![\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bb490cd14e59e99cfcf731a995920879.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nWhen you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Credit: Mark Hayward Archive\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In September 1966, 23-year-old Jimi Hendrix<\/a> hit London like a one-man invading army, going from unknown American sideman to guitar-slinging supernova in four months.<\/p>\n The original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock 250, in May 2018.<\/p>\n Why did Hendrix have to move to England to find fame and fortune? Well, in the mid-60s America simply wasn’t swinging enough to get on his wavelength, or what he later described as the \u201cfree feeling \u2013 a mixture of rock, freak-out, blues and rave music\u201d. If you need proof, who better to provide it than Les Paul<\/a>, inventor of the electric guitar and multitrack recording, the two things that helped Hendrix become a star.<\/p>\n \u201cI came across Jimi in 1965 one afternoon at a roadhouse in New Jersey called the Allegro,\u201d the late genius revealed in 2007. \u201cI was on my way into the city to drop off some tapes at Columbia Records. The club was pretty empty. Jimi was auditioning. He was playing a Les Paul Black Beauty left-handed. Man, he was all over that thing! At the time, I was getting into artist management, so I stayed curious about new acts.<\/p>\n “I thought, \u2018I\u2019ll swing back on my way home from New York and meet this guy.\u2019 When I got to the Allegro an hour later, Jimi was gone. I asked the bartender: \u2018Where is that guitarist? Did he get the gig?\u2019 And he said: \u2018Are you kidding? We threw him out. He was too loud!\u2019 \u2018What was his name?\u2019 \u2018I didn\u2019t get it.\u2019 I looked in every joint in Jersey for the guy, only knowing he was tall, with bushy hair and played lefty. Never found him. Two years later, I see him on the cover of an album and he\u2019s a big smash over in England.\u201d<\/p>\n Jimi Hendrix in London, 1966 | Credit: Cyrus Andrews\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Of course, Hendrix had more going on than that failed bar audition suggests. He\u2019d been a regular on the chitlin\u2019 circuit for three years, playing with King Curtis, Little Richard<\/a>, the Isley Brothers \u2013 names that then had more cachet in Britain than in their home country, America. He\u2019d been on stage at the famed Apollo in New York. He\u2019d guested on various TV music shows.<\/p>\n \u201cI had all these ideas and sounds in my brain, and playing this \u2018other people\u2019s music\u2019 all the time was hurting me,\u201d Hendrix said. But the jump from sideman to frontman can be an Atlantic-sized crossing. Sometimes it helps to have a champion in your corner.<\/p>\n Hendrix found his in 1966 with Chas Chandler. The former bassist with The Animals<\/a> was making his own jump, from musician to manager. After being wowed by Hendrix\u2019s performance at Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village \u2013 which included playing the guitar with his teeth and behind his head \u2013 Chandler signed his first client.<\/p>\n The Pan Am flight that brought Hendrix on his first ever trip to Britain arrived at Heathrow on the morning of Saturday, September 24. Although Chandler\u2019s plan was for Jimi to live in London while he put a band together for him, the two had to be creative at customs. Britain had laws restricting foreigners coming for employment. A member of The Animals\u2019 road crew took Jimi\u2019s guitar through separately. Then a press agent friend of Chandler\u2019s, Tony Garland, came to sort out Hendrix\u2019s work permit. \u201cI had to invent a story that Jimi was this famous singer who\u2019d come to collect his royalties,\u201d Garland said. \u201cOtherwise they weren’t going to let him in.\u201d Finally, Hendrix<\/a> was cleared, but with only a one-week visa.<\/p>\n That evening, Chandler took Hendrix to the Scotch Of St James club. One of the people at the club that night was 20-year-old Kathy Etchingham, a hairdresser and part-time DJ who\u2019d dated Keith Moon<\/a> and Brian Jones<\/a>. \u201cThere were stairs winding down to the basement, and everybody was leaning over the banisters to listen to this guy sitting in the corner of the club playing,\u201d Etchingham recalled. \u201cThey were enthralled.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, Etchingham was introduced to Jimi. \u201cHe just looked unusual \u2013 stunning, really. He was fresh and he had a very soft sort of American accent.\u201d<\/p>\n The flirtatious Hendrix asked her to go home with him. And there began a two-year romance \u2013 but not before she saved his life. Jet-lagged and unacquainted with traffic being on the left in Britain, Jimi stepped right into the path of a speeding cab outside the club. Etchingham yanked him back to the kerb just in time.<\/p>\n London in late \u201966 embodied the \u2018Swinging\u2019 tag it had acquired: The Beatles<\/a>\u2019 Yellow Submarine and The Who<\/a>\u2019s I\u2019m A Boy were topping the singles chart; Blow-Up and Georgy Girl were pushing the envelope in cinemas; Emma Peel and John Steed were making TV crime-fighting look glamorous; the club scene was alive at Blaises and the Bag O\u2019 Nails; dress hemlines were climbing upwards; and flared trousers and velvet jackets were blooming in dayglo colours in Carnaby Street and the King\u2019s Road.<\/p>\n Hendrix in London with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham at his Mayfair flat | Credit: Eric Harlow\/Daily Mirror\/Mirrorpix via Getty Images<\/p>\n The group to back Hendrix, The Experience<\/a> (named by Animals manager Michael Jeffery) \u2013 not a nine-piece, just a rhythm section \u2013 was put together in just two days, October 4-5. It comprised Noel Redding, a guitarist who was asked to switch to bass, and Mitch Mitchell, a jazzbo drummer. His inclusion was literally the result of a toss-up, Chandler flipping a coin to decide between Mitchell and Aynsley Dunbar.<\/p>\n Redding\u2019s first impression of Hendrix was: \u201cFunny overcoat and weird shoes! The first day, we went through three songs,\u201d he said. \u201cAfterwards I went down the pub with Hendrix, and he was asking me about English music and I was asking him about American music. We had a nice chat and he said: \u2018Would you like to join my group?\u2019 I said: \u2018Give us the old train fare and I\u2019ll come back tomorrow.\u2019 Within two days I was in.\u201d<\/p>\n Mitch Mitchell remembered: \u201cThere was Noel, and he\u2019d never played a bass in his life. Hendrix arrived in a Humphrey Bogart raincoat, with his Stratocaster and two little Burns amps. They had already auditioned something like thirty drummers. We just played over various rhythms and that was that. Hendrix said: \u2018Okay, see you around.\u2019<\/p>\n Chas said there was a gig in Paris the next week with [French pop sensation] Johnny Hallyday and asked if we fancied doing it. So we said okay and spent three days rehearsing, then off we went. And that was how it started. There was complete freedom in what we played. It was like escaping from jail.\u201d<\/p>\n That same week, Chandler took Hendrix to see Cream<\/a> at the Polytechnic of Central London. Jimi was excited to meet Eric Clapton, one of his favourite guitarists. But Chandler had more in mind. During a break, he called Clapton to the front of the stage to ask if Jimi could jam with Cream. It was an unusual request for the trio, and they didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n Finally, Jack Bruce shrugged and said: \u201cI guess he can plug into my bass amp.\u201d When Jimi played a blazing version of Howlin\u2019 Wolf\u2019s Killing Floor with them, jaws dropped \u2013 including that of Clapton, then considered to be the hottest guitarist in Britain. Although early on Clapton was critical of Jimi\u2019s \u201csexual thing\u201d of tonguing the guitar and rubbing it across his crotch, he said he was \u201cfantastically talented and a beautiful player\u201d.<\/p>\n He wasn’t the only guitarist taking note. Jeff Beck<\/a> said: \u201cIt was like a bomb being blown up in the right place. I went away from seeing Jimi thinking: \u2018I better think of something else to do.\u2019 I followed him around a bit \u2013 and he\u2019d heard of me, which I couldn’t believe. He said: \u2018What\u2019s the lick you play on [The Yardbirds<\/a>\u2019] Happenings Ten Years Time Ago? I swiped that.\u2019 I thought: \u2018Wait a minute. We can talk music now. It’s not like he\u2019s some immovable force.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The electric guitar had been able to evoke anger. Jimi made it beautiful and made it okay to make it beautiful.<\/p>\n Pete Townshend<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Pete Townshend<\/a> said: \u201cI never had any sense that I could ever come close. I remember feeling quite sorry for Eric, who thought that he might actually be able to emulate Jimi. I also felt sorry that he should think that he needed to. Because Eric was wonderful anyway. Once \u2013 I think it was at a gig Jimi played at the Scotch Of St James \u2013 Eric and I found ourselves holding each other\u2019s hands. You know, what we were watching was so profoundly powerful. The electric guitar had always been dangerous, it had always been able to evoke anger. Jimi made it beautiful and made it okay to make it beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n The Jimi Hendrix Experience land at London’s Heathrow Airport | Credit: \u00a9 Hulton-Deutsch Collection\/CORBIS\/Corbis via Getty Image<\/p>\n After their brief tour of France supporting Hallyday, Hendrix and The Experience returned to play some shows in England. And the music papers were taking note. \u201cGreat stage presence and exceptional guitar technique,\u201d said Melody Maker. NME said: \u201cA one-man guitar explosion. What he does to a guitar could get him arrested for assault.\u201d<\/p>\n In between shows, Hendrix<\/a> moved in with his new girlfriend Kathy Etchingham. Despite their psychedelic fashion sense and vampire hours, at home they would come to prefer a surprisingly domestic life, drinking tea, watching Coronation Street (Jimi loved Ena Sharples) and keeping a tidy flat. \u201cHe was a bit of a clean freak,\u201d Etchingham said. \u201cI think because he was in the army, and they must\u2019ve taught him to get up, make the bed, make sure everything\u2019s neat.\u201d<\/p>\n Being the toast of the club scene and having the attention and respect of England\u2019s top guitarists was one thing. But could Hendrix sell records? His first single was Hey Joe, a cover of a murder ballad written in 1962 by Billy Roberts. When Chandler heard Jimi play it at Cafe Wha?, he knew it could be a hit. Jimi had learned the tune from folkie Tim Rose, but it had already been covered by The Leaves, Love<\/a> and The Standells.<\/p>\n Chas Chandler and Jimi Hendrix at The Marquee, London | Credit: Jan Olofsson\/Redferns<\/p>\n Jimi\u2019s version was definitive. Punctuating the lyrics with piercing guitar commentary, he sounded like he was the desperado on the run \u2018down Mexico way\u2019. Released on December 16, the same day The Experience appeared on TV pop show Ready, Steady, Go!, the song became a hit, peaking at No.4. Admittedly, there was a bit of goosing from management, who paid kids to buy up the single in the shops. But from a distance, what\u2019s more significant than this solid debut is that Chandler encouraged Hendrix<\/a> to write a song for the B-side. In an afternoon, he came up with Stone Free, which began a burst of songwriting creativity.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/e5dac3ea87bcb31feec5ce96347edb58.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Jimi](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0b024ac56de2354663fa64cae083c402.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Hendrix](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2519f638a3779f6daeb87cf1b216cc21.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d7826b886f720b1a8138e65025093d3b.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Chas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/59e9ead1188be7bc8c8320596635b3a4.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n