YEAR
1992
INDUCTED BY
Neil Young (Buffalo Springfield)
CATEGORY
Performers
Jimi Hendrix was the most gifted instrumentalist of all time, a self-taught electric guitarist whose fluid, immersive style was perfectly suited to embrace—and then revolutionize—the late ’60s psychedelic rock movement.
The Seattle-born musician always paired awe-inspiring tone and feel with incomparable songs which struck a balance between experimentation and tradition.
Jimi Hendrix
Mitch Mitchell
Noel Redding
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By David Fricke
When Jimi Hendrix sent his Fender Stratocaster up in flames at the end of his historic performance at the 1967 Mononterey Pop Festival in 1967, it was a brilliant grandstand play by a consummate psychedelic showman well-schooled in the showstopping hijinx of T-Bone Walker and Little Richard, it was also a profound gesture of affection and gratitude.
“I could sit up here all night and say thank you, thank you, thank you…I just wanna grab you, man,” Hendrix told the adoring crowd. ‘‘But, dig, I just can’t do that. So what I wanna do, I’m gonna sacrifice something here I really love…There is nothing more I can do than this.”
