Jimi Hendrix

11 Montagu Place, Marylebone, London (1967)

     

11 Montagu Place, Marylebone, London (2011)

In New York in 1966, Jimi Hendrix met Chas Chandler, bass player with The Animals, who was on the lookout out for talent to manage and produce. Chandler convinced Hendrix to go to London where he joined forces with musicians Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell to create The Jimi Hendrix Experience. While there, Hendrix built up quite a following, not least among England's rock royalty. Members of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and Eric Clapton were all great admirers of Hendrix's work. The Jimi Hendrix Experience released three critically acclaimed albums: 'Are You Experienced', 'Axis: Bold As Love' and 'Electric Ladyland'.

In the four years (on and off) that he lived and played in London, he would stay in any number of hotel rooms, furnished flats and boltholes. One of these was a flat at 23 Brook Street, where he lived with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham – next door to the house where Handel had lived and where he composed Messiah.

                                    

Brook Street, Mayfair, London

Jimi Hendrix's blue plaque on the left at No.23, with Handel's on the right at No.25

   

23 Brook Street, Mayfair, London - plaque unveiled Sept 14th 1997

Lighter fluid and a 1965 Fender Stratocaster...

March 31st 1967 was the first day of a UK tour where The Jimi Hendrix Experience were opening for the Walker Brothers, also on the bill were Cat Stevens and Engelbert Hupperdinck. The venue - The Finsbury Park Astoria (Finsbury Park, North London)

As the band were bottom of the bill, Jimi's manager Chas Chandler was keen to find a way of making sure his young guitar prodigy stood out. There followed a discussion backstage amongst the small Hendrix entourage including a young journalist Keith Altham and a publicist working for Chandler, Tony Garland. 

Altham remembered the fateful day: “‘The destruction thing is being done to death,’ I said. ‘You can’t do that or you’ll be accused of just copying [Pete] Townshend."

Chandler said something about doing something to steal the headlines, something outrageous.

“It’s a pity you can’t set fire to your guitar,” Altham said, “but, of course, a solid body would never burn.”

Tony Garland, was given the mission to find lighter fuel. He recalled to The Guardian: ”I went out into Seven Sisters Road [in North London] to buy lighter fluid. At first, it didn’t make sense to me – there were too many things going on to worry about lighter fluid – but it all became clear in the end.”

The guitar was sold at auction in London for £280,000 in September 2008

Jimi famously set fire to and smashed up another guitar a few months later at the Monterey Pop Festival in California, USA.

 Jimi at London Heathrow Airport, August 27th 1970

Jimi Hendrix died in the early hours of September 18th 1970 in a room at the Samarkand Hotel (22 Landsdowne Crescent, Notting Hill). The basement room had been rented by his girlfriend Monika Dannemann. The cause of death noted on the coroner's report was 'inhalation of vomit after barbiturate intoxication', he was 27. The Hotel is no longer there and the building is a private residential property.

22 Landsdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, London