On June 10 at 11 a.m., New York City will officially co-name West 8th Street Jimi Hendrix Way in honor of legendary guitarist and cultural icon Jimi Hendrix. The ceremony, rescheduled from Feb. 24 due to inclement weather, will take place at the south east corner of Sixth Avenue and West 8th Street in Greenwich Village, just a block from the historic Electric Lady Studios.
The street co-naming is led by NYC District 2 Council Member Harvey Epstein and spearheaded by Experience Hendrix, L.L.C., the Hendrix family-owned company led by Janie Hendrix, alongside musician and writer Jeff Slate. The event will also serve as the public launch of a new national education partnership with Stevie Van Zandt’s TeachRock, expanding its library of more than 500 free, standards-aligned lessons that use music and popular culture to teach history, social studies, language arts, and other core subjects. The collaboration includes a new multimedia Hendrix curriculum designed for middle and high school students.
Joining Council Member Epstein at the ceremony will be TeachRock founder Stevie Van Zandt; Janie Hendrix, President and CEO of Experience Hendrix, L.L.C.; Grammy Award-winning guitarist Vernon Reid of Living Colour; legendary songwriter and performer Valerie Simpson; guitarist Felicia Collins, best known for her work with the CBS Orchestra and the World’s Most Dangerous Band on Late Show with David Letterman; and acclaimed producer and engineer Eddie Kramer, who worked closely with Hendrix and helped conceptualize Electric Lady Studios.
Local TeachRock educators and students will also participate, connecting one of rock music’s most revered creative landmarks with classrooms in New York City and the growing national network of educators using TeachRock curriculum in schools across the country.
The new lesson, Jimi Hendrix: Rock’s Trailblazing Innovator and Influential Guitarist, invites students to explore Hendrix’s journey from his Blues and R&B roots to his revolutionary impact on rock music, sound design, and live performance. Through video, interactive tools, and hands-on projects, students examine how Hendrix reshaped creative identity and why his influence continues to resonate more than 50 years later.
“We are proud to honor the legacy of Jimi Hendrix today,” said Council Member Harvey Epstein. “Our district has long been a hub of culture, arts, and activism, and Jimi Hendrix embodied all of those ideals. He was not only a groundbreaking musician, but also a powerful voice for peace, racial equity, and social justice. He revolutionized music in this neighborhood, and it is only fitting that these streets now carry his name.”
“Jimi Hendrix didn’t just play guitar — he reimagined what art could be,” said Stevie Van Zandt. “With TeachRock, we want students to experience that same sense of possibility and discovery that so many of us felt the first time we heard Jimi. His story, lyrics, and sound remind young people that creativity has no limits.”
The lesson was co-developed with educator and musician John Anthony and features exclusive archival footage and expert interviews provided by Experience Hendrix, L.L.C., including Hendrix’s iconic 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival performance. TeachRock also partnered with NYU’s MusEdLab to create interactive tools that allow students to experiment with the guitar effects and sonic innovations that defined Hendrix’s signature sound.
“This collaboration speaks directly to the heart of our mission, carrying Jimi’s legacy forward through education,” said Janie Hendrix, President and CEO of Experience Hendrix, L.L.C. “His music remains a powerful gateway for young people to connect with history, creativity, and their own potential.”
In keeping with TeachRock’s commitment to accessible education, the free lesson, aligned with National Standards for Music Education, National Core Arts Standards, Social Studies standards, and Common Core State Standards, is available now at teachrock.org/lesson/jimi-hendrix-rocks-trailblazing-innovator-and-influential-guitarist/ as part of TeachRock’s free curriculum library.
ABOUT COUNCIL MEMBER HARVEY EPSTEIN
Council Member Harvey Epstein represents New York City’s 2nd District, which includes Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, the East Village, Midtown South-Flatiron-Union Square, Gramercy, and Murray Hill-Kips Bay. Before joining the City Council, Epstein served as Assembly Member for District 74 beginning in 2018.
A community leader for nearly 30 years, Epstein previously served for 14 years on Community Board 3, including as board chair, where he addressed critical land use issues and advocated for neighborhood needs. As a public school parent, he served as president of the District 1 President’s Council and on numerous PTAs, championing equity and excellence in education. His advocacy has also included protecting low-wage workers, preserving local daycare centers, and promoting diversity in public school admissions. Earlier in his career, Epstein worked with The Legal Aid Society and the Urban Justice Center and has remained deeply involved in progressive community organizing and public service.
ABOUT EXPERIENCE HENDRIX, L.L.C.
Owned and operated by members of the Hendrix family, Experience Hendrix is the official family company responsible for managing the name, likeness, image, and music legacy of Jimi Hendrix. Founded in 1995 by James “Al” Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix’s father, Experience Hendrix and its affiliated companies oversee the Hendrix legacy worldwide. The company is led by President and CEO Janie L. Hendrix, an educator and advocate who works closely with organizations such as TeachRock to support music and arts education and inspire future generations of creative talent.
ABOUT TEACHROCK
TeachRock is a free, standards-aligned curriculum that brings core subjects to life through the power of music and popular culture. Designed by educators and artists, TeachRock helps students engage more deeply with social studies, language arts, STEAM, music, and more by connecting classroom learning to the world around them. Founded by Stevie Van Zandt with support from Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, and Bruce Springsteen, TeachRock was created to help address the student dropout crisis by keeping music and the arts embedded in education. What began as a mission to prevent disengagement has evolved into a movement that helps students reconnect with learning in ways that feel personal, relevant, and meaningful.
Today, more than 80,000 educators across all 50 states have used TeachRock to reimagine their classrooms. The curriculum has reached more than one million students worldwide and has been shown to improve attendance, engagement, and academic outcomes. Teachers report renewed purpose in their work, while students gain tools to better understand history, identity, and critical thinking through lessons rooted in the universal language of music. TeachRock is endorsed by leading education organizations in social studies, music, and the humanities and continues to help shape the future of 21st-century learning. For more information, visit teachrock.org or follow @teachrock on social media.
I caught the Jimi Hendrix Experience live during June 1969.
In 2021 my brother Kenneth and I collaborated on the book Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.
https://www.amazon.com › Jimi-Hendrix-Voodoo-Harvey-Kubernik › dp
I am always pleased when fans of Hendrix, and especially guitarists and musicians who tout this title to me. I know Kenneth and I were in service for Jimi on this mission, and numerous reviews praised our joint undertaking.
Author Shelia Weller in her The Wind Cries Jimi review in Air Mail, wrote, “Harvey Kubernik and Kenneth Kubernik’s oral history of Jimi Hendrix’s life and career, featuring input from diverse musicians (Bobby Womack, Paul Kantner, Roger Daltrey, Dave Mason, Stephen Stills, members of the Doors and the Who, and others) and more than 100 music-industry insiders, acquaintances, and fans, is several things. It is a reliving of a multitude of rehearsals, performances, and chance encounters. It is an astute social history of the 1960s.”
As June 16th-18th 2026 approaches, it’s the 59th anniversary of The Jimi Hendrix Experience debut at the landmark Monterey International Pop Festival in northern California.
2027 will mark the 60th anniversary of The Summer of Love, so it’s important to acknowledge this seminal moment and remind everyone right now about one of the sonic messengers who helped launch and brought that bright, brief and cosmic world of 1967 to our eyes and ears.
Jimi, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bass player Noel Redding delivered on stage. You can check out some of their stellar set on The Complete Monterey Pop Festival/The Criterion Collection. https://www.criterion.com › boxsets
Another Hendrix delight was released by Experience Hendrix/Geffen/Ume on DVD in 2017.
The legendary U.S. performance of Hendrix with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding at the Monterey International Pop Festival originates from June 18,1967 in Monterey, California.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey has all available existing film footage of that monumental booking presented in its original sequence. Filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker’s original 16mm footage has been transferred to high definition and produced in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1.
In 2007 I discussed with Oscar-winning director D.A. Pennebaker The Jimi Hendrix Live at Monterey and the Monterey Pop documentary artists he initially lensed in ’67. Pennebaker in 1965 previously collaborated with Bob Dylan on their epic black and white documentary Dont Look Back.
“Shooting Monterey Pop was the beginning of the fast color film. We shot everything,” documentarian D.A. Pennebaker disclosed to me in a 2001 Goldmine magazine interview about how he and his skeletal crew filmed Hendrix and Co. at the Monterey gig.
“They had film for it. So, when Jim Desmond was shooting Hendrix at Monterey, we left almost all of his shot in. We had other terrific shots, I was right behind him, Nick Doob, we had great shots from every direction, but you don’t need to cut necessarily, so I’m not big on cutting to enhance performance. I like to watch the person doing it handle it, kind of move it around and make it grow in front of you. That’s what’s interesting to me about performance.”
Acclaimed engineer/Hendrix confidant Eddie Kramer has mixed the DVD soundtrack in new 5.1 surround and 2.0 mixes from the original eight-track live recordings done at the fabled Monterey concert by remote engineer Wally Heider. Kramer along with John McDermott penned the riveting book Hendrix Setting The Record Straight.
“I think you have to look at the history of my relationship with Jimi over obviously a very intense four year period. I started with Jimi in January of 1967. I wasn’t there for everything, unfortunately, but I was there for the majority in the sense of all the albums. The live recordings, for whatever reason, I was in the studio and always ended up mixing everything of Jimi that was recorded live, including Band of Gypsys.
“Monterey was a situation where it was a film first and foremost, and then I got my hands on it many years later. Which for me was a thrill because I got to do the entire Monterey movie. (The Complete Monterey Pop Festival/The Criterion Collection).”
“With the Monterey CD and DVD items, I can absolutely separate myself from administration and simply be a music lover,” admitted Janie Hendrix in a 2007 interview with me for Record Collector News magazine.
Janie is Jimi’s half-sister, and CEO of Experience Hendrix, the official company in charge of Jimi Hendrix’s name, image, likeness as well as recordings and music publishing.
“With the CD and DVD format, 5.1 mix, and the new configurations I think technology has caught up to what Jimi visualized. It’s all about him and his music. It’s his magic and everything what he was about as a musician and all we’re doing is facilitating it. I think the new Monterey is beyond my expectations. But then I have to go, ‘it’s not about me anyways,’ and it never was. We’re just messengers. Mitch has been with Jimi the whole time. Noel came and went. Then there was Billy (Cox). Mitch was always there. I think out of the trio, and I’ll take Billy out of it right now, between Mitch and Noel, Mitch was the closest to Jimi. Mitch got Jimi. He understood Jimi. There’s a great admiration and I think when Jimi died a large part of Mitch died. For that I feel a strong connection with him. [Engineer/producer] Eddie Kramer is part of the vision.”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience at Monterey DVD was directed by Bob Smeaton and all available existing film footage of that moment presented in its original sequence. D.A. Pennebaker’s original 16mm footage has been transferred to high definition and produced in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Engineer/Hendrix confidant Eddie Kramer has mixed the DVD soundtrack in new 5.1 surround and 2.0 mixes from the original eight-track live recordings done at the Monterey concert by remote engineer Wally Heider.
Concert-goer Paul Body witnessed a new dimension of rock ‘n’ roll when Rolling Stone Brian Jones appeared in a haze and introduced the Jimi Hendrix Experience to the curious throng.
“Jimi, Mitch and Noel took the stage in their hippy finery. It seemed like they were wearing all of the colors of the rainbow. They jumped straight into Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’ and all the while Jimi was playing guitar and smacking his gum. Super cool. They did some blues like ‘Catfish Blues’ and B.B. King’s ‘Rock Me Baby’. Done at break neck speed. He did his English hits like ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Foxey Lady’. We were hearing a brand- new thing. He was writing a whole new book. It was blues from Venus.”
“Jimi at Monterey…It was ‘A star is born,’ 1967 style,” observed poet and deejay Dr. James Cushing. “Not showing how well you could fit in to the conventions of show business but showing how well you could wrestle those conventions of show business into an act of radical self-expression. The set was partially rhythm and blues hucklebuck and partially complete originally, and the blend of them combined with the audaciousness of the moment.
“He opened with ‘Killing Floor.’ There’s a terrible poignancy to that because the last concert he ever played [Isle of Fehmarn Festival, Germany, Sept. 5, 1970] he also opened with ‘Killing Floor.’ So, his first important show and his last show ever, he opened with a Howlin’ Wolf classic that has the idea of death in the title. There’s a tragic meaning to that opener that nobody could possibly have been aware of.”
Robert Marchese is the former manager of Doug Weston’s Troubadour club in West Hollywood from 1970-1980. In 1968 Marchese produced the live Richard Pryor Grammy Award-winning album recorded at the venue.
Robert saw the Jimi Hendrix Experience at Monterey in 1967.
“Jimi started playing, and I didn’t know there was anybody doing anything new or different,” reminisced Marchese in a 2007 interview.
“This is it and what I’ve been waiting to hear for a long time. The way it should be. Hendrix walked off, and I shook his hand, and I said, ‘You’re the most psychedelic Negro I ever heard.’ (Laughs). That was my comment. And Jimi replied, ‘That’s right. I’m gonna make a lot of money.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you are.’
“The biggest selling album of that whole event was the live LP Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival. A split artist release. Hendrix and Redding each had a side on the vinyl. Ralph J. Gleason in his liner notes said it took both of them from rumor to legend.”
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 21 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015’s Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016’s Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017’s 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they collaborated on Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) was published in February 2026 by BearManor Media. Kubernik is researching a multi-voice narrative study on the Beatles for a UK publisher with planned summer 2027 publication).
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.musicconnection.com ’
