Jimi Hendrix’s solo career is pivotal to the history of the electric guitar. In a stunning revelation, Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Matthews tells Guitar World it might not have happened without him.
The pair met when Hendrix was playing for Curtis Knight and the Squires, and Matthews was promoting gigs for the Highway Inn, Long Island.
Matthews had booked Chuck Berry to play the venue, and Berry’s agent insisted he also take the Squires.
“I didn’t know what the hell they were,” Matthews recalls. “Chuck Berry would do two shows a night and after the first show, I went in to count the gate while Curtis Knight and the Squires went on.”
“Steve Knapp was the second guitar player backing up Chuck Berry, and he came running to me, telling me, ‘Hey, you got to hear this guitar player. This guy is really great. Jimmy James is his name,’” Matthews continues.
Jimmy James, it turns out, was a stage name employed by the young Jimi Hendrix. “I liked his playing,” says Mike, understatedly.
The pair became friends, and Matthews regularly visited Hendrix in New York, where the world’s greatest guitarist was staying in a “fleabag hotel.”
Mike remembers, “He had his hair set in these pink curlers and we would just talk band drama. I went to see him at a gig; during the break he sat down with me and said, ‘Mike, I gotta quit. I want to form my own band. I want to be the head writer.’”
Matthews shot back some pivotal advice: “Well, if you’re going to be the head writer, then you’ve got to sing.”
“Well, that’s the problem, Mike. I can’t sing,” Hendrix reportedly replied. Mike encouraged him to reconsider, saying: “Look at Bob Dylan. Look at Mick Jagger. They don’t sing, but they ‘phrase’ great and people love them.”
“Mike, you got a point,” came Hendrix’s response.
While Hendrix continued to have doubts about his vocal abilities, he nevertheless got behind the mic, recording some of the most important albums in rock history. It might be that Matthews’ encouragement is what spurred him onto that success.
Elsewhere in the interview, Matthews claims to have influenced Hendrix’s gear as well. Matthews sold his first Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz pedals to Manny’s in New York. He reports that Henry Goldrich, Manny’s son, later told him Hendrix had bought one.
Although Hendrix never used the pedal live, Mike claims: “[Hendrix] always invited me to go down to the studio, and I saw on the floor that he was using a Big Muff.”
Hendrix’s legacy is continued on the Experience Hendrix tour, where guitar heroes including Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Eric Johnson have performed on stage with the ‘Izabella’ Stratocaster Jimi played at Woodstock.
In other recent EHX news, Matthews has revealed the legendary pedal firm’s struggles in the face of Donald Trump’s tariffs.
