byname of James Marshall Hendrix
born Nov. 27, 1942, Seattle, Wash., U.S.
died Sept. 18, 1970, London, Eng.
U.S. blues and rock guitarist (see rock music ).
Of mixed black-Cherokee ancestry, the left-handed Hendrix taught himself to play the guitar, which he held upside down. He served as an army paratrooper and later toured as guitarist for Little Richard and others. In 1966 he moved to London and formed a trio, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, which rapidly became popular in Europe. His sensational appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and the success that year of the album Are You Experienced? lifted him to instant stardom, and his subsequent albums were among the most influential of the 1960s. He died at age 27 of an apparently accidental overdose of barbiturates.