Jimi Hendrix's Dad Didn't Like Son's Singing

Jimi's old man was not a fan of his laid-back vocals   08-Oct-12

According to Jimi Hendrix's sister Janie, the guitarist's father was not the biggest fan of his son's singing voice, despite being a huge fan of Jimi's guitar playing.

When Jimi revealed to his father that he would be moving to England to sing and play guitar, and that there was a backing band ready for him, Hendrix's father said his son was lucky he could play guitar so well to make up for his singing.

Janie recalled the conversation between her father and her brother in an interview with Music Radar:

"Jimi never thought he was much of a singer. My dad was a decent singer and he could be brutally honest. He would say, 'You can’t sing, so it's good you can play guitar'. He was very supportive of him in the guitar arena, but he was just being honest.

"When Jimi was going to England he was all excited, telling my dad: 'They're putting a group behind me - I'm off to the big time. I'm going to change the spelling of my name, and guess what? They want me to sing!'

"My dad was like, 'Oh, goodness!' But Jimi said, 'They're all just hollering out there, so I'm gonna holler like the rest of them'".

Janie also spoke of a number of unpublished Jimi Hendrix lyrics which have been discovered in the years after his death.

"No one knows he wrote more than 110 songs", she said. "We unearthed some unpublished songs. We don’t have music to those – they're just words.

"They're timeless: about times of then, times of yesteryear, times of the future. It's a message. All his lyrics are a message of love. He's sharing dreams he had, how he wants our world to be."

A new film about Jimi Hendrix's pre-fame years, starring Andre 3000 and titled All Is By My Side, is currently due to be released next year.

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