Early life of Jimi Hendrix
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Jimi Hendrix grew up as a shy and sensitive boy, deeply affected by the conditions of poverty and neglect that he was raised in, and by the troubling family events of his childhood - namely his parents' divorce when he was nine, and the death of his mother in 1958. In an unusual experience for African-Americans of his era, Hendrix grew up with children of diverse ethnic origin. Most American inner cities of the 1950s were heavily segregated by race, but Seattle's Central District was a mix of Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian residents.
Young Hendrix was particularly fond of Elvis Presley; the color drawing on the right, showing Elvis wielding a guitar, was made by an impressionable 15-year-old Hendrix two months after attending Presley's concert at Sick's Stadium on September 1, 1957, as a follow up to his note taking there, during the concert itself, in which he wrote down the entire line-up of songs he heard Presley sing that night. Both documents can still be seen at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. His reverence to Presley continued even into adulthood, as when he attended, in late 1968, a late-night screening of Presley´s "King Creole", during his time in Paris and crediting this particlar viewing with giving him the additional strength and inspiration needed to further his career, after his first, uneventful travel to London.
Young Jimi was equally impressed when Little Richard appeared in his Central District neighborhood and he shook hands with the R&B star. Jimi's early exposure to Blues music came from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Lightnin Hopkins with his father. Another impressionable image came from the 1954 western Johnny Guitar, in which the hero carries no gun but instead wears a guitar slung behind his back.
At about age fourteen, Jimi acquired his very first guitar, a severely battered acoustic with one string that he retrieved when another boy had thrown it away. Young Jimi proudly slung his guitar behind his back like the hero in Johnny Guitar, and tried to coax every sound possible from its one string. That same year his only failing grade in school was an F in music class. His first electric guitar was a white Supro Ozark that his father, Al Hendrix, had purchased for him. He learned simply by practicing and watching others play, and he emulated the flashy moves of T-Bone Walker and the duck walk of Chuck Berry.
His first gig was with an unnamed band in the basement of a synagogue. After too much wild playing and showing off, he was fired between sets. The first formal band he played in was The Velvetones, who performed regularly at the Yesler Terrace Neighborhood House without pay. His flashy style and left-handed playing of a right-handed guitar was already a standout. When his guitar was stolen (after he left it backstage overnight), Al bought him a white Silvertone Danelectro which he painted red and emblazoned with the words Betty Jean, the name of his high school girlfriend.
Hendrix had completed middle school with little trouble but failed to graduate from Garfield High School; he would later be awarded an honorary diploma. When his fame struck in the late 1960s, Hendrix would punch up his own past by telling reporters that he was expelled from Garfield by racist faculty for holding hands with a white girlfriend in study hall, but Principal Frank Hanawalt insisted that it was simply due to poor grades and attendance problems.
[edit] Military service
After getting into trouble with the law two times over riding in a stolen car, Hendrix traded a possible 2-year jail sentence for enlistment in the U.S. Army, enlisting on May 31, 1961. After boot camp in Fort Ord, California, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky as a trainee paratrooper. Other paratrooper divisions would later falsely (or mistakenly) claim that he was part of their unit.
His letters home indicate that initially at least, Hendrix was adjusting to Army life and was very excited to be a part of the 101st Airborne, a well respected outfit after their heroic actions in World War II. His military records, however, show that Hendrix was considered an incompetent soldier, repeatedly caught sleeping while on duty and missing at midnight bed-check. Superiors noted that he needed constant supervision even for basic tasks, and lacked motivation. He was described by one supervisor as having "no known good characteristics", while another stated that "his mind apparently cannot function while performing duties and thinking about his guitar".[1]
At the post recreation center, he met fellow soldier and bass player Billy Cox, and forged a loyal friendship that would serve Hendrix well during the last year of his life. The two would often play with other musicians at venues both on and off the post as a loosely organized band named The Kasuals.
On May 31, 1962, after exactly one year of service, Hendrix was recommended for discharge for "behavior problems".[2] Hendrix would later tell reporters that he received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump. The 2005 biography Room Full of Mirrors by Charles Cross claims that Hendrix faked being homosexual—claiming to have fallen in love with a fellow soldier—in order to be discharged. According to Cross, Hendrix was an avid anti-communist and did not leave the Army as a protest to the Vietnam War, but simply wanted out so he could focus on playing guitar.
As a celebrity, Hendrix spoke nonchalantly of his military service, but once said that the sound of air whistling through the parachute shrouds was one of the sources of his "spacy" guitar sound. Although discharged from the Army three years before Vietnam saw large numbers of U.S. soldiers arrive, his recordings would become favorites of the servicemen fighting there, most notably his version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".
[edit] References
- ^ Jimi's Private Parts. The Smoking Gun (1961).
- ^ The Smoking Gun: Archive. The Smoking Gun (1962).
