Transversing US, UK, and transnational racial hierarchies, with strong desires to demarcate, surveil, enforce, and police-fixed racial borders, as a partly colored, racially interstitial being and extra-terrestrial racial, gender, sexual, and popular musical other, political, cultural, and transnational border crosser Jimi Hendrix (1942â1970), rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter, highlights dominant political-cultural categories of race, gender, sexuality, class, nation, visual culture, and popular music in his mid-twentieth-century transnational biography. Hendrixâs âfreak ishâ appearance and performances, centrality to racial visual-cultural stereotypes, legacies of threatening and non-threatening black-transnational masculinities, the 1960s counterculture , US mythologies of popular musical exceptionalis m, and transgression of hegemonic US cultural Cold War practices privilege an entertainer, symbol, and political-cultural figure who mastered the electric guitar, composed tender rock songs, and occupied an out-of-place yet âin-betweenâ position in US and transnational popular cultures.
A musical pioneer and experimenter, taking rock music to radical and unique places, Hendrix fused jazz , blues , and soul with British avant-garde rock to dramatically redefine the electric guitarâs expressive potential and sonic palette. Though his career as a featured artist lasted only four years, Hendrix altered popular musicâs trajectory and became one of the 1960s countercult ural eraâs most influential musicians. Hendrix composed a classic repertoire of rock songs, from ferocious compositions to delicate, complex ballads. An exotic, racialized âfreak â whose appeal linked white hippies and black revolutionaries by masking black anger with the colorful costumes of Londonâs Carnaby Street, Hendrix came to epitomize this area and its iconic heritage as the birthplace of 1960s âswinging London,â the home of mods, skinheads, punks, new romantics, and twenty-first-century street styles, and the epicenter of culture and lifestyle in Londonâs West End.
A US Army paratrooper during the militaryâs nascent desegregation period,1 unable to conform to militaristic rigidity, Hendrix had an unorthodox style and predilection for playing at a high volume. Self-taught, Hendrix absorbed the recorded legacy of Southern-blues practitioners. Joining R&B2 bands and touring revues, the experience and stagecraft Hendrix gained during this formative period was a major factor in his development. Hendrix spent years on the road with Little Richard (1932â), the flamboyant R&B singer, songwriter, and pianist whose mid-1950s hit songs were defining moments in rock and rollâs maturation,3 the Isley Brothers , an R&B and rock band that began recording in the late 1950s and continued to have hit records in the 1960s and 1970s, and King Curtis (1934â1971), a saxophone virtuoso known for R&B, rock and roll, blues , funk, soul, and soul jazz . A bandleader, band member, and session musician, Curtis was also a musical director and record producer. Adept at tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, Curtis was best known for his distinctive riffs and solos, heard on such songs as âYakety Yakâ (1958).
Hendrix was engaged as a backing guitarist by Little Richard when, during a 1963 Southern tour, he met blues guitarist Albert King , who taught him the technique of bending notes, reworking musicâs intentionality, and repositioning popular music as a bridge between cultivated and vernacular cultures. Hendrix toured with singer Solomon Burke (1940â2010), whose early 1960s success in merging the African-American churchâs gospel style with R&B helped usher in the soul-music era, The Supremes , the pop-soul vocal group whose tremendous popularity with a broad audience made its members among the 1960sâ most successful performers and Motown Records â4 flagship act, the husband-and-wife team of Ike and Tina Turner , considered one of the hottest, most durable, and explosive R&B ensembles, and B.B. King (1925â2015), guitarist and singer who was a principal figure in the blues â development and from whose style leading popular musicians drew inspiration.
Hendrix also backed the Impressions, an African-American group formed in 1958 whose repertoire included doo-wop,5 gospel, soul, and R&B, and Sam Cooke (1931â1964), singer, songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur. Cooke was a major figure in popular music histories and one of the most influential post-World War II black vocalists, along with Ray Charles (1930â2004), pianist, singer, composer, bandleader, and a leading black-transnational entertainer billed as âthe Genius,â credited with the early development of soul music, a style based on a melding of gospel, R&B, and jazz .6 While Ch arles represented soul at its most raw, Cooke symbolized soulâs âsweetness,â with âdisciplesâ ranging from Smokey Robinson to James Taylor and Michael Jackson .7
Hendrix also performed with the Valentinos , a Cleveland, Ohio-based family R&B group, famous for launching the careers of brothers Bobby and Cecil Womack . The former brother found more fame as a solo artist while the latter found success as a member of the husband-and-wife team of Womack & Womack with Linda Cooke . During their 22-year career, the group was known for such R&B hits as âLookinâ for a Love ,â covered by the J. Geils Band and later a solo hit for Bobby Womack , and âItâs All Over Now ,â covered by the Rolling Stones .
In Chicago, Hendrix visited the Chess recording studios , a company founded in 1950 and specializing in blues and R&B. Over time, it expanded into soul, gospel, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz and comedy recordings, released on the Chess, Checker, Argo, and Cadet labels. Founded and run by Leonard and Phil Chess , Jewish immigrant brothers from Poland, the company produced and released many singles and albums central to rock music. Chess has been described as the USâs greatest blues label, for whom such musicians as Muddy Waters (1913?â1983), the dynamic blues guitarist and singer who played a major role in creating post-World War II electric blues , recorded. Hendrix had hands-on experience in the political-cultural worlds in which black popular music developed, while greatly admiring the work of âwhite bluesmenâ Bob Dylan , the Beatles , and Yardbirds , a 1960s British group best known for their inventive conversion of R&B into rock. Original members included Eric Clapton , a highly influential rock musician who later became a major singer-songwriter, Keith Relf , Chris Dreja , Jim McCarty , Paul Samwell-Smith , and Anthony (âTopâ) Topham , with later members including Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page , the British musician, songwriter, and record producer who achieved transnational success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin .
In late 1965, Hendrix moved to Greenwich Village , the area that, beginning in the early twentieth century and especially since the early 1950s Beat movement,8 had been a mecca for creative radicals from all over the US, including artists, poets, jazz musicians, and guitar-playing folk and blues singers. In coffee houses like Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street and Gerdeâs Folk City at 11 West 4th Street, such singers as Bob Dylan , Paul Simon , and Fred Neil played for a few dollars to small crowds, discovering which songs worked and what to say between them. In Greenwich Village , Hendrix connected with white folk-rock musicians, played blues , rock and roll, Dylan âs songs, and won the admiration of the Rolling Stones , Dylanâs guitarist, and legendary jazz producer and talent scout John Hammond (1910â1987), promoter, music critic, crusader for racial integration in the music business, and regarded as the most important non-musician in jazz histories, who promoted major popular music figures, from Count Basie and Billie Holiday in the 1930s to Bruce Springsteen during the rock era (and who engaged Hendrix to play lead guitar in Dylanâs group). âAll Along the Watchtower ,â Hendrixâs only US Top 20 hit, restated Dylanâs song, and Dylan adopted Hendrixâs interpretation when performing it live on his 1974 tour.9
In search of more receptive audiences, Hendrix arrived in London in September 1966. His new unit, The Jimi Hendrix Experience , made its debut the following month in the French town of Ăvreux, between Paris and the English Channel. On returning to England, The Jimi ...