If any city was ripe for Jimi Hendrix, it was London. His arrival in September 1966, with the Swinging Sixties still at their swingiest, coincided with a period of musical exploration and cultural upheaval. Cream had just formed, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was mere months away, and the city was alive with artistic experimentation and youthful rebellion. Hendrix, with his psychedelic sound and incendiary performances, became a symbol of this cultural revolution.
Hendrix would record Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love in Barnes, south west London. He'd set his guitar alight for the first time at the Finsbury Park Astoria in the north east. And all over Westminster and Soho, he'd terrify local musicians and blow the minds of anyone fortunate enough to see him play.
"The thing that really stunned Eric [Clapton] and me was the way he took what we did and made it better," Pete Townshend remembered. "And I really started to try to play. I thought I’d never, ever be as great as he is, but there’s certainly no reason now why I shouldn’t try. In fact, I remember saying to Eric, 'I’m going to play him off the stage one day.' But what Eric did was even more peculiar. He said, 'Well, I’m going to pretend that I am Jimi Hendrix!'"
Hendrix quickly made friends in the UK scene. He shared a house with Ronnie Wood. He went to watch Fleetwood Mac rehearse because he'd heard all about Peter Green. He moved into a swanky central London apartment where Ringo Starr was his landlord. He'd return to the city again and again. And he'd die there too, almost four years to the day since he first stepped onto the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.
Explore Jimi Hendrix's London using the interactive map below.
