Jimi Hendrix - Happy Birthday Jimi Hendrix - Classic Blues Videos

Hours of Live Video in Celebration of his Birth

 

Celebrating the Life and Music of Blues guitar master Jimi Hendrix

Maybe it's progressive Blues or future Blues but Jimi Hendrix is most definitely the Blues and I couldn't resist the opportunity to honor him on his birthday.  Jimi stretched the boundaries of Blues, Rock and the electric guitar in a way no other artist really had before him in his twenty seven years of life and to this day his abilities combined with his artistry sets a standard that few guitarists have been able to come close to since.  Hendrix grew up a fan of the Blues and cites masters like Elmore James, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King and Robert Johnson as influences on his guitar playing.  The number of musicians and guitarists he has influenced after him is incredibly lengthy and includes musicians and bands in pretty much every genre including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Prince, Funkadelic, The Isley Brothers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Questlove, Wyclef Jean, Chuck D and Metallica.  Hendrix has received very, very many awards posthumously including being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame of course and just way too many more to list.

In only twenty seven years of life Jimi Hendrix left this world with an abundance of beautiful music, wisdom and art and his influence on music and culture in this world is far too vast to even measure.  Thank you Jimi. 

More Jimi!
In honor of Jimi's birthday we are able to bring you two full Live concerts. 
Jimi in Stockholm, Sweden in 1969
Jimi in Maui, Hawaii in 1970

"See, that's nothing but blues, that's all I'm singing about. It's today's blues."

"Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music."

Artist BIO:

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix, November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. He is often considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry, and one of the most important and influential musicians of his era across a range of genres. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.

Hendrix often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Hendrix was one of the musicians who popularized the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by funk and some modern jazz.

As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas. He was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects for rock recording.

Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime, and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage blue plaque was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London, in September 1997. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut US album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry, and Rolling Stone named Hendrix the top guitarist on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time in 2003. He was also the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.

Hendrix synthesized many styles in creating his musical voice and his guitar style was unique, later to be abundantly imitated by others. Despite his hectic touring schedule and notorious perfectionism, he was a prolific recording artist and left behind more than 300 unreleased recordings.

His career and death grouped him with Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (of the Grateful Dead), and Kurt Cobain as one of the 27 Club, a group including iconic 1960s rock stars who suffered drug-related deaths at age 27 within months of each other, leaving legacies in death that have eclipsed the popularity and influence they experienced during their lifetimes. Despite his popularity and the lavish praise heaped upon his guitar skills, he was surprisingly humble. Musically, Hendrix did much to further the development of the electric guitar's repertoire, establishing it as a unique sonic source, rather than merely an amplified version of the acoustic guitar. Likewise, his feedback, wah-wah and fuzz-laden soloing moved guitar distortion well beyond mere novelty, incorporating other effects pedals and units specifically designed for him by his sound technician Roger Mayer (such as the Octavia and Univibe) with dramatic results.

Hendrix affected popular music with similar profundity; along with earlier bands such as The Who and Cream, he established a sonically heavy yet technically proficient bent to rock music as a whole, significantly furthering the development of hard rock and paving the way for heavy metal. He took blues to another level. His music has also had a great influence on funk and the development of funk rock especially through the guitarists Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers and Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic, Prince, John Frusciante former member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jesse Johnson of The Time. His influence even extends to many hip hop artists, including Questlove, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Ice-T (who covered "Hey Joe" with his heavy metal band Body Count), El-P and Wyclef Jean. Miles Davis was also deeply impressed by Hendrix and compared his improvisational skills with those of saxophonist John Coltrane, and Davis would later want guitarists in his bands to emulate Hendrix. Hendrix was ranked number 3 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock behind Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

Hendrix's guitar style also had significanct influence upon future ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons and fellow Texas guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Hendrix was ranked number 3 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock N' Roll, behind the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. He has been voted by Rolling Stone, Guitar World, and a number of other magazines and polls as the best electric guitarist of all time.

Guitar World's readers voted six of Hendrix's solos among the top "100 Greatest" of all time: "Purple Haze" (70), "The Star-Spangled Banner" (52), "Machine Gun" (32), "Little Wing" (18), "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (11) and "All Along the Watchtower (5).

In 1992, Hendrix was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wikipedia contributors. "Jimi Hendrix." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Oct. 2010. Web. 23 Oct. 2010.

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