Although he gave only seven short years to his professional musical career, Jimi Hendrix, renamed James Marshall Hendrix by his father Al, had an impact that has lasted well beyond his untimely death at age 27. Forty years later, his achievements as a pioneering master of the electric guitar–including his innovative style of combining fuzz, feedback and controlled distortion which created a new musical form–still shine. As a record producer, he broke new ground using the recording studio as an extension of his music ideas by being one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects for rock recording.
Entirely self taught, Hendrix was influenced by a wide range of musical styles including blues, jazz, R & B and, of course, rock. Of mixed Black-Cherokee ancestry, he was the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.
Prior to his dying, Hendrix produced seven albums including two compilation discs, and after his Sept. 18, 1970 death, 11 more studio albums were released including Valleys of Neptune in 2010.
