Hagstrom 8-string Bass Formerly Owned by Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix owned this Cherry Red 1967 Hagström H8 8-string electric bass guitar, a variation on the traditional 4-string bass. Though mainly known as a guitarist, Hendrix sometimes used the bass to work out arrangements for new songs, play at informal jam sessions, or record certain bass parts during recording sessions. Bass player Tommy Shannon (b. 1946) remembers one session at New York’s Scene club when Hendrix played Shannon’s bass upside down to accommodate his left-handed technique and laid down some funky bass lines with ease. 

The H8 was the first mass-produced 8-string bass guitar. Production began in 1967 in Hagström’s Älvdalen, Sweden factory. The Jimi Hendrix Experience first played in Sweden in May of 1967, and bassist Noel Redding (1945-2003) was approached by a Hagström representative, who gave two H8s to both Redding and Hendrix.  

In July 1967, during the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s first tour to the United States, Hendrix had a chance to revisit Greenwich Village in New York City, where he had lived two years prior. He met his old bandleader, Curtis Knight (1929-1999), and played this Hagström 8-string bass on two recording sessions at PPX Studio 76 with Knight and his backing band, The Squires. In 1969-70, Hendrix gave this Hagström H8 to Memphis, Tennessee session musician Roland Robinson (1949-2004). 

Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter who gained mainstream prominence in the late 1960s with hits such as “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze,” “All Along the Watchtower,” and “Fire,” and is now celebrated as one of the most influential electric guitarists of all time.