Credit: Far Out / Alamy / Chris Hakkens
Thu 6 August 2026 18:30, UK
Picture this: it’s 1966, and London is awash with some of the best musicians in the world.
The Beatles had just turned psychedelic, The Rolling Stones were gathering creative momentum, and beneath them all existed a blues scene that hosted the future guitar gods of the ‘70s. The standard was exceptionally high, and if you wanted to join in, you had to match the greatness.
But there was one guitarist, not native to Britain, who would hop over the pond and not only match the greatness but ultimately pale it into insignificance. It was 1966 when Jimi Hendrix landed in London, with little to no possessions to his name, bar his trusted left-handed Fender Stratocaster.
With no intentions of sightseeing, Hendrix made his way directly to Soho, where he would immerse himself in the thriving new blues scene, famously occupied by the likes of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Unfazed by the reputation set by those three, Hendrix wasted no time in playing live, first on September 26th, 1966, at the ‘bijoux Mayfair nightclub’, that is The Scotch of St James.
Word quickly spread of the American’s wild genius, and so it was time for the big hitters to see for themselves. It was a moment none of them could forget, according to vocalist Terry Reid, who remembered more of the shock and awe than the specifics of the music Hendrix played.
He recalled, “We were all hanging out at The Bag O’Nails: Keith [Richards], Mick Jagger. Brian [Jones] comes skipping through, like, all happy about something. Paul McCartney walks in. Jeff Beck walks in. Jimmy Page. I thought, ‘What’s this? A bloody convention or something?’ Here comes Jim, one of his military jackets, hair all over the place, pulls out this left-handed Stratocaster, beat to hell, looks like he’s been chopping wood with it.”
At this point, the aforementioned gatekeepers of quality were all aware of Hendrix. They had either heard of his reputation or, better yet, his recorded music. But there was still scepticism that someone could, in fact, be as good as people say and with a half-broken guitar in his hand, it wasn’t likely. However, it wasn’t until the end of his London residency that Hendrix was fully clued in on personal style, and so his early psychedelic aesthetic seemingly confused the crowd of icons.
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Reid continued to explain that after that moment, there was no doubt cast over Hendrix: “And he gets up, all soft-spoken. And all of a sudden, ‘WHOOOR-RRAAAWWRR!’ And he breaks into ‘Wild Thing’, and it was all over. There were guitar players weeping. They had to mop the floor up. He was piling it on, solo after solo. I could see everyone’s fillings falling out. When he finished, it was silence. Nobody knew what to do. Everybody was dumbstruck, completely in shock.”
The bar had officially been raised, and it was now up to the players of the scene to match it. While Macca marvelled, he was relatively safe with his immortal position within The Beatles, but the likes of Page, Clapton and Beck in particular knew that their position in the future of music hung on their ability to keep up with Hendrix and his beat-up instrument of mastery.
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