Bhodie

Not so late according to one source: "Hendrix's father, James "Al" Hendrix, later changed his son's name to James Marshall Hendrix. His mother died when Jimi was 10, about the same time as Jimi began to take a serious interest in music and playing the guitar. When he was 12 he got his first electric guitar - the instrument which shaped the next 16 years of his life. At the age of 16, Jimi was thrown out of school, apparently for holding the hand of a white girl in class. He slung his guitar over his back and left home to enlist in the Army, where he served as a parachute jumper until an injury led to his discharge. Hendrix began working as a session guitarist under the name Jimmy James, supporting such marquee acts as Sam Cooke, Ike and Tina Turner, and the Isley Brothers. After working extensively with Little Richard in 1964, Hendrix became entangled in a contract dispute with the mercurial artist and left to form his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. With the exception of an obscure single, "My Diary," with Arthur Lee (later of the L.A. psych band "Love"), none of the music Hendrix cut with other artists was made more remarkable by his presence. After playing Greenwich Village coffeehouses for the better part of a year (still under the moniker Jimmy James), Hendrix encountered Chas Chandler, of The Animals fame, at a New York club. Impressed with his playing, Chandler, who was then looking to switch gears to management, took Hendrix to London in the fall of 1966 and masterminded the creation of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Backed by Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums, the Experience offered Hendrix the wide-open rock-and-roll format he needed to exercise his dazzling skills as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Chandler unleashed the band on the London pop scene, and in short order Hendrix et al became the talk of the town. " But, there are a number of other accounts.. but regardless it was apparent he started in his very early teens.. 13 or 14 at the latest.. But remember, he was not learning to copy Hendrix.. he had to learn to be Hendrix..