“Swinging London” Experiences Jimi Hendrix

Five decades ago, in the autumn and winter of 1966–67, Jimi Hendrix launched his star into the firmament of rock and roll legends by becoming an overnight sensation in London. His road to seemingly instant popularity in the United Kingdom and explosive success upon his return to the United States in 1967, however, had been paved by years of musical apprenticeship, most notably on the “Chitlin’ Circuit” in the American South backing rhythm and blues and soul performers such as Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, Jackie Wilson, the Isley Brothers, and especially Little Richard, from whom Hendrix learned the value of flamboyant showmanship. “I am the most spontaneous speaker in the world because every word, every gesture and every retort has been carefully rehearsed,” playwright George Bernard Shaw once said; Hendrix improvised wildly and left his influences far behind as he boldly explored strange new musical worlds where no person had gone before, but, like Shaw, he relied on a hard-won bag of tricks to set him free.

Hendrix was “discovered” in a club in New York City’s Greenwich Village by Chas Chandler, the bassist for the British Invasion band the Animals, then on a tour of the U.S. With a plane ticket purchased by Chandler, Hendrix embarked for England in September 1966 with little more than a clutch of clothing and his Fender Stratocaster guitar. Although much of Britain had experienced a slow emergence from dour post-World War II austerity, the prosperous “Swinging” London in which Hendrix arrived was the vibrant, colorful epicenter of the pop culture universe—a mecca of modern design and youth-oriented fashion founded on Mary Quant’s miniskirts and the ultrahip boutiques of Carnaby Street (from one of which, I was Lord Kitchener’s Valet, Hendrix would purchase an ornate military jacket that would become one of his sartorial signatures). Rock and roll and British blues reigned in London, which was home to the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, and Cream, whose Eric Clapton stood at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of guitar heroes in an era that deified rock guitarists. Indeed, a popular graffito of the day said simply, “Clapton is God.”

Within weeks of his arrival, squired by Chandler, Hendrix had begun making the scene, frequenting clubs to jam with the local lions and blowing them away in the process. On October 1, at a gig at the Central London Polytechnic, Hendrix joined Cream onstage and burned through Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor,” leaving a scorched Clapton behind as he performed gymnastics with his guitar—playing it behind his head, with his teeth, and while lying on the floor. London’s rock royalty (the Stones, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, et al.) began flocking to see Hendrix play. After Hendrix signed on as the opening act for a series of shows in France for Johnny Hallyday (”the French Elvis Presley”), Chandler helped Hendrix put together a band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, with Mitch Mitchell on drums and converted guitarist Noel Redding on bass (looking for a guitarist who could keep up with Hendrix was deemed futile).

Back in London, Hendrix and the Experience took to the studio to record “Hey Joe” and performed a series of showcases that were required viewing for London’s rock cognoscenti. Finding a label to release “Hey Joe” and securing paying gigs proved harder than expected, but eventually Polydor put out the recording as a single, accompanied by an appearance by the Experience on the trendy TV show Ready Steady Go! By February 1967 “Hey Joe” was a top-five hit in Britain; by May the psychedelic masterwork “Purple Haze” (written by Hendrix backstage at a performance at the Upper Cut club on Boxing Day) was an even bigger hit. Hendrix had more than arrived.

Meanwhile, he and his new British love interest, Kathy Etchingham, set up house with Chandler and his girlfriend at 34 Montagu Square in an opulent townhouse that had been leased by the Beatles’ Ringo Starr. Hendrix became a Londoner (he and Etchingham later decamped to a flat at 23 Brook Street, separated by a wall and 200 years from the home of composer George Frideric Handel). It was as a British sensation that Hendrix would make his incendiary breakout appearance back home in the United States at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. There Hendrix exploited lessons learned in Britain when he climaxed his performance by using lighter fluid to set fire to his guitar, one-upping the guitar-smashing pyrotechnics the Who’s Townshend had evolved from the “autodestructive” aesthetic theory pioneered by his teacher at Ealing Art College, Gustav Metzger.