In 1969, a 3-day festival was held in a 600-acre dairy farm in upstate New York. Woodstock, as it became to be known, would become a representation of a counter culture that had changed the American identity. In front of 500,000 spectators, a young black man from Seattle, Washington took the stage. Three-quarters into a 2-hour set, Jimi Hendrix began playing his very own rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, the American national anthem, on his way of becoming a true American icon.
“All I’m gonna do is just go on and do what I feel,” said Hendrix, when asked about the music he plays. “All I’m writing is just what I feel, that’s all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland.”
It was that attitude that helped popularize Jimi Hendrix. On stage, he did not only sing songs, whose words many would argue are not “so bland,” he played his guitar, an instrument that he has shown to dominate with both the subtle touches of a Spanish guitar virtuoso and the savage, yet precise, chopping of a lumberjack. The guitar was a portal to the musician’s soul and mind, all which he willingly burned for his audience, the instrument literally.
“The time I burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar.”< /p>
With that same passion, his performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock would stand to represent a declaration by a counter-culture whose social and political views were often seen as un-American.
“If it was up to me, there wouldn’t be no such thing as the establishment,” Hendrix said. “In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first. (Politicians) ain’t got their heads together. That’s why I got music. Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”
Jimi Hendrix died on September 18th, 1970. Forty years later, his music still shapes the world and his guitar will always be a symbol for change through music.
