Jimi Hendrix Shared a Bed With a Bandmate But That Didn’t Stop Him From Bringing Women Home After a Show

Jimi Hendrix was a rock star in every sense of the word. On top of being a revered guitarist, Hendrix often had his way with women after shows he performed, even before he was a world-renowned musician himself. In the early days of his music career, when he was sharing a bed with one of his bandmates, this resulted in him sharing the bed with his bandmate as well as his companion for the night.

Jimi Hendrix was in several bands

Hendrix’s love for music was apparent from an early age. He picked up the guitar — first an acoustic, then an electric — and honed his skills as he grew up. He enlisted in the US Army in 1961, but was honorably discharged a year later after it was clear that he cared more about guitar than his military duties.

As a young adult, Hendrix joined several bands and formed some of his own. These groups included The Velvetones, The Casuals, and The King Kasuals.

Jimi Hendrix brought women home when he shared a bed with a bandmate

Philip Norman’s 2020 book Wild Thing: The Short, Spellbinding Life of Jimi Hendrix detailed Hendrix’s life from his youth to his death. Norman described how Hendrix’s ability to attract women got in between him and his bandmates — literally.

“In Indianapolis, [Hendrix’s band, The King Kasuals] took part in a ‘battle of the bands’ with a local outfit named The Presidents. Inevitably the audience voted for the home-town boys, but the Presidents’ guitarist, Alphonso Young, liked the King Kasuals so much that he volunteered to join them,” Norman wrote. “Young could play guitar with his teeth in the manner already made famous by the magnificent T-Bone Walker and, for the first time, Jimmy found someone stealing his limelight onstage.”

“But offstage, nothing could,” he continued. “During his army service he’d metamorphosed from a gawky kid into a young man of devastating good looks, made all the more irresistible to the opposite sex by his shy, thoughtful manner. There was seldom a gig that did not end in him spending the night with one — or more — of the most beautiful young women in the audience.”

“Usually there was nowhere to take them but the bed which, for economic reasons, he shared with Alphonso Young,” he wrote. “The unfortunate Alphonso, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, would have to lie there and listen to Jimmy doing for real what he himself merely did to guitar strings.”

Hendrix’s short-lived mainstream career

Hendrix eventually went on to play backup guitar for major artists like Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, and Ike and Tina Turner. In the mid-1960s, he formed a band of his own, The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The band released their debut album Are You Experienced in May 1967, and the album quickly earned Hendrix the respect he deserved. They followed it up later that year with a second album, Axis: Bold as Love. Their third and final album Electric Ladyland was released in October 1968.

Hendrix continued to solidify his spot in the rock ‘n’ roll pantheon until his final days. In 1969, he gave an unforgettable closing performance at Woodstock, and he continued to perform over the next year. Hendrix died in September 1970 at age 27.