Jimi Hendrix

Filmed during Jimi Hendrix's final tour less than three weeks before his death, the concert documentary "Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight" captures the rock guitarist's singular style and musicianship. Janie Hendrix, his sister, will introduce the screening, and a panel discussion with Bob Santelli, Billy Cox, Murray Lerner and John McDermott will follow. Grammy Museum, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., L.A. 7:30 p.m. Thu. $10. (213) 765-6800. http://www.grammymuseum.org

It was the physical embodiment of rock's power and majesty - a wall of black, vinyl-clad cabinets, one atop the other, crowned with a rectangular box containing the innovative circuitry that revolutionized the music. This was the famed Marshall stack, the amplification gear that has dominated rock stages since its introduction in the early 1960s, bestowing on guitarists the ability to achieve unprecedented volume and controlled distortion. From the Who, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s on through Peter Frampton, Van Halen, AC/DC, Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses and Nirvana in succeeding decades, the cursive "Marshall" emblazoned on the speakers has served as an inescapable backdrop signature.

It was the physical embodiment of rock's power and majesty - a wall of black, vinyl-clad cabinets, one atop the other, crowned with a rectangular box containing the innovative circuitry that revolutionized the music. This was the famed Marshall stack, the amplification gear that has dominated rock stages since its introduction in the early 1960s, bestowing on guitarists the ability to achieve unprecedented volume and controlled distortion. From the Who, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s on through Peter Frampton, Van Halen, AC/DC, Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses and Nirvana in succeeding decades, the cursive "Marshall" emblazoned on the speakers has served as an inescapable backdrop signature.

Filmed during Jimi Hendrix's final tour less than three weeks before his death, the concert documentary "Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight" captures the rock guitarist's singular style and musicianship. Janie Hendrix, his sister, will introduce the screening, and a panel discussion with Bob Santelli, Billy Cox, Murray Lerner and John McDermott will follow. Grammy Museum, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., L.A. 7:30 p.m. Thu. $10. (213) 765-6800. http://www.grammymuseum.org

With the exception of James Dean, who made only three films, there might be no pop-culture icon who has done more with less than the late Jimi Hendrix. The ultimate guitar hero released just three studio albums before his death in 1970, but new generations of music fans keep plugging into his amplified legacy. The volume of Hendrix's music is about to get turned up. Today, the Hendrix estate and Sony Music Entertainment will announce the March 9 release of a "new" Hendrix album, "Valleys of Neptune," which will feature a dozen unreleased recordings.

Oh say can you see Jimi under the Christmas tree? Jimi Hendrix's estate has teamed up with McFarlane Toys to produce an action figure of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist and singer that will be in stores next month. The 6-inch figure, to be sold by music retailers and some toy merchants, comes dressed in a white fringed shirt, blue velvet pants and scarves tied around his head and one leg.

Mitch Mitchell, the drummer for the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience of the 1960s, has been found dead in his Oregon hotel room. He was 61. Erin Patrick, a deputy medical examiner in Multnomah County, said Mitchell was found dead shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday in his room at the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland. She said Mitchell apparently died of natural causes. An autopsy is planned.

A mural of the late guitarist Jimi Hendrix at a high school will not be whitewashed despite a petition by some students who object to the rock star's drug use. "I hesitate to accept that Jimi Hendrix's life and work can or should be condensed into, 'He is a symbol of drug abuse,' " Ridgefield High School Principal Elaine Bessette said Monday.

Hundreds of fans watched the unveiling of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star honoring rock legend Jimi Hendrix Thursday, but only Chris Williams had the audacity to bring an electric guitar. The longhaired Malibu resident spent the morning vigorously strumming off-key renditions of tunes Hendrix had turned into pyrotechnic masterpieces. "This is sacred!" exclaimed Williams, 22, calling the star ceremony "a celebration of his music, his existence, his memory.

CD buyers are generally older and more affluent than vinyl or cassette album customers, retailers tell us. Still, Billboard magazine's weekly CD chart and its regular Top 200 album chart (which reports vinyl, cassette and CD sales) tend to be largely interchangeable. The notable exception in recent weeks: the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Radio One" album. Released by Ryko, the album has been in the CD Top 20 for more than two months, but has yet to crack the Top 100 on the regular LP chart.

By now, lots of Angelenos have spent a Saturday evening watching movies in Hollywood Forever Cemetery. For 10 years, from May through September, movie lovers with blankets, picnic baskets and wine bottles in hand have flocked to the Cinespia series to watch classic films among Tinsletown's resting celebrities. But if you've ever snuggled on the grass with a favorite snuggler and wondered what it would be like to spend the whole night there, this Saturday is your big chance. This weekend, Cinespia's Movies til Dawn invites guests to grab their sleeping bags and experience an all-night psychedelic-themed movie extravaganza.

As symbolically devastating as the recent flooding in Nashville was to the home of the historic Grand Ole Opry House, the toll on another building little known outside the city's music community may well have a broader, more lasting impact. That building is Soundcheck Nashville, a "cartage" facility, where roughly 1,000 musicians, including country stars such as Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Vince Gill, as well as hundreds of the world's most accomplished studio musicians, store their instruments and equipment.

Jim Marshall, celebrated in music circles for his iconic, attitude-laced images of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones and other '60s rock luminaries as well as equally revered portraits of Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and myriad folk, country, jazz and blues artists, died Wednesday in New York City. He was 74. Marshall apparently died in his sleep while on a promotional tour for "Match Prints," a new collection of similar shots taken across the decades by Marshall and Timothy White, a longtime devotee who referred to his mentor as "royalty in my line of work."

Jimi Hendrix "Valleys of Neptune" Experience Hendrix/Legacy . 1/2 It's 2010. What could we still want from Jimi Hendrix? He's been gone so long. Yet the master guitarist, Afro-futurist and ultimate psychedelic freak still generates an aura of possibility stronger than what many still-breathing pop stars can maintain. He's the lost rocker most strongly associated with the question "What if?" What if Hendrix had collaborated with Miles Davis, gotten into synthesizers, put together that big band he'd been planning at the time of his death?

With the exception of James Dean, who made only three films, there might be no pop-culture icon who has done more with less than the late Jimi Hendrix. The ultimate guitar hero released just three studio albums before his death in 1970, but new generations of music fans keep plugging into his amplified legacy. The volume of Hendrix's music is about to get turned up. Today, the Hendrix estate and Sony Music Entertainment will announce the March 9 release of a "new" Hendrix album, "Valleys of Neptune," which will feature a dozen unreleased recordings.

A high-pitched voice, questionable sexuality and ear-grabbing melodies -- the new Decca album "Sacrificium" may sound like a posthumous Michael Jackson collection; instead, it's a collection of 17th century opera arias written for castrati -- the gelded singers who were the superstars of the European music world for almost two centuries. "Sacrificium" is hardly likely to reach "Thriller"-like global ubiquity, but Cecilia Bartoli, an Italian mezzo-soprano with a large following (not to mention obsessions and image control that recall the King of Pop)

This four-CD "biography," combining over three hours of a 1988 radio documentary with a 70-minute Forum concert, is a sanitized, show-biz treatment that sheds no light on Hendrix's life. The music--official releases, alternate mixes, home demos and unreleased live tracks--is broken up by a breathless, vapid narration that outlines rock's official Hendrix biography: Jimi discovers guitar, plays blues and pays dues, finds meteoric success, dies at 27.

The childhood home where rock guitarist and singer Jimi Hendrix is said to have first discovered music has been dismantled after eight years of preservation efforts failed. Barely a shell of the 900-square-foot house originally in Seattle's Central Area neighborhood remains on a lot across the street from where Hendrix was buried in Renton, Wash. The demolition of the home, where Hendrix lived from ages 10 to 13, is the end of Pete Sikov's fight to preserve it, beginning in 2001 when the original site was purchased for condominium development.

Sometimes a stroll down Hollywood Boulevard is a step back in time. To 1969, to be exact. It's that way when Anthony Aquarius plugs in his battery-powered amplifiers, straps his electric guitar on upside down and belts out "Hey Joe" to startled passersby. Aquarius sounds like Jimi Hendrix. He looks like him too -- right down to the lanky gait, bushy hair and flamboyantly colored clothes. Hendrix, an iconic figure from the late 1960s, is regarded by some as the best rock guitarist ever.

The childhood home where rock guitarist and singer Jimi Hendrix is said to have first discovered music has been dismantled after eight years of preservation efforts failed. Barely a shell of the 900-square-foot house originally in Seattle's Central Area neighborhood remains on a lot across the street from where Hendrix was buried in Renton, Wash. The demolition of the home, where Hendrix lived from ages 10 to 13, is the end of Pete Sikov's fight to preserve it, beginning in 2001 when the original site was purchased for condominium development.