Hall of Fame Fêtes Hendrix
September 13 -- CLEVELAND — In the 30 years since his death, Jimi Hendrix's rock-god persona has gotten so big that it apparently takes not one, but two museums to convey the story of his life and his singular career.
With Tuesday's opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's clunkily named "Jimi Hendrix Surround Sound Theater and Exhibit," the guitarist is now enshrined in Cleveland and Seattle, where the Hendrix-inspired Experience Music Project opened in June.
The Cleveland exhibit, full of artifacts loaned by Jimi's Dad, Al, and his half-sister, Janie, delivers a more personal look into the life of the man many consider to be the world's greatest rock guitarist — living or dead.
Timed to coincide with the anniversary of Hendrix's Sept. 18, 1970, death and the release of a box set containing four and a half hours of mostly unheard material, the exhibit contains the usual concert posters and artifacts: colorful, flamboyant outfits; several guitars; family photographs; his high-school yearbook; handwritten song lyrics; as well as a supremely tacky couch he used to crash on, which makes for a rather absurd exhibit centerpiece.
But it also displays more revealing pieces of his past, particularly drawings and paintings that show his promise as a visual artist, a career path he'd intended to follow before finding his soul in the sound of an electric guitar.
A 1958 pen-and-crayon drawing of Elvis Presley surrounded by song titles, scribbled on notebook paper, tells us what a 16-year-old Hendrix daydreamed about in class. Under the crinkled sheet of mini-legal-pad yellow paper, on which he hastily jotted down the lyrics of "Purple Haze" (originally titled "Purple Haze, Jesus Saves"), hangs a watercolor of a purple mountain.
"We really wanted to show who Jimi was, as opposed to having a lot of money and going out and buying things," said Hall of Fame curator Jim Henke. "There's a difference. And I think it's a big difference."
His comment was a direct reference to Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen's $240 million EMP museum, which is filled with the finest artifacts money can buy. The rock hall has no acquisitions budget and relies on loans and donations. (Asked how the museum acquired the "Purple Haze" lyrics, one of the few items in the new exhibit that's part of its permanent collection, Henke replied, "It's probably the only artifact that we ever bought at auction.") This exhibit also contains items loaned by EMP.
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