MENTION the name, Jimi Hendrix who died 40 years ago; and its fair to say that most people think of Wood stock and his performance at what is now considered one of America's most fabled concerts.That Hendrix was among the world's most brilliant guitarists is an understatement; and those fortunate enough to have seen and heard him in concert music treasure it as an unforgettable experience. The iconic Jimmy Hendrix Experience was an amazingly wonderful group to watch.What is even more painful and regrettable is that as relevant as Hendrix's music is, today's generation of musicians and music enthusiasts who need to tap from his incredible experience, especially guitarists, blues singers and composers continue to miss out on an artist who helped to shape the course and future of the music, including what is happening today.I have seen him in musical videos. Almost all the rock and blues enthusiasts who were around in the 60's and 70s will still remember such hits as All along the watch tower, Are you experienced, Bold as love, Electric lady land and others. As a matter of fact, I played his music a lot in the 60s and 70s while presenting perhaps the biggest pop show on radio at the time. The Big Beat. I remember devoting a whole programme to Hendrix as a memorial upon his death. In September 1970, Hendrix spent his last time on stage, jamming with members of War, the group, just hours before he was found dead in his London apartment.The transplanted West coast musicians were then backing up his old friend Eric Burden, whose former bassist, Chas Chandler had been Jimi's U.K. born saviour from poverty and obscurity in America. The Poignant torch-bearing symmetry of those connections between the doomed Hendrix and his heir-apparent brothers in War now seems taken from some Aquarian-age variation on a Greek tragedy.Until Jimi Hendrix came along, no one had demonstrated how versatile, explosive and imaginative a single guitar player could be on one album or in one show. This is not to say that he was the beginning of this revolution in guitar playing. Adequate credits must be given to Charlie Christian who also died young. In his brief, yet seminal career as the man who took the guitar from the back seat as an accompanying instrument to the front as a solo vehicle, Charlie Christian elevated the electric guitar from the swing band's rhythm section. This was as a jazz instrument, but for its interpolation as a pop music vehicle, Jimi Hendrix established all the dynamics, fireworks and electronics, making the sound an embodiment of his spirit; and his body the source of the sound.Pete Townshed of the Who, one of the 70's great rock bands credits Hendrix with making him take the guitar seriously. But what Hendrix really did was make the guitar and guitar players as prominent, necessary and fashionable as the singing voice in late twentieth century popular music. It is difficult to appreciate this fact today as live music has been replaced with computerized versions where instruments are played by machines.Along the Sly Stone and James Brown, Jimi Hendrix became a pace setter for the younger black (and some non black) musicians who redefined R & B and electric jazz in the '70s ' Santana, Earth, Wind and Fire, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, the Isley Brothers, War, Mandrill and also Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chic Corea's Return to Forever and Whether Report-jazz musicians who integrated electric instruments and elements of popular music into their works in the late '60s.Jimi Hendrix grew up listening to his father's favourite music, the modern electric guitar-driven blues of Big Bill Broonzy, Jimmy Reed, Elmo James and Muddy Waters. Young James was 12 when he started emulating the plucking of those giants on the households broom. When his father asked why so many bristles from the broom were turning up on the floor, James could only offer a shame-faced explanation. AI was so moved that he went to a pawn shop and bought himself a saxophone and a real guitar for his son so they could learn to play together. As AI put it in Joe Boyd's A film about Jimi Hendrix, 'I let the sax go after a while because I figured he was going to do more with the guitar than I was going to do with the sax.'Hendrix was for many years a sideman before putting together his won group, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, finally giving himself the space to do things that were frowned upon during his circuit sideman gigs wearing loud clothes, playing an even louder guitar and doing old school blues guitar tricks like playing the instruments with his teeth or behind his back while suggestively humping it like a hyper frenetic sex machine. But the audience loved this showbusiness part of his music even though he did not quite appeal to record companies who had a preference for vocalization.Hendrix was not enamoured of his own voice, but he did sign blues of his own invention in his own unique style as well as a few Bob Dylan songs.His luck finally turned in in 1996 when a young English woman named Linda Keith, then a love interest of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, wondered into the club and was floored by Hendrix's dynamism, musical and physical. She brought a well known record executive down to hear him, and the man spent most of the night wanting to be impressed. Keith then had the inspiration to approach the man who would become Jimi Hendrix's first manager and producer, a rock bassist named Chas Chandler, who had recently exited the moderately successful British Invasion group, Eric Burdon and the Animals.Chandler saw immediately why Keith had been raving about Hendrix. After much discussion and hand holding, he persuaded a suspicious and nearly penniless Hendrix to accompany him to England, where they would begin the strategic process of propelling him to stardom. Its said that what clinched the deal for Hendrix wasn't the promise of fame and fortune but Chandler's agreement to introduce Hendrix to Eric Clapton who was the virtuoso guitarist for the super group, Cream.Speculation has always run rampant among Hendrix's fans and faithfuls as to whether Hendrix would have ever gotten a break in the United States like the one Shander put together for him in the United Kingdom.Hendrix did not posses the singing voice that would impress the major R & B producers of the day such as Berry Gordy or Jerry Wexler, the movers and shakers on the American scene whose standard for black singing prowess leaned towards Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson and others.But who knows, something else should have worked out to give him the break all the same.
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