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Originally broadcast January 2002
Presented by Gary Moore


Gary Moore tells the story of the greatest guitarist of all time and one of the most influential figures in rock music.

"I put on my Hendrix album and my son said 'Daddy, who's that' and I said 'well son, that's God'"- Robert Plant

The story of Hendrix's life unfolds over two parts, from his troubled boyhood in Seattle, through his days in the army and his early career as a jobbing musician supporting everyone from the Isley Brothers to Little Richard. True fame came when he was discovered by Chas Chandler of The Animals in a Greenwich Village café - Chandler offered to manage him, took him to swinging London and formed the Experience with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.

The release of Are You Experienced in 1967 announced the arrival of a major new talent, taking the British rock world by storm and setting new standards in guitar playing. Over the next four years Hendrix would revolutionise music, release a trio of groundbreaking studio albums and perform some of the most (often literally) incendiary live shows in the history of rock. There can be no better elegy for the war torn, drugged up, crazy sixties than Jimi's Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock.

When Jimi Hendrix died in London on September 18th, 1970, he left behind a legacy of music which still influences musicians to this day. It's worth remembering that everything on which Hendrix's reputation rests was recorded in just three years. The flood of albums released posthumously are testament to his prolific talent.

The programme features archive interviews with Jimi himself, and we also hear from Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding, Chas Chandler, Brian May, Robert Wyatt and Jimi's longstanding girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham.