Jimi Hendrix: A life in photos

Although his life was short, Jimi Hendrix is a universally beloved icon. He is regarded as one of the most electric guitarists in the history of popular music and the best overall musician of the 20th century. But how well do you know his story?

These are Hendrix's paternal grandparents. His grandma 'Nora' was a former dancer and vaudeville performer. Their son, Al, met Jimi's mom in Seattle. He was stationed in the military when Jimi was born in 1942. It wasn't easy: Jimi's mom and dad were impoverished and struggled with al c0 h0l. At age 33, his mom would die from cirrhosis of the liver.

Image: Unknown author / Wikimedia

He had a rough childhood, but Jimmy (who later changed his name's spelling) found a ukelele in the garbage when he was helping his dad with a side job. He learned to play Elvis songs by ear. In 1958, Hendrix got his first guitar for $5 and played for hours every day. Soon after, he formed his first band: the Velvetones.

Caught twice riding in stolen cars, Hendrix was given a choice: join the Army or go to prison. He enlisted in 1961. While he hated it, he eventually got his family to send a guitar and began jamming with other servicemen.  In 1962, Jimi was discharged under honorable conditions. His platoon reported that he "will never come up to the standards required of a soldier," a biography by Steven Roby and Brad Schreiber cites.

Image: 1961 Fort Ord Training Center Yearbook, photographer unknown / Wikimedia

As soon as he was free, Jimi started performing. He moved to New York in 1964 and won the first prize at the famous Apollo Theater's amateur contest that same year. Later that year, he released his first recordings alongside the Isley Brothers, but they failed to chart. However, his next recordings began to win him popularity.

Image: Image of Testify (The Isley Brothers) / Wikimedia

In 1965, when he was 22, he signed his first recording contract. Later that year, he joined the New York R&B band Curtis Knight and the Squires. Feeling restricted as a sideman, he soon left the group. Then, after being rejected by the Rolling Stones' manager, he moved to London in 1966.

Once in London, his manager began recruiting band members for Jimi. With guitarist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, he formed The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Based in London, the group's first success came in the UK and Europe. While in Germany (image), Jimi Hendrix had a strange experience one evening: an audience member pulled him offstage and he smashed a guitar. The crowd went so wild, thinking it was intentional, that his bandmate convinced Jimi to keep the guitar smashing in the act.

While biographers Roby and Schrieber say a l c 0 h 0l eventually became the "scourge of his existence," it was in 1966 that he tried acid for the first time. He became closely linked with the time's drug culture. After 1967, his biographers say he regularly used a variety of prohibited substances, particularly while touring.

By then, Hendrix was getting big. He played with Eric Clapton in front of members of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, while his band released the first hit singles - 'Hey Joe' and 'Purple Haze,' which climbed the UK charts fast.

In this picture, he's with the British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe on September 25, 1967.

Hendrix struggled to find the same success in the US... at the beginning. Then, after being introduced by Rolling Stones' guitarist Brian Jones as "the most exciting performer [he had] ever heard," Hendrix was invited to play at the Monterey Pop Festival. This photo was taken there. The show was memorable, as he set his guitar on fire and created one of rock's most iconic moments.

After that, Hendrix was officially a megastar. His band started touring the US, soon making it to the top of festival bills. The once poor boy stayed at hotels like this one, the Drake Hotel in New York.

Only seven months after dropping 'Are You Experienced,' the band came out with their second studio album: 'Axis: Bold as Love.' It charted at number three in the US, slightly better than in the UK where it hit number five. Critics praised its unique sound and mix of rock, blues, jazz, and R&B.

Despite his success, Hendrix was struggling with substance abuse. According to friend Sharon Lawrence, who wrote a book about it, l1qu0r "set off a bottled-up anger, a destructive fury he almost never displayed otherwise." From 1968 to 1969, he had some public fights, resulting in criminal charges, and was also reported to have hit his girlfriend with a bottle.

Here, he poses for a mugshot after his arrest for narcotics possession at Toronto International Airport on May 3, 1969. Authorities found a small amount of soft and hard drugs in his luggage. At the trial, he said fans had given him the vial and he thought it was legal medication. He was acquitted.

After releasing their third and final studio album 'Electric Ladyland,' in 1968, the band experienced personal issues with musical control and erratic behavior. They had their last performance in June 1969, at the Denver Pop Festival, where police famously used tear gas to control the audience.

Even without the Experience, Hendrix was the world's highest-paid rock musician by 1969. In August of that year, he headlined Woodstock. His band didn't really connect and had only practiced for a few weeks, but Hendrix gave an amazing concert anyway, including a legendary performance of 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' Pop critic Al Aronowitz of the New York Post wrote: "It was the most electrifying moment of Woodstock, and it was probably the single greatest moment of the sixties."

After Woodstock, he began collaborating with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums, experimenting with jamming and funk. That collaboration resulted in the live album 'Band of Gypsys' that came out on Jan. 1, 1970. However, this band soon dissolved as well.

Combining members from the last two bands, Hendrix embarked on what would be his last tour in Europe. It was clear he was struggling, playing just three songs at a Denmark concert before leaving and saying: "I've been dead a long time." Four days later, he gave his final concert at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in West Germany (shown). The crowd booed him because he had canceled his performance the night before due to a storm.

Then, on September 18, 1970, in London, after spending the night with his girlfriend, the German skater Monika Dannemann, she woke up to find him unconscious. She called the paramedics, but he was soon after pronounced dead. The post-mortem found that he died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates. He was just 27, the same age Brian Jones, Alan Wilson, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin had when they died.

At the height of his global fame, Hendrix's passing was a shock to fans and the music community. Here, Miles Davis is seen at his funeral. Several of Hendrix's albums have been released posthumously. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music. Hendrix expanded the range and vocabulary of the electric guitar into areas no musician had ever ventured before."

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