Purple Haze Purple Haze "Purple Haze" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and released as the second record single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on March 17, 1967. As a record chart hit in several countries and the opening number on the Experience's debut American album, it was many people's first exposure to Hendrix's psychedelic rock sound. The song features his inventive guitar playing, which uses the signature Hendrix chord and a mix of blues and Eastern modalities, shaped by novel sound processing techniques. Because of ambiguities in the lyrics, listeners often interpret the song as referring to a psychedelic experience,
Jimi Hendrix the subject of drugs came up one evening in 1966 at Keith's New York apartment; when one of Keith's friends offered Hendrix "acid", a street name for lysergic acid diethylamide, Hendrix asked for LSD instead, showing what Cross described as "his naivete and his complete inexperience with psychedelics". Before that, Hendrix had only sporadically used drugs, with his experimentation limited to cannabis, hashish, amphetamines and occasionally cocaine. After 1967, he regularly smoked cannabis and hashish, and used LSD and amphetamines, particularly while touring. According to Cross, by the time of his death in September 1970, "few stars were as closely