![]() ![]() King, Howlin’ Wolf, and T-Bone Walker, plus “ Robert Johnson and all those old cats”. His first axe icon was Mississippi bluesman Muddy Waters – with other formative influences, mostly gleaned from his dad’s record collection, including Elmore James, B.B. He used it to pick apart Elvis tunes by ear, also readily air-guitaring with household objects in front of friends – before getting hold of a $5 second-hand acoustic a year later, and, soon after that, the Supro Ozark electric above ( yeah: starting at 15 definitely isn’t ‘too late’…whatever that even means! ). His first instrument was a one-string ukulele, found in an old woman’s junkyard as the 14-year-old Jimi helped his father clear it out (she gifted it to him after he expressed intrigue: truly a hidden heroine of guitar history!). Ever-curious, he dove deep into books and comics (“I read a lot of science fiction… fairy tales, like Hans Christian Andersen and Winnie-the-Pooh”), while also cultivating awe at the natural world (“I like to watch the lightning…the fields and flowers when I’m on my own”). Nevertheless, Jimi found joy in varied childhood pursuits. Al forbade the 15-year-old Jimi from attending the funeral, instead giving him a shot of whiskey.Ī 15-year-old Jimi shows off his first electric (1958) The on-off couple gave up three of Jimi’s younger siblings to adoption, and divorced when he was 9 – before Lucille succumbed to her own addiction struggles, dying of alcohol-related causes aged just 33. When Al did exit the army in 1945, he found steady work hard to come by, moving between houses and hostels while falling into regular bouts of alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and crushing poverty. ![]() Al, his father, drafted into the army within a week of his wedding, was denied leave to be with his bride Lucille for Jimi’s birth (even having to be held in the Alabama stockades to stop him going AWOL to attend) – leaving Jimi’s mother reliant on assistance from others for the first months of her child’s life. James Marshall Hendrix, born in Seattle in 1942 to descendents of African slaves and Irish settlers, endured severe material and emotional hardships right from his earliest days. Jimi and Eb tuning : why did he drop down lower & looser?.Hendrix on himself : reflected through his own rooms of mirrors.Future and final days : infinite directions cut tragically short.Bonus: Woodstock ’69 : what was the festival really like?.Countercultural stardom : respangling the stars & stripes.Electric Ladyland : expanding his hyper-connected visions.Axis: Bold as Love : voyaging deeper into the studio universe.American fire sacrifice : a psychedelic Transatlantic return.Landing in London : the Experience and the Bag O’Nails.Unstable employment : military mismatches and Chitlin’ tourin’.Childhood & family : Seattle struggles and one-string ukuleles.So, here’s an overview of his incredible life and innovations… Jimi Hendrix, my first musical hero, remains my favourite guitarist. Since adopted by countless guitarists, often those wielding longer-neck electrics. Interestingly, his longtime tech Roger Mayer also describes how it helped to counteract intonation issues from playing ‘ upside-down‘ ( more below!). Aside from matching better with his vocal range, the looseness allowed for wider bends and deeper whammy-dives, as well as reducing hand strain – a significant factor for someone so inseparable from his strings. Jimi had a mix of motivations for winding lower. Total tension is ~11% lower than Standard, giving a noticeable ease of fretting (albeit along with a slight volume decrease), and bringing a subtle freshness to the over-familiarity of EADGBE. Countless artists have tuned ‘ one semitone down ’ over the ages – both as a timbral/register choice, and as a method of safely breaking in new strings on any chorded instrument. Eb Standard, while most famously showcased by Jimi Hendrix in the late 1960s, has been in use for centuries. ![]()
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