable. Blues, jazz and rhythm and blues were what the fans wanted and done the way the masters had done them. Rock and roll was not something that any one in Harlem had any interest in hearing. Yet Hendrix continued to haunt the Apollo nightclub looking for work. After being turned away by Sam Cookes band, Hendrix found work with the Isley Brothers and his first recording was on their song "Testify", a minor hit for the band. He stayed with the band, albeit in the last row of the band and only garnering a twenty second solo every set, through a tour that took them along the East Coast, along the Chitlin' Circuit and even to Bermuda. However Jimi became disillusioned with the entire "revue" aspect of the band and he jumped off the tour in Nashville, quitting the band and hooking with a Gorgeous George Odell for a brief tour.

After being stranded again in Kansas City when he missed Gorgeous George's tour bus, Hendrix eventually caught a gig with another passing band on their way to Atlanta, Georgia. It was in Atlanta that a member of Little Richards band approached Jimi and an audition was arranged. Little Richard hired him on the spot. It was an interesting time for Jimi – as a child, Hendrix had practically idolized Little Richard, having seem him preach (back when Little Richard had walked away from music and into the pulpit) and already met him once back stage at Seattle's Eagle Auditorium. Many have said that Jimi modeled many of his stage moves from Richard as well his style of dress and even down to his moustache. Of course, the main proponent of these ideas was Little Richard himself. Whether true or not, it is undeniable the amount of influence that Little Richard had on many performers of the day – his style was unmatched in the early days of rock and roll.

Life as a member of Little Richards back up band, The Upsetters, was both good and bad. Good in the respect that they were the tightest and most professional band that Jimi had played with. The music was solid, fast and wild. The crowds were adoring and prone to screaming in adulation for practically everything they played. On the bad side, it was less than a creative outlet for someone like Hendrix whose main function seemed to be to crank out the same set of chords over and over every night. And when playing with Little Richard, there was only room in the spotlight for one and that one was Richard himself.

Former band mate, Johnny Jones recalled that by the time the Little Richard tour hit Nashville, it was becoming clear that Jimi's time with Little Richard was coming to a close. "Jimi was getting better, and was more flashy… Jimi was pretty, and Little Richard wasn't going to let anyone be prettier than he was".

Jimi himself often told the story that one night on the tour he tired of the band uniforms and opted to wear a satin shirt instead. After the show, he was berated by the bandleader and fined. "I am Little Richard. I am the only Little Richard! I am the King of Rock and Roll, and I am the only one allowed to be pretty. Take that shirt off!"

He stuck with the tour through the west and back to Washington D.C. but one night, he missed the tour bus again. By the time he caught up with the band, he knew it was over. Hendrix always insisted that he quit the band but Little Richard and his brother, his manager, insist that they fired him. "I fired Hendrix," said Robert Penniman (Little Richards brother). "He was a damn good guitar player, but he was never on time. He was always late for the bus and flirting with the girls, and stuff like that."

Hendrix made his way back to New York City.

Next: New York, London and Monterey!

Great story...I can't wait for part 2!!

Thanks! I appreciate that. :)