09/18/2025
Remembering Jimi Hendrix (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970)
"James McKay, the grown-up son of their landlady, often sat on the porch playing blues on an acoustic guitar as Jimi listened in. When Jimi told his father he wanted to learn to play, Al purchased McKay’s guitar for five dollars. At first, Al recalls, Jimi concentrated on teaching himself easy riffs, “just like a person plunking away with one finger on the piano. One of the first things that he learned how to play was the theme song from Peter Gunn, so even when he was just starting, he could make music out of the guitar. Who knows—playing guitar could have been his way of working through some of his feelings about his mother. He just worked at it and worked at it, practicing night and day. He played the guitar every day. He carried it around with him all the time.” This habit continued until Jimi was well into his twenties, when he often fell asleep with his guitar still in his hands.
Al Hendrix: “Jimi would put my 45s on the turntable, and play along on his guitar. He’d try to copy what he’d heard, and he’d make up stuff too. He lived on blues around the house. I got a lot of records by B.B. King and Louis Jordan and some of the downhome guys like Muddy Waters. Jimi was really excited by B.B. King and Chuck Berry, and he was a fan of Albert King too, because he liked all them blues guitarists.
“Jimi also had some of his own 78s and 45s, but he never did ask me to buy him any records. He would buy his own. We also had a radio and television on Yesler. I didn’t see Jimi pay too much attention to the radio, but he liked to lay on the floor or sit on the couch and watch TV. Usually when I’d come home from work, he’d be sitting there with the TV on, and then he’d be playing along to the stereo during commercials. When the program would come on again, he would watch that again.”
From Jimi Hendrix’s Favorite Singles and LPs / Jas Obrecht
Photo: Bent Rej Photography
