Jimi Hendrix Essentials

The electric guitar was never the same after Jimi Hendrix got his hands on it, and neither was rock ’n’ roll. The Seattle native started his career as a sideman for artists like The Isley Brothers and Little Richard before moving to England, where he became an instant legend. His own music quickly captured the outer reaches of a counterculture turning on to new chemicals, sounds, feelings, and social possibilities. Behold the dank crunch and billowing surrealism of “Purple Haze” and the naked expressivity of Southern soul running through “The Wind Cries Mary,” both from 1967. Hendrix also established himself as a bold re-interpreter, upending both a mournful garage-rock standard (1966’s “Hey Joe”) and one of Bob Dylan’s more portentous visions (1968’s “All Along the Watchtower”). Yet he could also come off downright cheeky and poppy, as on 1967’s lusting “Foxey Lady” and 1968’s funk-knocked “Crosstown Traffic.” The live recording of him reinventing “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock—just a year before his tragic death in 1970—remains an enduring portrait of how he could wring as much turbulence as transcendence out of his signature instrument. And posthumous releases like 1971’s “Angel” and “Freedom” point toward where he might have traveled next.