Was Jimi Hendrix from San Francisco?

Frequently Asked Questions about The Jimi Hendrix House

A stone's throw from the former homes of 1960s rock luminaries such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Jefferson Airplane is the former home of another rock legend, Jimi Hendrix. The apartment at 1524 Haight Street, still a private residence, was Hendrix's home for a few years in the 1960s.

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The apartment as it appears today, with a mural of Hendrix on the side

Jimi Hendrix

Backstory and Context

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In 1967, the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco became a mecca for young people who were disenchanted with the tired, conservative values of their elders. If the counterculture had a capital, the Haight would likely be it. Apartments in the neighborhood were cheap, residents had a live-and-let-live philosophy, and it's estimated that as many as 100,000 young people flooded into the area in 1967. For a time in the late 1960s and 1970s, the district was a who's-who of rock legends, home to Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix.

For a few years in the 1960s, Hendrix lived in the home at 1524 Haight Street, which is only a few doors down from the famous intersection that gave the neighborhood its name. Though the details of Hendrix's time in the apartment are sparse, it is believed that he lived there for a time with his girlfriend.

Nowadays, the apartment is still a private residence and is located above a tobacco shop. The building is painted red, in honor of Hendrix. 

Sources

James Marshall Hendrix The Jimi Hendrix Experience website http://www.jimihendrix.com/biography/ Retrieved 30 April 2017.

The Experience fly to San Francisco to play two shows at the Fillmore Auditorium. The supporting cast includes Albert King, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, and Soft Machine. The Experience’s first set consists of: “Red House,” “Purple Haze,” “Foxy Lady,” “Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire,” and “The Wind Cries Mary.”

Just an hour prior, McMeans, a 24-year-old San Francisco State student, was at a meeting in the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street, volunteering his time in support of an on-the-fly free concert in Golden Gate Park. When shop co-owner Jay Thelin asked if anyone had a car, McMeans raised his hand. Soon after, he was chauffeuring Hendrix back across town in his dilapidated vehicle — a 1959 Studebaker with holes in the ragtop roof — on a foggy Sunday afternoon.

As they headed south through the city toward the Haight-Ashbury, Hendrix sat in the back seat, shy and polite, wearing a black and gold Victorian-era military jacket that he had found in a secondhand clothing store in London. McMeans was also sporting some vintage apparel of his own, in the form of a woman’s fur that he had fashioned into some sort of Davy Crockett cap crossed with a Russian babushka headpiece. Hendrix couldn’t help but comment on how cool it was.

“I tried to give it to him,” McMeans explained to SFGATE recently by phone, “but he declined, saying it wouldn’t fit over his hair.”

Jimi Hendrix, photographed in Europe during the spring of 1967, wearing the same vintage military jacket ("an antique petticoat" — as one British journalist described it) that he had on later that summer for his free concert in the Panhandle. 

The two arrived at the Panhandle on Fell Street near Ashbury, where a crowd of about 200 people had already started to gather around a flatbed truck that would serve as a makeshift outdoor stage.

“Hendrix pulled up and boom — it was on,” says author and longtime SF Chronicle culture writer Joel Selvin. “It was all a reflection of what San Francisco was like in 1966 and early ’67. It was the center of the rock music universe, and things happened as if by spontaneous combustion.”

During that first weekend of the Summer of Love, Hendrix’s free show in the Panhandle was not only a unique moment in one of the most exciting chapters of his career, but also an event which embodied everything that was organic and wonderful about the Haight Ashbury scene at its peak — “the high water mark,” as Hunter S. Thompson would famously reflect a few years later, just before “the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

Before San Francisco, Hendrix stormed Europe

Jimi Hendrix, right, with his bandmates of the Experience: bassist Noel Redding, center, and drummer Mitch Mitchell, at BBC TV Centre, 1967.

June of 1967 was the month when everything came together for Jimi Hendrix.

It began in Swinging London, where he was wrapping up a dizzying eight-month excursion that saw him — in this particular order — outshine guitar god Eric Clapton, change his stage name from Jimmy James to Jimi Hendrix, form a band (The Jimi Hendrix Experience), begin touring, appear on British television and record his trailblazing debut album “Are You Experienced?”

Hendrix put an exclamation point on this prolific run when he played at a London theater owned by Beatles manager Brian Epstein on June 4, with the Fab Four in attendance. He even opened the show with a blistering cover of “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,” just days after the Beatles had released the album.

Collectively, Hendrix’s European sojourn was more than just a successful strategy for launching his career. It was a feedback-driven counterpoint to the British Invasion, reminding the likes of Clapton, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger that rock ’n’ roll was ultimately rooted in the Black art form of the American blues … and that Hendrix was its sonic torchbearer. In a more immediate sense, he was simply the best guitarist that they had ever seen.

As he departed Europe, “Are You Experienced?” chased “Sgt. Pepper” up the English music charts, ranking second behind the Beatles’ first place slot. Though the album wouldn’t be released to the American market until August, Hendrix set his sights on making a similar impact stateside and was booked for a run of shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. Yet for their very first appearance in the U.S., the Experience were slated for the Monterey Pop Festival alongside A-list acts such as Otis Redding, the Who, Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead. 

Jimi Hendrix  performs onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 18, 1967 in Monterey, California.

Jimi Hendrix performs onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 18, 1967 in Monterey, California. 

Jimi Hendrix performs onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 18, 1967 in Monterey, California. 

Jimi Hendrix performs onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 18, 1967 in Monterey, California. 

Scenes from Jimi Hendrix's iconic performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, on June 18, 1967. (Images via Getty) Scenes from Jimi Hendrix's iconic performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, on June 18, 1967. (Images via Getty)

After a notorious backstage incident in which the Who successfully lobbied not to have to play after Hendrix, the Experience delivered one of the seminal performances in rock ’n’ roll history, which famously culminated in Jimi lighting his guitar on fire before an awestruck crowd.

San Francisco was next.

The Haight-Ashbury gets experienced

In the coming days, Hendrix was scheduled for a series of shows at Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium as the opening act on a bill beneath Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó and Haight-Ashbury rock royalty Jefferson Airplane. Although his album wasn’t available in America yet, Hendrix already had a buzz around him as he arrived in San Francisco.

“KMPX — the local station which every hip person listened to — had an English copy of ‘Are You Experienced?’ and they were pounding every track: ‘Foxey Lady,’ ‘Purple Haze,’ ‘Red House,’” Selvin said. “So when the Airplane showed up to play that first Fillmore gig … the entire place was there to see Hendrix. And he wiped the floor with them.”

Just like the Who, Jefferson Airplane quickly realized they couldn’t follow Hendrix and abruptly dropped from the lineup to purportedly honor some phantom commitment in Los Angeles.

Scrambling to fill the vacancy, Bill Graham reached out to on-the-rise local act Big Brother and the Holding Company. This put Hendrix and Janis Joplin on the same bill for a stunning run of 10 shows in one week (and, some insiders suggest, resulted in a tryst between the two stars backstage at the Fillmore one evening).

 Bill Graham, rock concert producer and promoter, talks on the phone in his office at the Fillmore West music club, San Francisco, California, August 1969. The walls are decorated with psychedelic concert posters and photographs, and there is a stack of record albums on top of a bookshelf. 

American blues-influenced rock singer Janis Joplin runs her fingers through her hair as she sings into a microphone on a darkened stage at the Fillmore East, New York, New York, February 11, 1969. The psychedelic rock band the 'Grateful Dead' opened up for Joplin at the concert.

Hippies dance at a psychedelic rock concert at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, California, in early summer, 1967. 

Photos from the Fillmore: Legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, left, talking on the phone in his office at the Fillmore West; Janis Joplin, upper right, and fans dancing at the Fillmore, circa 1967. (Images via Getty) Photos from the Fillmore: Legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, left, talking on the phone in his office at the Fillmore West; Janis Joplin, upper right, and fans dancing at the Fillmore, circa 1967. (Images via Getty)

For many in attendance, it was the first time they ever encountered Hendrix and his music.

“We knew the name but we really didn’t have any idea what his music was,” says Steve Laveroni, a local high school student at the time who attended one of the Fillmore concerts with his older brother. “We were just in amazement at the cacophony of sounds coming from his guitar. We had grown up seeing all the big San Francisco bands of that era, but Hendrix was just unlike any of them.”

As the week progressed, Hendrix went from an obscure opening act to a must-see headliner.

“He did two sets a night and he was just stunning everybody who saw it,” Selvin says. “People were walking out of those Fillmore shows breathless.”

'Another day at the carnival'

In many ways, Hendrix’s free concert in the Panhandle at the end of that week was a sort of victory lap: a lighthearted and spontaneous afternoon outing in the park after conquering the high stakes shows before the masses at Monterey and the hip kids at the Fillmore.

The event kicked off shortly after Hendrix emerged from Jeffrey McMeans’ junkshow Studebaker on the north side of Fell Street. Local outfit Ace of Cups, a pioneering all-female rock band, took the stage as the opening act. Meanwhile, Hendrix met up with Experience bandmates Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell behind the stage, drinking cans of Lucky Lager and smoking cigarettes. Hendrix also chatted with longtime colleague (and future drummer) Buddy Miles, whom he knew going back to his early days as a guitarist for hire on the Black music “Chitlin’ Circuit.”

Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles hanging out together during the Ace of Cups set during their free concert in the Panhandle, on June 25, 1967. Hendrix and Miles would later collaborate together in Band of Gypsys.

Legendary photographer Jim Marshall — who exactly one week earlier had taken a now-iconic photograph of Jimi lighting his guitar on fire at Monterey — was on hand with multiple Leicas dangling from his neck. He took photos of Jimi and the other musicians mingling with those in attendance and grooving along to the Ace of Cups’ opening set. Jimi was clearly a fan.

“At some point Jimi and Buddy were standing right in front of us while we were playing,” recalls Ace of Cups guitarist Denise Kaufman. “Later when he went back to Europe, he told Melody Maker magazine that we were one of his favorite bands that he encountered while touring in America.”

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All of the gear on the flatbed truck, from the amps to the drum kit, belonged to the Ace of Cups. Having watched Hendrix destroy his equipment at Monterey, some of the band members grew nervous about sharing it with him. “We finally had some equipment that was brand new to us,” Kaufman told SFGATE, “and I remember [our lead guitarist] Mary Ellen being a little worried. But Hendrix kind of picked up on it and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take really good care of your equipment.’”

San Francisco-based Ace of Cups, opening for Jimi Hendrix at a free concert in the Panhandle, on June 25, 1967.

So on a foggy summer afternoon, in front of a few hundred spectators, Hendrix and his bandmates participated in the recent-though-robust Haight-Ashbury tradition of performing for free on a narrow strip of Golden Gate Park in the heart of the city.

“It was another day at the carnival,” says SF local Rusty Goldman (who watched the Hendrix show that day under the influence of LSD). “There were different bands playing all the time; it was word on the street and if you were a local you would catch wind of them, whether it was in the Panhandle or Speedway Meadow or wherever.”

A case study to this dynamic, McMeans had smoked a joint in his car until he couldn’t see out the windows and then proceeded to position himself at center stage. Marshall even took a photo of Hendrix in which McMeans can clearly be seen near his feet wearing his custom-made babushka and looking up in awe while laconically holding on to the microphone cord. 

Jimi Hendrix performing at a free concert in the Panhandle, in San Francisco, June 25, 1967. Jeffrey McMeans, who drove Hendrix to the show that day, can be seen leaning against the stage wearing his homemade babushka — "I had thought to myself: 'I brought him here, I'm going to get as close as I can possible get.'"

Unsurprisingly perhaps after 55 years, no one can seem to remember the specific songs that Hendrix played that day, though his better documented shows from that era are heavy on “Foxey Lady,” “Purple Haze,” “Hey Joe,” “The Wind Cries Mary” and a hefty cover of Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing,” not to mention his trademark theatrics, from playing guitar with his teeth to behind his head.  

In all, about 300 to 400 people watched him perform that afternoon and its mention still invokes strong memories to the old-time San Franciscans who were in attendance. Hendrix concluded his run at the Fillmore later that evening, and then departed SF for Los Angeles the next day. His summer eventually took a strange twist when his management booked him as the opening act for the Monkees, a ludicrous pairing which only held together for seven shows.

The Haight's last hurrah

The Haight-Ashbury scene took a bad turn in the coming weeks and months. The combination of youthful word of mouth, increased media coverage and the song “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)” — written by Los Angeles musician John Phillips — drove thousands to the neighborhood from all corners of the country. For all of its positive-sounding optics, the Summer of Love really signified the downward trend of the culture in the Haight.

“The streets just filled up with people we had never seen before,” says Selvin, “and they lined the sidewalks. ‘Spare change?’ became the mantra. There was a lot of hostility with the police and even open violence — something that was simply antithetical to the whole hippie movement.”

The "Death of the Hippie" funeral procession in the fall of 1967.

Although the exact timing of the decline of the Haight Ashbury subculture is a highly subjective matter, other events support the late ’67 timeline. By October, the Thelin brothers shuttered the Psychedelic Shop, declaring the hippie movement dead and staging a makeshift funeral procession through the neighborhood. Many integral members of the culture began relocating around this time, such as Big Brother bassist Peter Albin, who left the Haight when a mugger put a knife to his wife’s throat. Most telling perhaps, was that one of the new arrivals that summer was an eccentric fellow named Charles Manson.

Within this timeline, Hendrix’s showing in the Panhandle was nearly a last call of sorts, a still-groovy calm right before the storm.

“The free Hendrix concert was almost the last moment of everything that was so magical and wonderful about San Francisco in ’66 and early ’67,” says Selvin. “Things almost seemed to change the very next week, ​​and then right away the dream was over.”

Guitarist Jimi Hendrix caught in a candid moment at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 18, 1967, in Monterey, Calif.

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