Jimi Hendrix was born in Seattle in 1942. In the early 1960s, the self-taught guitarist served as a backing musician for Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner, The Supremes, and B.B. King among others before forming his own bands. In 1966 he traveled to England, where he formed the famous Jimi Hendrix Experience with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding. Hendrix and his group achieved international fame the following year when they toured the United States and were the highlight of the Monterey Pop Festival. By the time he headlined the legendary, generation-defining Woodstock Festival in 1969, Hendrix had become one of the world’s most important and influential rock musicians.
He was a virtuosic and extraordinarily creative guitarist who pushed the limits of the instru-ment further than any other performer of his age, and in the words of John Piccarella, “his innovative use of the recording studio as a compositional environment has had a greater impact on rock music than the work of any other musician.” Hendrix has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the UK Music Hall of Fame; he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2002 Rolling Stone magazine named him the greatest guitarist of all time.