Are you experienced? If so, how’s this for a classic rock reality check: The late, great Jimi Hendrix, front man for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, would’ve been 70 years old this year. If the Hendrix phenomenon was before your time, PBS is ready with a powerful and revealing rewind, “American Masters: Jimi Hendrix —Hear My Train A Comin’.”
“I can’t express myself in conversation,” Hendrix shyly admits in the documentary. Maybe not, but his guitar, described by friends as another “appendage,” talked plenty. Electrifying sounds came out of that instrument, jolting listeners with songs like “Purple Haze,” “Foxy Lady,” and “All Along The Watchtower.” His musicianship was so organic and original that it stopped his contemporaries in their tracks. Says Paul McCartney in the documentary, who first heard Hendrix in a small London club in 1966, “Whoa. This guy knows his way around a guitar.”
McCartney wasn’t the only one to stand up and salute. Rolling Stone has dubbed Hendrix “the greatest guitar player of all time.” Which makes it even sadder to be reminded that he died at 27, at the height of his superstardom. It was 1970 and he was trying to catch some elusive sleep in a London hotel room. He ended up asphyxiating after taking an accidental overdose of wine and sleeping pills.
Jimi’s sister, Janie Hendrix, inherited her brother’s estate, now estimated at $180 million, after their father died. She is also CEO of Experience Hendrix, the company that oversees his legacy. She was only 9 years old when she lost her big brother. The way she heard the news — in a Seattle public school during her fourth grade class’ “Show & Tell” — was brutal.
“This kid gets up and says, ‘Today, Jimi Hendrix died,’ ” says Janie. “And I didn’t believe it. And then I remember that a sixth grader came up to me and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ And I said, ‘What did you do?’ And he said, ‘No, your brother died.’ And I said, ‘No, he didn’t.’ But I’m thinking, that’s the second person that’s said something.”
After school, Janie slowly walked home. “And I remember thinking, if I see a lot of cars, I’ll know it’s true. And there were cars lined up all up and down our street. And I remember my heart racing and the tears welling up. I kept thinking: It’s not true. But my dad swooped me up and said, ‘Life will never be the same.’ ”
But the world’s fascination with this genius remains. He dressed with abandon: felt hats with ostrich feathers, conch belts and pants dyed in colors not found in nature. When Hendrix was performing, he would demonstrate his virtuosity by playing his guitar behind his back, with his elbows or his teeth. He would sometimes, in a fit of passion, pour lighter fluid on his guitar and set it ablaze.
“When he was onstage, he was supremely confident,” remembers one friend in the documentary, former Keith Richard girlfriend Linda Keith. “But when he was off, he was desperately insecure.”
Hendrix, says his sister, was sweet, quiet and very shy. “But there was a lot of depth there,” says John McDermott, Hendrix’s biographer and keeper of the flame. Not only did he produce the documentary, he is in charge of the Hendrix catalog, gathering old recordings and films for marketing purposes. “He was a lot smarter than people thought. He had more sex than people thought. And he did more drugs than people thought.”
Hendrix had a hardscrabble Seattle upbringing, shuttling between boarding homes and the homes of relatives before his father returned from the service and was able to provide some welcome stability. His first instrument, a ukulele with only one string, was found in a garbage can. As a young adult, Hendrix was desperately poor, nearly starving as a sideman playing for Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner and the Isley Brothers. But he told his father, “One day, I’m gonna make it.”
Then, one night in 1966, playing in New York’s Cafe Wha?, he was discovered by Chas Chandler, the bass player for The Animals. Chandler wanted to leave his band and go into talent management. Says McDermott, “Chandler sees a talent greater than his own, takes him to England, takes Jimi’s big picture vision and makes it a practical success.”
Hendrix began performing in London, shocking his listeners to attention. He was soon feted by the Beatles, The Who and Eric Clapton. “He came to success in ways that, sadly, we don’t have anymore,” says McDermott. “There was no A&R man, no press people shaping him. He didn’t sit down and do an ‘Oprah’ confessional. He didn’t do a ‘Rolling Stone’ 10,000- word interview about ‘Me and My Life.’ He did ‘The Dick Cavett Show’ and that was about it.”
The recording sessions survive, as does film of his most memorable performances. For Janie, one private memory is a particular treasure. “I loved [the TV show] ‘Batman’ when I was a kid,” she says. “So when Jimi came home, he had this big cape and he would chase me around the house with it, singing the ‘Batman’ anthem.”
No guitar required.