“He took some small songs of mine that nobody paid any attention to and turned them all into classics”: 11 cover songs that Jimi Hendrix made his own – including one that became Eric Clapton’s favorite Hendrix track

Jimi Hendrix performs live backed by Noel Redding on bass.

Jimi Hendrix spent his formative years, in the early ’60s, on the Chitlin’ Circuit (a network of clubs and venues that featured Black artists) working as a backing musician for a range of soul and blues stars – essentially serving his apprenticeship and honing his skills.

Unsurprisingly, once he’d decided he’d had enough of standing in the shadows, and started to front his own band, much of his repertoire comprised cover versions of the same blues and soul material that he’d cut his teeth on, with a handful of contemporary pop and rock classics thrown into the mix.