In July 1968, Hendrix lived in a third-floor flat at 23 Brook Street in London with his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, returning in January 1969. The Handel & Hendrix In London museum, with its recreation of Jimi’s bedroom that includes his record collection, opened to the public in 2016. His collection is now owned by the Experience Music Project and collector Jeff Gold. Here it is…

Andy Paradise

Barrie Wentzell

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

THE BEATLES

Of The Beatles’ albums in Hendrix’s collection,Sgt. Pepper… is the most worn; he famously opened with a ‘killer’ arrangement of the title track at the Saville Theatre just three days after the album’s release and with members of The Beatles in the audience.

Highway 61 Revisited

BOB DYLAN

In 1965, as a struggling musician in New York, Hendrix was enough of a Dylan fan to spend his last money on this. Hendrix’s copy has blood on its sleeve, after he cut his hand on a broken wine glass.

Sound Of The Sitar

RAVI SHANKAR

Hendrix’s albums by Ravi Shankar were presents from Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, a great supporter who was a ‘world music listener’, and knew Hendrix would be open to the different scales and structures of Indian classical music.

Mixed Bag

RICHIE HAVENS

Richie Havens, an old friend of Hendrix’s from his Greenwich Village days, dropped by the guitarist’s flat in Brook Street to present Jimi with this record, his latest album at the time. Havens then proceeded to demonstrate his anti-war anthem Handsome Johnny on Hendrix’s Epiphone acoustic guitar to a small party in the flat.

Electric Mud

MUDDY WATERS

Electric Mud attempted to ‘modernise’ Muddy Waters via the addition of wah-wah and other voguish sounds. When he heard it in Mr Love, the café below his flat in Brook Street, Hendrix asked the waiter what it was. When told it was Muddy Waters’ latest, Hendrix at first refused to believe it, before smiling and saying: “I used to follow him. Now he’s following me.”

Great Choruses From Handel’s Messiah

HANDEL

Hendrix owned two copies of Handel’s Messiah, both with signs of wear and tear. This rendition by the English Chamber Orchestra promised period sounds, which would’ve been uncanny listening so near to where it was composed.