Born in Seattle, Wash., on Nov. 27, 1942, he was given the name Johnny Allen Hendrix by his mother; his father had him renamed James Marshall Hendrix in 1946, and a business manager changed the spelling of Hendrix's nickname from Jimmy to Jimi two decades later. Entirely self-taught, he began playing guitar in his teens and by the mid-1960s was appearing in backup bands with Little Richard (b. Richard Penniman, 1932- ) and other rhythm and blues artists. Hendrix formed his own group, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, in 1965, but he abandoned it a year later to move to London where a new trio, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was born. In public Hendrix dazzled audiences with his outlandish clothes and flamboyant guitar playing, but his onstage virtuosity was matched in the recording studio by a mastery of styles that embraced blues, tender ballads, hard rock, and experimental electronic tone poems. His first British recordings—including the singles "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze," and "The Wind Cries Mary" and the album Are You Experienced? (1967)—were immediate hits in England. Hendrix remained relatively unknown in the U. S., however, until the Experience performed in June 1967 at the Monterey (Calif.) International Pop Festival, memorialized in the rock concert film Monterey Pop (1968). His subsequent albums with the Experience included Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland , both released in 1968. The Experience had disbanded when Hendrix made a celebrated appearance at the Woodstock festival in Bethel, N. Y., in August 1969, playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." A summary of this passage must include