Purple Haze

Purple Haze is by no doubt one of the signature Jimi Hendrix songs that guitarists from all over the world try to learn in order to incorporate part of the distinctive Hendrix guitar style into their own playing. Although it sounds nice and simple, Purple Haze is definitely not one of those easy guitar songs, unless you are perfectly familiar to Hendrix’s guitar tricks and chops. Jimi Hendrix has a very specific playing style that came naturally for him and learning to play his stuff is a lot like learning to think like he did when he composed it. This applies to Purple Haze too, but with enough efforts and patience, you will see that it is not that hard to learn how to play Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix on your own guitar.

Purple Haze was originally written in 1966, but recorded and released in 1967 and is one of Jimi Hendrix’s most significant songs (in terms of popularity) during his period working with The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was a London-based psychedelic rock band and as obvious by its name it revolved mostly around Hendrix’s playing, song writing skills and personality, but it also featured drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding, who both contributed with their own distinctive playing styles. Mitchell for example was an excellent jazz drummer and Redding was an ex-guitarist, so together they formed a massive sounding power rock trio similar to Cream and except for “Purple Haze” other signature Jimi Hendrix songs like “All Along The Watchtower” and “Hey Joe” were written.

Purple Haze quickly became a role model for the 60s psychedelic rock scene, and more or less many of the psychedelic bands started using the song as a template to stick to when writing their own songs. Although the term Purple Haze was commonly used as a street name referring to the “Monterey Purple” LSD drug, which was popular during the late 60s and the 70s and which Hendrix was reported to use, in interviews Hendrix denied that the song is about drugs and insisted that it’s just love song.

The existence of The Jimi Hendrix Experience was undoubtedly one of the successful periods in Hendrix’s career, but the trio disbanded in 1969 due to Hendrix feeling his bandmates were hindering his musical development. In 1970 however, the trio was restored for one final tour in Europe. The tour was a disaster – Hendrix was against it right from the start, but he had to accept in under the pressure of his lawyers and managers. During the tour he got a cold and wasn’t having enough rest to recover. His financial situation was also getting worse. This led him to a deep depression and on 18^th September 1970, during a tour break, he was found dead in his hotel room in controversial circumstances. At that night, the world lost one of its most influential guitar players.

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Each Song Includes Step By Step Videos For Lead & Rhythm Guitar

Learn to play this complete song and Jam with our live band. You can choose to learn and play either the Rhythm Guitar or Lead Guitar and Jam with us. Each song has separate step by step tuition videos to take you through every single part of the song.

Plus all our songs have accompanying downloads for full Song Structure, Chord Diagrams and Tab for lead solos. And all the teaching and Jam session videos can either be viewed online, or downloaded to your PC.

Related posts:

1. Like A Rolling Stone
2. Addicted To Love
3. Paranoid
4. Don’t Believe A Word
5. Run

Tags: Andy Partridge, BandJammer, Guitar Songs, Jimi Hendrix, Learn Guitar, Purple Haze