Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter whose four-year commercial career — abruptly ended by his September 18, 1970 barbiturate-overdose death at age 27 — produced the defining body of work in 1960s American rock-guitar performance and launched the 20th-century American electric-guitar public profile. He was born Johnny Allen Hendrix on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, into an African-American working-class family. His father James Allen Ross Hendrix was a U.S. Army veteran and gardener and his mother Lucille Jeter was a homemaker. His parents formally renamed him James Marshall Hendrix in 1946.

His 1961 U.S. Army enlistment — at age 19, into the 101st Airborne Division — was curtailed by his 1962 Army discharge after 13 months for service-incompatibility behavioral issues. His 1962 musical-career launch in Clarksville, Tennessee, and his subsequent 1962–1965 backup-guitarist work for the American R&B circuit (under bandleaders including the Isley Brothers, Little Richard, and Curtis Knight) launched his early-career American-blues-and-R&B-genre fluency.

His September 1966 London relocation under English manager and former Animals bassist Chas Chandler — and his subsequent late-1966 founding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience trio with English bassist Noel Redding and English drummer Mitch Mitchell — produced his 1966–1969 power-trio rock career. The 1967 debut album Are You Experienced — which produced the singles "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," and "The Wind Cries Mary" — launched his American and British rock-music public profile.

His June 18, 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival performance — across the festival closing set, which concluded with his guitar-burning performance of "Wild Thing" — launched his American rock-music public profile. His 1968 second album Axis: Bold as Love and his 1968 third album Electric Ladyland (which produced his cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower") produced his later commercial peak. His August 18, 1969 Woodstock Festival closing performance of the U.S. national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" has been continuously cited as one of the defining American rock-music performances of the 1960s. He died on September 18, 1970, at age 27, in London, of barbiturate overdose-induced asphyxia.

His name Jimi began as his personally-modified spelling of Jimmy (a diminutive of James, from the Hebrew Ya'akov). Jimi has been a rare but enduring American boys' name across the late 20th century.