Are You Experienced

The beginning of my musical journey and what inevitably sparked my love for music was discovering the popular rock artists of the 60s and 70s. What these bands gave me was unmatched. No hobby or brief fanatic phase captivated me as much as music. There was nothing that made me feel or touched my soul as deeply as this music did. 

Aside from the actual music, the time period itself has always excited me. Ever since I was young I was infatuated with hippie counterculture, often expressed through music. Largely fueled by the Vietnam War, which many people found pointless and ruthless, an attitude of peace and love rose, tainted with a healthy dosage of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Youth rejected social norms and exhibited their disapproval of racial, ethnic, and political injustices, much to the government’s dismay, who often dismissed them as checked out druggies. During the Nixon administration, there was a very strong energy against this sort of free range lifestyle for many reasons, one being the war on drugs, which Nixon had kick-started.

I can still remember when I started learning guitar to play “Purple Haze” off of Are You Experienced in 1967, the first of three best-selling albums from Jimi Hendrix. Of course, I didn’t know all that at the time. To me it was just some weird sounding riff my uncle taught me to play. 

Eventually I learned about, and subsequently became obsessed with, all of Hendrix’s music and performances. I delved deeper into the vast world of classic rock, drawn to the artists who poured their souls into their performances. Bands like Led Zeppelin and The Who, artists who commanded the stage with their presence and passion. Instances such as Hendrix burning his guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival, or his legendary 1969 Woodstock performance. Hendrix not only showcased his profound technical skills but also a visionary, disruptive style performance, pushing the sound of rock music further than had gone before. A sound that, to older folks at the time, pierced their ears painfully and wreaked havoc on their children. To the new generation, however, it manifested itself in their ears, flowing euphoniously from stage to stage across the world.  

In 1969, Jimi Hendrix was a rock star on the global stage, but his most iconic performance was still ahead of him. That summer, the world was gripped by the anticipation of Woodstock, the ultimate counter cultural event—a gathering of half a million people to celebrate peace, love, and music. Hendrix was scheduled to close the festival, the crown jewel in a lineup that included the likes of Janis Joplin, The Who, and Joe Cocker. 

The festival, held in Bethel, New York, was a logistical nightmare. The sheer number of attendees created traffic jams, mudslides, and shortages of food and water. By the time Hendrix took the stage in the early hours of Monday, August 18, the crowd had dwindled to around 30,000 people from an original 450,000. The festival, which had been envisioned as a massive celebration of peace and unity, had devolved into a chaotic mess. Hendrix had always prided himself on his connection with the audience, and, there, on the biggest stage of his life, that connection was somewhat diminished by the fatigue and exhaustion of the crowd. 

But, through all of this, wearing tight jeans, a loose fringed shirt, and a red bandana, Hendrix walked on stage with his signature white stratocaster and proceeded to play one of the most legendary, albeit shocking, performances in all of rock history. Hendrix’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner remains for posterity as a heroic and symbolic ballad . 

Hendrix was not just a virtuoso guitar player; he was a revolutionary artist whose talent and innovations in the studio and on stage reshaped music. His influence transcended the boundaries of genre, and his contribution to the rock-n-roll lexicon cannot be overstated. I didn’t fully realize the magnitude of his impact until years later when I started my own journey with the guitar, but, from the first time I heard him, I was hooked. It wasn’t just his searing solos or wild improvisations that struck me—it was his ability to communicate through sound in ways that were beyond traditional understanding. Hendrix was not just playing music; he was painting with it, creating landscapes of sound that resonated in the body, the soul, and the mind. He had mastered an art that few before him had dared to explore, let alone conquer.

One of Hendrix’s most pivotal songs is “Purple Haze,” released in 1967. This track redefined the boundaries of rock music with its innovative use of distortion and feedback and the groundbreaking use of the wah-wah pedal, showcasing Hendrix’s unmatched guitar virtuosity. What made Hendrix so influential was not just his technical skill, but his ability to blend blues, rock, and psychedelia into a sound that was raw, expressive, and ahead of its time. His stage presence, improvisational genius, and fearless experimentation inspired generations of musicians and forever altered the landscape of modern music.

As I play today, I think of Hendrix often, his music reverberating in the strings beneath my fingers. He may have been the ultimate representative of the 60s counterculture, but his legacy transcends time, and his influence lives on in every guitar I pick up.