James Marshall Hendrix, aka Jimi Hendrix

This week is the 70th anniversary of the birth of James Marshall Hendrix, who was born November 27, 1942 as Johnny Allen Hendrix and performed under the name Jimi Hendrix. Despite a relatively brief career, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential musicians of all time, with his innovative use of the electric guitar having a major impact not only on rock and pop music but even genres such as jazz. He began as a journeyman musician, playing backup to a variety of soul and R&B artists, including Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. His most notable early session recording was the Isley Brothers’ “Testify”, on which Hendrix’s guitar is quite prominent. Chas Chandler, formerly of the Animals, met Hendrix in New York and brought him to London, where he formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell and soon shot to fame in the UK with the singles “Hey Joe” and “Purple Haze” and numerous live performances. Popularity in his native US came following his performance in the summer of 1967 at the Monterey Pop Festival, to which he had been recommended by Paul McCartney. After a whirlwind career which produced three studio albums, a live album, and many additional unfinished recordings, he died on September 18, 1970 in London, apparently of drug-related causes, though some of the details are unclear. His legend has if anything only grown since his death, though it seems to impossible to imagine him as a seventy-year-old man (harder even than imagining John Lennon at 72), which is what he would be in a few days if he were still alive.

Much has been written about Hendrix and his influence on rock, and I don’t intend to repeat all of it here. Suffice it to say, what he does on the guitar still sounds impressive today, and it must have been even more startling at the time, since no one else had done anything like it. It’s no surprise that even musicians like Miles Davis were influenced by him. Though his reputation is mainly based on his guitar playing, he was also a good songwriter and arranger. While not everything he wrote was compositionally brilliant, some songs being little more than vehicles for his guitar playing, quite a few of his songs are excellent piece of work in their own right, so that they sound good even when performed by artists who don’t have Hendrix’s ability on the guitar. His songs ranged from blues to spacey psychedelic rock, and some of them are among the best of their genres. Hendrix was also a noted interpreter of songs written by others, with “Hey Joe” and “All Along the Watchtower” being just two of the best known examples.

The following is a list of twenty-two of Hendrix’s best songs. I am not as thoroughly familiar with Hendrix’s material as I am with that of some other artists, even excluding the vast number of posthumous and unofficial releases, so I have no doubt neglected a few worthy tracks. All of these selections come from the CD versions of the three studio albums released in Hendrix’s lifetime, Are You Experienced? (1967), Axis: Bold As Love (1967), and Electric Ladyland (1968), plus the posthumous album First Rays of the New Rising Sun, which represents the official attempt at assembling the album Hendrix was working on at his death. While there are a number of significant Hendrix recordings that don’t appear on these albums (such as his live rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner”), they do cover most of his best material – the first CD also includes tracks from Hendrix’s early singles that didn’t appear on the original album release. Even on these CDs there are good songs that I didn’t include on the list. For a fuller understanding of Hendrix’s legacy, it’s best to listen to the full albums, as well as check out some of his most notable live performances.

The Best of Jimi Hendrix
(All songs by Jimi Hendrix except where otherwise noted)
Purple Haze
Hey Joe (Billy Roberts)
Foxy Lady
The Wind Cries Mary
Highway Chile
Manic Depression
Red House
Third Stone from the Sun
Up From the Skies
Spanish Castle Magic
Little Wing
Castles Made of Sand
Crosstown Traffic
Voodoo Chile
The Burning of the Midnight Lamp
1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)
All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Angel
Freedom
Room Full of Mirrors
Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)