No. 23
Jimi Hendrix and his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham lived here from 1968 to 1969. An English Heritage blue plaque commemorates the guitarist's association with the address, the first such plaque to be awarded to a rock star.
Coincidentally, two centuries ago another famous musician - the composer Handel lived (and died) - next door at no. 25. When interviewed at by Don Short of the Daily Mirror, however, Hendrix was mistakenly informed that Handel had lived at no. 23. The guitarist was surprised. "I didn't even know this was his pad, man, until after I got in," he remarked. "And to tell you the God's honest truth I haven't heard much of the fella's stuff. But I dig a bit of Bach every now and then."
Short's interview with Hendrix took place in the attic, Hendrix's favourite room. "(It) contains an assortment of bric-a-brac and a bed with a Victorian shawl pinned to the ceiling as a canopy," wrote Short. “At two in the afternoon, Hendrix is making the bed, neatly folding back the black sheets and straightening the colorful Persian bedspread."
Kathy Etchingham is described by Hendrix biographer David Henderson as "Jimi's first real girlfriend in
Puzzlingly, at the plaque unveiling ceremony on 14 September 1997, Etchingham told Mojo that the Brook Street address "was the flat where Jimi locked me in the bathroom, I hit him with a frying pan and then he wrote Wind Cries Mary - a song about a domestic row." However, it seems Etchingham’s memory could be at fault here: The Wind Cries Mary was written in early 1967, almost certainly at Hendrix’s manager’s
The unveiling of the Hendrix memorial followed a lengthy dispute with devotees of Handel, who wanted to knock nos. 23 and 25 into one to create a Handel museum. The idea of a plaque dedicated to (shock, horror) a rock guitarist adorning the museum wall was not something they were prepared to contemplate (interesting to speculate what Handel himself would have thought).
The Who's Pete Townshend pulled the string to unveil the placque and made a moving speech. Other celebrities attending the ceremony included Hendrix's former bass-player Noel Redding, former Led Zeppelin bass-player John Paul Jones, Jim Capaldi (ex-Traffic) and American folk singer Tim Rose. Curiously (said to be the result of a dispute with Etchingham), Hendrix's father and members of Experience Hendrix, the organisation now handling the late guitarist's estate) looked on from the sidelines. Members of the Handel Society were not in evidence.