Then came stardom at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, where he shocked and thrilled the California crowd by burning his guitar on stage. Three years later he was dead.
With fans across the globe, Hendrix is winning new love in a hometown that was slow to embrace him. You can get a solid taste of Hendrix here, even though many of his early haunts are gone. The Spanish Castle, a club immortalized in his song "Spanish Castle Magic," is now a strip mall.
"Most artists from their home territories aren't recognized right away, whether it's Beethoven or the Beatles," says cousin Bob Hendrix, who helps run Experience Hen drix, the Seattle company owned by his family that oversees Hendrix's estate. "But we're pleased with the way his image has grown in Seattle, and we're looking to get a street named after him in the future."
The best place to find a Hendrix vibe is at the Experience Music Project, an interactive museum founded by Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft. Called the West Coast's answer to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, EMP is an essential stop for music lovers and recently mounted its fifth Hendrix exhibit since opening in 2000.
"Every once in a while, a spirit slips through the portal of time and blows our mind. That was Jimi Hendrix," said Billy Cox, Hendrix's former bassist, who spoke at the opening of EMP's "Jimi Hendrix: An Evolution of Sound," an exhibit that runs until April 2010.
"Hendrix was a real pinnacle. . . . I grew up in Austin, but was so absorbed with him that it took a while to stop trying to copy his music and develop my own sound," said Ian Moore, a Seattle musician who played at the opening party for the exhibit.
