FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as “arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music”.

Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin’ circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers‘ backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals became his manager. Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: “Hey Joe“, “Purple Haze“, and “The Wind Cries Mary“. He achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the US. The double LP was Hendrix’s most commercially successful release and his first and only number one album. The world’s highest-paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before his accidental death in London from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970.

Hendrix was inspired by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in popularizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units in mainstream rock, such as fuzz distortion, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe. He was the first musician to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented: “Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began.”

Hendrix was the recipient of several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year and in 1968, Billboard named him the Artist of the Year and Rolling Stone declared him the Performer of the Year. Disc and Music Echo honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970, Guitar Player named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Rolling Stone ranked the band’s three studio albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland, among the 100 greatest albums of all time, and they ranked Hendrix as the greatest guitarist and the sixth greatest artist of all time.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Women’s Equality Day

This day marks the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1920), granting women the right to vote. Ratification came in Tennessee, where suffragist (Anita) Lili Pollitzer, age 25, persuaded Tennessee state legislator Harry T. Burn, age 24, to cast the deciding vote. “I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for a boy to follow,” he said, “and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”

The country’s 26 million voting-age women were enfranchised by this change in the Constitution. Longtime suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt summed up her experiences in the battle this way: “Never in the history of politics has there been such a nefarious lobby as labored to block the ratification.” Upon ratification, Catt founded the League of Women Voters, an organization now dedicated to providing impartial, in-depth information about candidates, platforms, and ballot issues.

Question of the Day

Are butterflies considered good luck?

Some Native American tribes seem to think so. If you catch a butterfly, they say, whisper your wish to it and set it free. The butterfly will deliver your wish to the spirits, who will grant it.

Advice of the Day

When cutting asphalt shingles, dip your utility knife in turpentine. This will keep the shingles from binding when you cut them.

Home Hint of the Day

Solvents such as denatured alcohol, turpentine, paint thinner, kerosene, or acetone are extremely flammable. Keep the solvents away from any open flame while you are working with them, and store in a well-ventilated space in tightly sealed containers.

Word of the Day

Cumulonimbus cloud

Large, dark, vertical cloud with bulging top that brings showers, thunder, and lightning.

Puzzle of the Day

The Show Me State.(Name the U.S. state!)

Missouri

Died

• Frans Hals (painter) – 1666
• Louis-Philippe of France – 1850
• Celia Thaxter (poet) – 1894
• Charles Lindbergh (aviator) – 1974
• Ted Knight (actor) – 1986
• Laura Branigan (Grammy-nominated pop singer best known for her hit Gloria) – 2004
• Dominick Dunne (American writer and investigative journalist) – 2009
• Neil Simon (Pulitzer prize-winning playwright) – 2018

Born

• Lee DeForest (inventor) – 1873
• Frank F. Gasparro (designed the Lincoln Memorial reverse on the penny) – 1909
• Mother Teresa (missionary) – 1910
• Benjamin Bradlee (journalist) – 1921
• Irving Levine (broadcast journalist) – 1922
• Geraldine Ferraro (politician) – 1935
• Will Shortz (puzzle creator and editor) – 1952
• Branford Marsalis (musician) – 1960
• Melissa McCarthy (actress) – 1969
• Macaulay Culkin (actor) – 1980
• Chris Pine (actor) – 1980
• Keke Palmer (actress) – 1993

Events

• Quincy Market opened, Boston, Massachusetts– 1826
• Amistad captured off Long Island– 1839
• Krakatoa, a volcano on an Indonesian island, began to erupt. Over this and the next day, the eruption caused tsunamis that killed 36,000 people. Particles from the eruption were released into the stratosphere, causing the average temperature of Earth to lower by one degree for the next two years.– 1883
• Krakatoa, a volcano on the Indonesian island of Rakata, erupted. The explosions heard in the eruption remain the loudest noise on human record. The sound was heard across the Indian Ocean as far away as Rodriguez Island and Australia– 1883
• A starch process that led to puffed grain cereals was patented– 1902
• The Nineteenth Amendment was adopted, granting women the right to vote. It was nicknamed the Anthony amendment in recognition of the lobbying efforts of suffragette Susan B. Anthony.– 1920
• Philo Farnsworth patented a television– 1930
• WXBS televised the first major-league baseball games, a double-header between Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers– 1939
• Norma Jeane Baker was signed to a contract with 20th Century Fox—her first studio contract– 1946
• The first Ford Edsel was produced– 1957
• The Beatles released their smash hit Hey Jude”“– 1968
• Guitarist Jimi Hendrix made his last public appearance in the UK– 1970
• Bill 101 took effect, making French the official language of Quebec– 1977

Weather

• Tornado hit train on bridge in Dearborn County, Indiana– 1864
• Snow flurries fell in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England– 1885
• 100-mph winds, Lake County, Indiana– 1965
• Stormy weather deposited a canoe in telephone lines in Lake County, Indiana– 1965
• Lightning killed more than 300 reindeer in Hardangervidda, a mountain plateau and national park in Norway.– 2016

COURTESY www.almanac.com