Born James Marshall Hendrix in a working-class Seattle household, he taught himself guitar left-handed on a right-handed instrument, restringing it upside down. Within two decades he would set his guitar ablaze at Monterey, reinvent the national anthem at Woodstock, and die at 27, leaving behind a catalog that permanently altered rock music's vocabulary of distortion, feedback, and improvisation.
Jimi Hendrix grew up poor in Seattle, moved constantly between relatives, and got his first acoustic guitar at 15 for five dollars, courtesy of his father. He played it upside down because he was left-handed and could only find right-handed instruments, a quirk that shaped his idiosyncratic technique of wrapping his thumb over the neck to fret bass notes while his fingers worked chords and leads simultaneously.
After a stint in the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, he drifted through the touring circuit backing acts like Little Richard and the Isley Brothers before forming the Jimi Hendrix Experience in London in 1966. Within a year he stunned audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival by dousing his Fender Stratocaster in lighter fluid and setting it on fire during 'Wild Thing.'
His rendition of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at Woodstock in 1969, full of siren-like feedback evoking bombs and screams, became one of the most famous performances in rock history, widely read as a commentary on the Vietnam War. Hendrix died in London in September 1970 at age 27, but his influence on guitar playing, from wah-wah pedals to studio experimentation, remains foundational to virtually every guitarist who followed.
Key people: Jimi Hendrix