In his fanciful composition Voodoo Chile, Jimi Hendrix noted that on the night he was born, “the moon turned fire red,” but history recalls no such lunar event heralding his arrival at Seattle’s King County Hospital. Absent for the birth, James (Al) Hendrix took responsibility once he was out of the U.S. Army for raising his first son (though the child spent time with his paternal grandmother in Vancouver). A left-hander, the far-out guitarist played restrung right-handed models upside down. Actually, he turned it all upside down – his bluesy psychedelia, astral adventurism and liquid orchestrations changing how rock fans heard music. His rise was meteoric; his demise (suffocating on his own vomit at age 27) unseemly. In between, he asked a generation if they were experienced. Until him, they really had not been.
On May 10, 1968 the Jimi Hendrix Experience played the Fillmore East in New York, headlining over Sly and the Family Stone. Magnum photographer Elliott Landy captured the guitar legend both on and off stage.
All photos © Elliott Landy/Magnum
