Jimi Hendrix—Gypsy Eyes, Voodoo Child, and Countercultural Symbol

Focusing on Jimi Hendrix’s relationships with the transnational politics of race, gender, sexuality, class, nation, visual culture, and popular music, this chapter notes ways Hendrix, living during the tumultuous 1960s countercultural era of upheaval, occupies a singular place in the histories of popular music. Highlighting Hendrix’s early years in Seattle and ascent to becoming one of rock music’s pre-eminent musicians, this chapter highlights Hendrix’s links to racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes proliferating in US and transnational visual cultures and locates Hendrix in legacies of black-face minstrelsy, US and international “freak show” traditions, and black popular music’s global roots. Connecting Hendrix to other black-transnational male icons as a world-historical artist-activist, this chapter emphasizes ways Hendrix, as a prominent recording artist, musical pioneer, and politicized and historical figure, relates to categories of racial, gender, sexual, class, and national difference.

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Notes

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Bibliography

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Aaron Lefkovitz
  1. Aaron Lefkovitz