In the tradition of many itinerant bluesmen before him, Jimi Hendrix spent his formative years travelling around North America, from his upbringing in Vancouver and Seattle, down to the birthplace of the blues, the Deep South. “I was largely influenced by blues artists when I first started,” he said, picking up inspiration from his father’s record collection and other musicians. “The first guitarist I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I heard one of his old records when I was a little boy and it scared me to death. Wow, what is that all about?”
It was in the South, though, as a professional musician on the ‘chitlin’ circuit’, that he developed his unique musical style, fused from a combination of Delta blues, R&B, rock ’n’ roll and soul. He encountered many blues musicians on the way, including Albert King, who made a considerable impact on Hendrix’s artistic development.
When his new manager Chas Chandler brought him to England, it was no surprise that the preeminent guitarists of the British Blues boom, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and
