The Story of Jimi Hendrix’s First Guitar

Every world famous artist had to start somewhere. For Jimi Hendrix, that somewhere was Seattle where he started his six-string journey with an old ukulele.

As the story goes, a teenage Hendrix was helping his father clear out the home of an older woman one day. Among the rubbish was a ukulele with only one string that the woman told Hendrix he could have. One string was evidently all the 15-year-old needed to start learning songs like “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley by ear.

Roughly a year later, Hendrix finally got his hands on his first real guitar, an acoustic that cost him $5 (about $55 in 2025), the exact make and model of which is unclear. “When I first started playing guitar [was] way up in the Northwest, in Seattle, Washington,” Hendirx said in a 1967 interview, citing people like Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Robert Johnson as influences. “They don’t have too many of the real blues singers up there.”

It was around this time, Feb. 20, 1959 to be exact, that Hendrix made his live debut in the basement of a synagogue, Seattle’s Temple De Hirsch, where he had been invited to audition for a local band. But Hendrix’s style proved too animated for their taste and his audition was over just as quickly as it began — the band thought he was too much of a show off.

Before long, Hendrix formed his own group, the Velvetones, but soon figured out that his acoustic guitar wasn’t going to cut it.

Jimi Hendrix Plugs In

“When I was 17 I formed this group with some other guys, but they drowned me out,” he would say to Guitar Player in 1968 (via The Guardian). “I didn’t know why at first, but after about three months I realized I’d have to get an electric guitar. My first was a Danelectro, which my dad bought for me. Must have busted him for a long time. But I had to show him I could play first.”

Hendrix, of course, wound up doing exactly that.

“Dear Dad, I still have my guitar and amp and as long as I have that, no fool can keep me from living,” he wrote in a letter to his father in 1965. Hendrix was then living in New York City and playing guitar in various bands. “There’s a few record companies I visited that I probably can record for. … I just wanted to let you know I’m still here, trying to make it. Although I don’t eat every day, everything’s going all right for me. It could be worse than this, but I’m going to keep hustling and scuffling until I get things to happening like they’re supposed to for me.”

READ MORE: 60 Best Jimi Hendrix Songs

Hendrix’s collection would expand to include a myriad of guitars, most notably his signature Stratocaster. In 1968, he offered some words of advice to aspiring musicians, guitar players especially: “You have to stick with it. Sometimes you are going to be so frustrated you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But all of this is just a part of learning, because if you stick with it you’re going to be rewarded.”

Watch Jimi Hendrix Performing in 1965