Did Marilyn Monroe inspire Jimi Hendrix’s entire career?
Jimi Hendrix has often been considered one of the guitar greats. One of the first guitarists to experiment with and popularise effects like distortion and feedback, he quickly became associated with the Fender Stratocaster, which he often paired with a wah-wah pedal and fuzz-infused amplifiers. Famously, Hendrix received Grammys and an induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his musical output and retains a legacy as one of the most successful musicians of all time.
Offering a peak behind the creative curtain, Hendrix once shared his process during a 1968 interview with Guitar Player, stating: “All of my songs happen on the spur of the moment. On some records, you hear all this clash and bang and fanciness. But all we’re doing is laying down the guitar tracks, and then we echo here and there. We’re not adding false electronic things. We use the same thing anyone else would, but we use it with imagination and common sense.”
Hendrix was known for his unparalleled contributions to rock music, but also his connection to the hippie movement of the late 1960s. He headlined Woodstock in 1969, taking to the stage at nine in the morning to crowds who had waited through rainstorms and sets from the likes of Joe Cocker and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The iconic festival represented the peak of the decade’s counterculture, with half a million hippies gathering in New York to see some of the most celebrated artists of the movement.
The hippie subculture encompassed alternative music and free-thinking spirituality, as well as the use of psychedelic drugs. Spearheading the movement, Hendrix was also known for his interest in and experimentation with psychedelics.
The first time Hendrix experimented with LSD was in New York in 1966. Offered a psychedelic trip by a friend, Hendrix naively went for LSD. Prior to this moment, Hendrix had used cocaine and cannabis, but he was yet to experiment with psychedelics. The experience proved to be career-changing as Hendrix’s musical career would come to be closely associated with acid.
During his first trip, Hendrix looked at his own reflection in a mirror and saw Marilyn Monroe staring back at him. His trip also came to be associated with Bob Dylan’s 1966 album Blonde On Blonde, played to him by Linda Keith, who was dating Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones at the time. The experience led Hendrix to sing, inspired by Dylan’s voice.
He went on to popularise acid rock, a heavier, bluesier alternative to psych rock which became the soundtrack to acid trips and the wider psychedelic subculture. Thus the rumour that Hendrix used acid while performing was born. People began to speculate that Hendrix put drops of acid into his eyes and soaked his signature headband in the drug to enhance his performance.
Hendrix became synonymous with the 1960s psychedelic movement – not only in sound but in its defining aesthetic and lifestyle. Perhaps the original subculture, nearly every form of contemporary alternative music and its accompanying community is somehow derived from the movement. Hendrix pioneered the hippie movement, but his influence can also be felt in nearly every guitar genre that developed thereafter.
