Racial Ambiguity in the Age of the Popular Counterculture: Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix grew up in a multicultural setting in Seattle, but his roots were firmly in the African-American community there. The one wrinkle in his understanding of his racial identity came from his grandmother Nora, who claimed to be Cherokee. Amateur genealogists have since cast doubt on the claim, one that was common in African-American families, but Hendrix appeared to have taken it seriously in his understanding of his own racial identity.
Hendrix got his start in music within a firmly African-American context, developing his playing on the Chitlin' Circuit, a series of Black music venues across the South. But his path to stardom came through his engagement with the white British and American urban counterculture, especially in the U.K., where he first gained widespread renown.
He displayed a similarly dismissive attitude towards racial bifurcation as Mingus. When a Dutch journalist asked him if he was Black or white, he responded, "I am Cuban, man. I am from Mars."
His first album contained a song he often dedicated in live performances to the plight of Native Americans living in poverty on reservations, "I Don't Live Today." On his second album, Axis: Bold As Love he requested that he be portrayed as an "Indian" on the cover art. The English artists, misunderstanding him, melded a painting of him and his band with a portrait of the Hindu God Vishnu.
In any case, Hendrix's supposed exoticism became a major selling point, and British press outlets sometimes referred to him as "the wild man from Borneo."
Hendrix played into this mystery, but his lyrics and public dress suggested that he identified heavily with the Cherokee heritage he believed he had. On one song on Axis: Bold As Love, "Castles Made of Sand," he used one verse to describe the life of a young Native American man whose life was tragically cut short. In addition, he often wore clothing in public meant to evoke images of Native Americans, including his famous appearance at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in 1969, where he wore a Native American-inspired tunic and moccasins.
