Written content by Sylvain Peuchmaurd for Art Daily
LONDON (AFP).- Jimi Hendrix made his name in London, exploding onto the 1960s music scene with his mesmeric guitar playing, before his untimely death 50 years ago at the age of 27.
His flat at 23 Brook Street, in the Mayfair area of central London, is now a museum — and besides his musical legacy is one of the few tangible reminders of his life in the city.
The legendary guitarist, famous for tracks including “Hey Joe”, “Purple Haze” and his cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”, lived at the address between 1968 and 1969.
He considered it his first “real home”, explained Hendrix specialist Christian Lloyd, from Canada’s Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
ven now, it’s considered the Seattle-born singer-songwriter’s only recognised residence.
More than two centuries earlier, another musical genius lived at number 25: Handel.
But at the time, a plaque commemorating the German Baroque-era composer was located between the two buildings, prompting Hendrix to believe he was living at the same house.
At one point, Hendrix even thought he saw Handel’s ghost in a mirror, said Lloyd.
“Excuse me while I kiss the Sky”
Persian rugs
Hendrix lived at the flat with his then-girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, who described the difficulties in finding a place for the star.
“I’d been to an estate agent or two and tried to get a flat in other blocks in Mayfair but as soon as they heard it was for Jimi Hendrix, it was a NO,” she told Channel 4 in 2016.
“They didn’t want somebody like him in their blocks of flats.”
Etchingham transformed the small flat, ripping out the grey carpeting, and furnishing it from the John Lewis department store on nearby Oxford Street.
She was called in again when it became a museum four years ago to recreate it as it was at the time, complete with rolled up Persian rugs that the musician collected.
One room bathed in red, orange and pink has a full ashtray and empty teacups, as well as a Monopoly set.
There are also two telephones his management had installed due to Hendrix’s habit of giving out his number to anyone who asked for it. Read more from Art Daily.
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