Jimi Hendrix/Rock N Roll Expo Poster

Description

This is a poster for a Pittsburgh Rock N’ Roll Expo from
the mid- to late 1990s. It features a photo of Jimi Hendrix on stage. The
poster measures approximately 17 x 22 inches and is printed on heavy poster
stock. It comes from the J.P. McArdle Collection (the promoter/producer of the
Expo, as well as many Pittsburgh-area concerts and art shows).
James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix (born Johnny Allen
Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was a musician, 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 U.S. 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 formed the power
trio, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and landed three UK top 10 hits with
“Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze” and “The Wind Cries Mary.”
He achieved fame in the U.S. 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 U.S. 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.