Rock music is a music of youth, and the late 1960s was its coming of age. Like it or hate it, you couldn't ignore it. Jimi Hendrix, a guitarist, performer, and songwriter of the late '60s was the most influential rock artist of the era.

He began his career with jobs in rhythm and blues bands, playing behind, among others, Jackie Wilson, Little Richard, and the Isley Brothers. Later he lived in New York and played the clubs of Greenwich Village where he billed his group as Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.

At age 23, he left the U. S. for England to continue his career. There his new manager Chas Chandler had contacts, and informal auditions were held for a bassist and drummer to form the group, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mitch Mitchell was chosen as drummer and the bassist chosen was Noel Redding. Jimi's guitar skills more than filled out the sound of the three-piece band. What's more, at this stage of his career, he knew the importance of putting on a show. The Beatles learned this in Hamburg, where club owner, Bruno Koschmider, required it of them. "The Big Show", he called it-"Make the Big Show".

And Jimi Hendrix could make plenty Big Show.

Jimi used his guitar as a prop, dancing with it, fondling it, playing it behind his head and with his teeth. He even burned his guitar at the conclusion of the Experience's first American performance, captured in the wonderful film by director, D.A. Pennebaker, Monterey Pop. Jimi's entire performance at Monterey has finally been released on LP (Reprise 25358-1) and the excitement has survived the years. The album opens with Howling Wolf's "Killing Floor". This blues metaphor for the lowest floor of the Chicago slaughter houses had never rocked so hard. Hendrix and the Experience lighten up considerably after this, but for that first song, Jimi Hendrix is playing for keeps.

Around the time Jimi's second hit, "Purple Haze", broke the top ten, London's Sunday Mirror asked Jimi about the suggestive movements of his act. He replied: "I think 'act' is maybe the wrong word. I play and move as I feel. It's no act. Perhaps it's sexy . . . but what music with a big beat isn't?" Listen to the introductory bars of "Purple Haze". Who had heard such rhythmic dissonance in a rock recording before this? "Purple Haze" was the first cut on the Experience's U.S. debut LP, Are You Experienced? (Reprise RS 6261), released August of 1967. A similarly titled LP had already been released in England on the Track label. However, the English version was only available in monaural and featured a somewhat different song selection. One of these songs, "Red House", was a blues that Jimi wrote and had been playing for sometime. Amazingly, it is about the only song that Rolling Stone magazine's Jon Landau, thought had any merit. In the big print of the magazine's first issue he says, "Dig it if you can, but as for me, I'd rather hear Jimi play the blues," and in hindsight it is apparent that almost all of Jimi's songs are strongly blues-influenced.

The U.S. LP came out on the Reprise label. Reprise records was an unusual amalgam of recording artists begun for Frank Sinatra after his dispute with Capitol. The original label is Reprise's tricolor "riverboat" label. The cover also differs from the U.K. release, the American version being more psychedelic. It was available in stereo-or at least what passed for stereo. Rock collectors speak of "true stereo". Are You Experienced? was in true stereo. However, this does not mean that a pair of microphones captured the sound of the band and the room they were playing in. It merely indicates that the stereo effect was not produced by electronically modifying a monaural recording. The practice of electronically processing stereo was still acceptable in some companies. Capitol's "Duophonic Stereo" processing of the Beach Boy Pet Sounds is just one example.

The remarkable aspect of the engineered sound of Are You Experienced? lies not in the stereo spread, but in the effects that Hendrix and engineer, Eddie Kramer, were able to achieve with Olympic Studio's 4-track facilities, and Jimi's electric sound sensibilities and guitar orchestrations. Musicians are still trying to figure out how he got all of the sounds on that record.

Guitarist Mike Bloomfield gives a glimpse of Jimi's experimentation in an interview from 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky. He and Hendrix were fooling around with their guitars backstage at a concert in Los Angeles. Bloomfield was concentrating on his playing when he started hearing strange sounds coming from Jimi's amp. "Here I am playing, hunched over and playing all these notes and there's this guy . . . tapping the back of the (guitar) neck and he's got his vibrato in his hand and he's moving the toggle switch . . . and it sounded like sirocco winds coming up from the desert."

After the opening cut, "Purple Haze", comes "Manic Depression". This is one of the more driving forward-moving songs that the Experience cut. It gives an indication of what it was that made the Experience so unique at the time. The changes in rhythm within the song were more complex than most previous rock recordings. It was easy to follow after a few listenings, but it kept on and keeps on surprising. The rhythm is emphasized at certain points through changing it slightly, and this shift in rhythm pleases and somehow makes the recording sound fresh at each listening. The next cut is "Hey Joe", which was the Experience's first hit in the U.K. This song and Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" from the Monterey album demonstrate another aspect of Jimi's appeal to a (mostly) white rock audience. Here was an ace rhythm and blues player who played and enjoyed and understood rock, folk-rock, and even abstract sound paintings. This in spite of the fact that one of the factors which contributed to the breakup of the Experience was Jimi's need to feel more accepted by other African Americans. Hendrix was the quintessential artist, needing to create according to his own muse, also needing to feel accepted by his society.

Who was the enigma Jimi Hendrix? Between the lines of his lyrics and the spacey interviews he gave, what were his thoughts? "When Six Was Nine" was on the soundtrack to the film, Easy Rider, and gave cryptic insights.

"When Six Was Nine" ended side one of the Experience's second LP-Axis: Bold As Love (Reprise RS 6281). This LP, released in the U.S. in January of 1968, was again on Reprise's tricolor label. However, since the company switched to a different label design around March 1968 this first edition is scarce. The U.K. release was again on the Track label and had noticeably different mixes on a couple of the selections. Axis: Bold As Love was widely available in stereo, but the mono run was very small and is rare.

The feeling of Axis: Bold As Love is mellower and moodier than Are You Experienced?. It has its rockers, but what attracted most people were the ballads, especially the wistful "Little Wing", with its Curtis Mayfield inspired guitar stylings, and "Castles Made of Sand". Despite the historical significance of Are You Experienced? and how right it sounded at the time, I find Axis: Bold As Love to be the record I come back to more often. Even the token Noel Redding song "She's So Fine", has a moving feeling to it, and Jimi and Mitch lend sympathetic support. In fact, Mitch's fine drumming is given more prominence than on the first LP.

How heavy was Mitch's drumming? In those innocent days of 1968, having the stage hands loudly nail down your drum kit before the show was a significantly ominous bit of show biz indeed.

The stereo spread of Axis: Bold As Love is an improvement over Are You Experienced?, but there is evidence that Hendrix wasn't altogether happy with his inability to control the final product. This was in part due to the pressure to release it during a time of constant touring. ". . . the scene of cutting it. They go by levels and all that. Some people don't have any imagination. See, when you cut a record, right before it's being printed, you know, when you cut the master, if you want a song where you have really deep sound, where you have depth and all this, you must almost remix it again right there at the cutting place. And nine-nine percent don't even do this. They just say, oh turn it up so this mixture doesn't go over or their mixture doesn't go under. And there it is, you know. It's nothing but one-dimensional."-interview recorded by "Meatball" Fulton, 1968.

The Experience's last album, Electric Ladyland (Reprise 2 RS 6307), was released in the U.S. in October 1968. The front cover has a beautiful photo of Jimi, but it is the cover released in England that received the most attention. The two disq set featured a gatefold cover photo of about 20 naked women. There was an immediate and (I'm sure not unexpected) negative response from the retailers, but what's worse is that the photo makes them all appear less attractive than was intended.

The sound of Electric Ladyland was more influenced by Jimi's then current state of mind and his increased control of production than by the previous two LPs. There is an experimental, searching sense in how unrelated the songs sound. Also, this is the first LP that featured other players sitting in on some cuts. Among others, Steve Winwood from Traffic played organ on "Voodoo Child" and Buddy Miles from Electric Flag played drums on "Rainy Day, Dream Away". Most of Electric Ladyland was recorded at New York's Record Plant with its 8-track facility. Jimi's pride and joy, his Electric Lady Studios would not open until mid-1970.

By now Jimi was getting tired of the limitations of a trio and wanted to expand the sound. "Music has to go places. We'll squeeze as much as we really feel out of a three-piece group, but things happen naturally . . ."-Jimi interviewed by Guitar Player Magazine, December 1968. In early July of 1969 bassist Noel Redding announced his plans to end his association with Hendrix. "The crux of the split, it appears, is that he was not consulted by Jimi over his plan to expand the group from a trio into a 'creative commune' which would include writers as well as more musicians."-Melody Maker, July 5 1969.

Jimi often spoke of the epic number of verses he had originally written for "Purple Haze", and how his manager Chas Chandler, had insisted on recording a tightly edited version. It would be interesting to hear that long version, but I think that the discipline Chas placed on Jimi was for the better at that time, because from Electric Ladyland until his death, Jimi was increasingly free from that outside discipline. He was certain to hit upon a formula that would have led his music to an even higher plateau, but wasn't there yet. And he was too far past the wild-man leader-of-the-Experience role to be happy or successful with that much longer. Electric Ladyland was a new beginning and the end of a segment of Jimi Hendrix's musical career.

Linger awhile with the last two songs of Electric Ladyland.

Listen as the stylus goes down on "All Along the Watchtower". Extra special attention was paid to the sound of this song. Although again Jimi was not in on the cutting of the album, "All Along the Watchtower" has the depth of sound that he felt was missing from Axis: Bold As Love. It was closer to Jimi's ideal: "I want to have stereo where it goes up and behind and underneath, you know. All you get now is just across and across."-"Meatball" Fulton interview 1968. Next comes the monumental "Voodoo Child (slight return)".

This was the last encore the warm autumn night I saw the Experience in 1969. Jack Casady, from the Jefferson Airplane, sat in on bass. The Oakland Arena management had turned on the lights in a futile attempt to keep the show from running further over schedule.