Jimi Hendrix wasn’t the first teenager to fall under Elvis Presley’s spell. But it was actually his backing band that made the biggest impression. Hendrix was just 14 years old when he saw the King at Sick’s Stadium in Seattle on 1 September 1957. And while he was intoxicated by Presley’s stage show, he found himself irresistibly drawn to guitarist Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black and drummer D.J. Fontana. “Those musicians were really something,” he marvelled later. “They made playing music seem like the best thing in the world!”
Already an aspiring guitarist, Hendrix owned just a single-string ukulele at the time, retrieved from a neighbour’s rubbish. He played as best he could by aping Moore’s licks on Hound Dog and others. It wasn’t until the following summer that Al Hendrix, Jimi’s father, bought him a second-hand acoustic guitar for five dollars. Soaking up the music of blues greats like B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Robert Johnson, Hendrix retreated to his room and practised endlessly.
