Today In Black History: Jimi Hendrix
One of history's greatest electric guitar players
Issue #876 Today In Black History, Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Throughout June, “Black Music Month,” we are highlighting Black musicians.
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 as a part of his band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the institution describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music."
Jimi’s childhood was difficult and painful. His parents had trouble supporting him and his four younger siblings. Stationed in Alabama at the time of Hendrix's birth, his father, Al, was denied the standard military furlough afforded servicemen for childbirth; his commanding officer placed him in the stockade to prevent him from going AWOL to see his infant son in Seattle. He spent two months locked up without trial, and, while in the stockade, received a telegram announcing his son's birth.
His father’s inability to find steady work left the family impoverished. Both parents struggled with alcohol and often fought when intoxicated. By the age of 33, Hendrix's mother, Lucille, had developed cirrhosis of the liver, and on February 2, 1958, she died when her spleen ruptured. Al refused to take James and Leon to attend their mother's funeral; he instead gave them shots of whiskey and told them that was how men should deal with loss.
Hendrix began playing guitar at age 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the Chitlin' Circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965.
He achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. His third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland (1968), became his most commercially successful release and his only number one album on the US Billboard 200 chart. Hendrix headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.
He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units in mainstream rock, such as fuzz distortion, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe. He was the first musician to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings.
Music journalist Chuck Philips wrote: "In a field almost exclusively populated by white musicians, Hendrix has served as a role model for a cadre of young black rockers. His achievement was to reclaim title to a musical form pioneered by black innovators like Little Richard and Chuck Berry in the 1950s."
Jimi Hendrix died in London from barbiturate-related asphyxia in September 1970, at the age of 27.
Today In Black History
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which forbade racial and religious discrimination in war industries, government training programs, and government-owned industries, following A. Philip Randolph's scheduled march on Washington.
In 1964, Prince A. Taylor became the first African American Methodist Bishop, assigned to the New Jersey area.
In 1968, Lincoln Alexander became the first Black member of the Canadian Parliament.
In 1975, Mozambique proclaimed its independence from Portugal.
In 1979, Amalya Lyle Kearney became the first woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
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Jimi Hendrix was amazing especially considering what he had to endure growing up. RIP🕊️
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