Jimi Hendrix | Pink boa worn by Hendrix on the cover of "Are you Experienced?" circa 1967

Jimi Hendrix

Pink boa worn by Hendrix on the cover of Are you Experienced, 1967

Boa (approximately 180 cm). Pink feathers, artificially dyed. [With:] Early pressing of Are You Experienced; some scuffs and staining to sleeve.

Jimi’s magic boa.

This present boa was worn by Hendrix on the cover of Are You Experienced, the debut studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, released on 12 May 1967. The boa appears yellow on the cover, rather than pink, as a result of the psychedelic infrared film effect that was used by Karl Ferris—"the Icon with the Nikon," as he was then referred to by the press—the photographer responsible for the photoshoot.

Hendrix didn't care for the UK cover of Are You Experienced, and wanted something more psychadelic for the US release. Ferris was called in, and asked to hear some of the band's tracks for inspiration. He then attended numerous sessions for their second album, Axis: Bold as Love. After intense listening, Ferris developed a backstory about a "group travelling through space in a Biosphere on their way to bring their unworldly space music to earth" (Egan p. 175-176). Ferris staged a series of photographs of the band at Kew Gardens, employing "an infrared technique of his own invention which combined color reversal with heat signature" (Egan 176). The image ultimately approved for the US cover of Are You Experienced was the first shot Ferris took.

Days after the shoot, Hendrix wore the boa again at the Monterey Pop Festival, his homeland debut (see lot 45). Hendrix then gave the boa to Ferris as a memento. Ferris has remarked: “Jimi called it his ‘Magic Boa’ because it brought him much luck…as he wore it on Are You Experienced and at his best ever concert, Monterey Pop.”

PROVENANCE:

Karl Ferris

REFERENCES:

Sean Egan, Jimi Hendrix and the making of Are You Experienced. London: Askill, 2013