Jimi Hendrix: Soundscapes

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes Jimi Hendrix as ‘arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music’. He played at a time when electric amplification extended the scope of the guitar to three-dimensional, urban space. Bob Dylan theorized that Hendrix found new spaces in his songs. Jimi Hendrix: Soundscapes shows how Hendrix created music in particular places - from the California coast to New York City; from his beginnings in Seattle to his end in London. Marie-Paule Macdonald shows Hendrix to be a city-dweller, nighthawk and wanderer who favoured the modest surroundings of ordinary buildings and public places and who loved to stumble upon seedy basement bars and intimate clubs - to both visit and perform in. She explores how the rumble, uproar, babble and discord of the city inspired and became part of Hendrix’s powerful repertoire, and how he commissioned an architect and a sound engineer to create an urban recording studio that enhanced reverberation, bounce, sustain and echo. Hendrix led a collective musical revolution and performed in innovative, ad-hoc spaces: open-air festivals, inexpensive under-used music halls, dilapidated psychedelic ballrooms and any other reverberant spaces he could find.