He named it Betty Jean and started talking to it. Then, he began to take it to bed with him. Other men found his actions just plain weird. They started hiding his guitar and bullying him.
Once, some of them even beat him up. He was always an outsider and never seemed to fit in just right. As a result of a broken ankle in the army, Jimi was allowed to leave. Private first class James Hendrix was honorably discharged on July 2, He then headed towards home, doing what he loved doing most, playing guitar.
Jimi Hendrix had a lasting impact on music history. His unique style inspired many people to become involved in music. I admire Jimi Hendrix for the amazing accomplishments he achieved throughout his lifetime. Although his professional career spanned less than a decade, his music also impacted other performers. Jimi Hendrix motivated me to start learning about rock music and playing guitar.
In times of sorrow, difficulty and tragedy, Jimi proved that nothing was impossible. He never gave up on what he believed in and that is the courage he has given me.
Hendrix's interpretation of the national anthem was a protest on par with King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," says Wells, the English professor. Hendrix took a founding American document and reminded Americans how far they had strayed from their values.
This is my national anthem,' " Wells says. Hendrix was criticized for being unpatriotic after playing the anthem. When he went on "The Dick Cavett Show" after Woodstock , he told the talk show host he thought his version was "beautiful. He was racially profiled. It might seem odd to suggest that Hendrix's race was invisible to white fans; his skin color was one of his selling points when he burst onto the American scene in with his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in California.
Hendrix may have been the first black sex symbol American whites unabashedly embraced. At a time when a black man could be killed for being with a white woman, Hendrix was surrounded by white groupies, flicking his tongue and grinding his guitar before thousands of cheering white girls. These adoring fans certainly noticed Hendrix's race, but what they saw was actually a stereotype of the hypersexual black man that Hendrix played up for fame. The press of his day extended the stereotype further.
Few of these white fans knew, though, how much Hendrix's life had been marred by racism. Hendrix left his hometown of Seattle because of racism, says Cross, his biographer. He grew up in a world of abject poverty and family turmoil that was typical of black families at that time. When he was a teenager, he was arrested on dubious charges of driving in stolen cars and given the choice of being jailed or enlisting in the Army, Cross says.
He enlisted and became a paratrooper. Hendrix continued to experience racism as a musician. When he toured the Chitlin' Circuit, he couldn't go to the bathroom at gas stations in the South because they closed their doors to blacks. Even after he became a rock star, he was still racially profiled. Cross tells stories of Hendrix being mistaken for a bellhop in a swanky New York hotel, and of New York cabbies refusing to pick him up.
Even the rapturous reception Hendrix received when he traveled to London in for his first big break was tinged with racism. Various biographies of Hendrix noted that many of the white musicians he encountered had little exposure to black people and had difficulty accepting Hendrix as a superior musician.
Some of their resistance to him was rooted in ego as well as race. One infamous story tells how Hendrix had to kill God before he was accepted in London. The Almighty was, in , incarnate in Eric Clapton, the guitarist for Cream. He was considered so good that one graffiti artist in London declared, "Clapton is God.
Clapton consented and Hendrix launched into a blistering version of "Killing Floor," an up-tempo blues classic.
Clapton couldn't keep up and afterward stormed off the stage, humiliated. After Hendrix died, some white fans still had trouble accepting Hendrix's race, says Wells, the music critic. Wells noticed that heavy metal artists hardly ever mentioned Hendrix's race as they raved about his guitar. They could hear his genius but they couldn't see his heritage.
That kind of adoration would not have pleased Hendrix, Wells says. He was starting a record company, and he wanted his old management out. He wanted me to be his personal assistant, to watch for people stealing from him. It was so unique, so mellow. He went inside with his art and music. Newswire Powered by. Close the menu. Rolling Stone. Log In. To help keep your account secure, please log-in again.
You are no longer onsite at your organization. Still, he managed to accomplish a lot in the approximately four years he spent in the spotlight, and leave this world a legend when he died on September 18, , at the age of Here are 10 things you might not have known about the musical legend. But Muddy Waters was the first musician who truly made him aware of the instrument.
He learned to play by ear and would often use words or colors to express what he wanted to communicate.
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