Jimi Hendirx Moved in With Faye Pridgon the Day After Meeting Her

Jimi Hendrix met Lithofayne (Faye) Pridgon outside the Apollo theater. He was trying to get backstage to talk with Sam Cooke, who he thought could help his career. Hendrix and Pridgon took a quick liking to each other. Here’s how their whirlwind romance began. 

Who was Faye Pridgon?

Pridgon was born in Dirty Spoon, Georgia. She was the daughter of a professional dancer and reportedly the illegitimate great granddaughter of Henry Ford, according to Wild Thing by Philip Norman. At 15 years old she had an affair with Little Willie John, who’s known for the song “Fever.” At 16, she was romantically connected to Same Cooke, which is how she got Hendrix backstage that night at the Apollo. It also didn’t hurt that she was best friends with Etta James.   

When Hendrix met Pridgon, she was two years older than him. She wore a tight pegged skirt and higher-than-high heels. 

Faye took Jimi backstage then home to her mother

Despite her initial impression of his looks, Pridgon agreed to take the guitarist into the Apollo with her. 

“He had processed hair and shiny black pants that showed where the knees bent,” she told Gallery magazine in 1983. “But he had something about him, a warmth, that none of the other fast-rapping dudes had. He referred to Sam as what’s-his-face and he thanked me for getting him to what’s-his-face.”

After the show, Pridgon took Hendrix home for a meal made by her mother. The musician was ravenous and ate his fill. After, Hendrix stayed the night. The next day, he moved into Pridgon’s room that she shared with a friend at the Hotel Seiger.    

“It wasn’t hard because he was carrying all his possessions around in his guitar case,” she said, as reported in Wild Thing. “He didn’t have underwear. He wasn’t into jeans. He had those shiny black pants, a very thin little jacket and high-topped boots.”

Jimi Hendrix was an intense lover who kept his guitar close

As soon as the two moved in together, a fiery relationship developed. Pridgon recalled Hendrix as “relentless in the sack.”

“He came to the bed with all the grace a Mississippi pulpwood driver attacks a plate of collard greens and cornbread after 10 hours in the hot sun,” she said. “There would be encore after encore after encore … There were times when he almost busted me in two the way he did a guitar onstage.”

The musician’s guitar was always close by.  

“Jimmy loved fooling around with his guitar in bed and he always slept with it,” said Pridgon. “Many times he fell back asleep with it on his chest. Any time I tried to remove it, he woke up and said, ‘No, no, no, leave my guitar alone.’”