By Matt Taylor. Hendrix historian Matt Taylor has created a richly detailed oral history of Jimi Hendrix's performance at the Men's Gym at Sacramento State College on February 8, 1968. In addition to the February 8, 1968 performance, Taylor's journal also details two later visits to Sacramento by Hendrix on September 15, 1968 at the Memorial Auditorium and April 26, 1970 at Cal Expo. Born in 1966, Taylor never had the privilege of seeing Hendrix in concert. Nonetheless, his oral history helps to provide Jimi's fans with a vivid appreciation of the Hendrix phenomenon in its earliest and most vibrant stage. This excerpt explores some of the history behind The Experience’s February appearance.

By Dave Thompson. The holidays were over in every sense of the word, not that Hendrix's schedule ever lightened up for long. The Experience were due to begin their next European tour in Sweden, and by their second date, the group had arrived in Stockholm to headline two shows at the famed Konserthuset venue on January 9 where they were supported by Jethro Tull. Featuring songs jokingly introduced by Jimi as being "first recorded in 1733 at the Benjamin Franklin Studio," to dedication to the "American Deserters Society," it was a night that Jimi attributed to "all those people who can actually feel and think for themselves."

By Andy Aledort. Fifty years after their debut, the Band Of Gypsys remains a towering achievement in the stunning, all-too-brief career of Jimi Hendrix. Their recordings have long been hailed as a touchstone of blues, funk, fusion, and rock that exemplified Hendrix’s quicksilver transition from pop phenomenon to new unchartered territories. It is improbable that the Band Of Gypsys album, and perhaps even the band, would have materialized without a series of unusual extenuating circumstances. Here’s a brief look back at how it all came together for one magical message to love.

By Dave Thompson. New York had never seemed so unforgiving. At the beginning of November 1968, The Jimi Hendrix Experience was thrown out of the St. Moritz Hotel, presumably for being longhaired musicians. Three weeks later, they weren't even allowed into the Hilton Hotel in Rockefeller Center and, in between times, the most prestigious show on the band's latest run through the United States had encountered a very unexpected problem. It was Thanksgiving, and the group had been invited to play New York's Philharmonic Hall; the first rock band ever to be admitted into those hallowed grounds.

Interview by Frank-John Hadley. It's been thirty years since Billy Cox shared a stage with Jimi Hendrix, but he believes it was a matter of destiny, that it was fate that led him to his music, and his personal and professional relationship with Hendrix.

This classic interview with legendary bassist, Billy Cox was conducted by Frank-John Hadley during an April 1999 in-person visit with Billy Cox at his “Capitol Jewelry” pawn shop in Nashville, TN. It was first published in the September/October 1999 edition of Experience Hendrix Magazine.

By Andy Aledort. Electric Ladyland is widely regarded as the apex of Jimi Hendrix's musical creativity within the confines of the studio environment. It is a vivid snapshot of his innovative artistic genius, captured during what was an extremely fertile and creative period in his life. As rock music began to explore its very boundaries, via cutting-edge, creatively ambitious releases like Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Hendrix seized the opportunity to devise an album of a scope that had previously only been imagined. Thus was planted the seed for the creation of what many regard as the greatest rock album of all time, Electric Ladyland.

By Steven C. Pesant. Electric Ladyland was the third and final studio album released by The Jimi Hendrix Experience… and it was all Jimi’s. Developed over the course of 13 long months, a period in which The Experience performed a near endless series of concert tours throughout North America and Europe, it also saw Hendrix taking full control of his music.

This time, Electric Ladyland was Jimi’s own personal message for the world—comprised of 16-songs and 77-minutes of music—and served as his most ambitious and confessional album of his lifetime. It was a near cinematic journey exploring themes of atmospheres, oceans, crisis and solitude, and Jimi’s prepared credits read like a major motion picture. Produced and directed by Jimi Hendrix—every aspect of the album came from Jimi’s hands … or so it seemed.

By Dave Thompson. It's the first thing you see when you buy a new album, and one of the last things you'd imagine could be subject to dispute. A record sleeve, after all, should say more for its contents than the musicians ever could, and if you range through rock's most dynamic catalogs, the jackets come to mind as quickly as the music, and encapsulate them as well: the historical hall of fame that covers The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper; the pennant bedecked scooter on the front of The Who's Quadrophenia; the cut 'n' paste blackmail text for the Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks; and of course, a room full of 19 bare naked women for The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Electric Ladyland.

By Dave Thompson. It was hard to believe, but the band was going home. They'd been on the road for just about nine months straight; they'd been touring America since the last days of July. But finally, exhaustedly, they'd reached the end of the road ... or at least, they'd been given three weeks off, the longest break in their work schedule in almost exactly two years. Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell had already booked their flights back to London; Jimi Hendrix had rented a house in Beverly Hills' Benedict Canyon. They just had two more shows to play, in Sacramento on Sunday, and Hollywood tonight. Here's the story of The Experience’s headlining appearance at the historic Hollywood Bowl on September 14, 1968.