Last year I read “Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah.” It’s a fascinating account of Handel’s life in London –-the scandals, fundraising challenges, political tensions and personal drama that surrounded him while he composed “The Messiah.” When I began planning my recent trip to London, I wanted to visit the house where Handel lived. When I Googled it, I discovered that Handel’s house adjoins an apartment Jimi Hendrix rented between 1968 and 1969. The two residences recently became one museum: The “Handel Hendrix House.”
I was fascinated to consider that two legendary musicians – separated by time and culture – had literally lived under the same roof. Both had been important touchstones in my personal musical experience, and it became a priority to visit. I want to share the thoughts I had after visiting the site. But I’ll begin with some reflections on what each artist has meant to me.
When I think of Hendrix, I hear the opening chords of “Purple Haze,” which came out in 1967. I was 15 years old, and whenever it came on my car radio, I always turned the volume up. Like so many of my generation, music had become central to the feeling that a new and exciting era was being born. It had begun with the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Then the Rolling Stones and so many other groups emerged. Then came Jimi Hendrix. What he offered was much more than “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “I Get Around.” He was taking rock music into highly imaginative and psychedelic realms…
” Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Actin’ funny but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky…”
There were the three studio albums: “Are You Experienced?” “Axis Bold as Love,” and “Electric Ladyland.” In 1969 he closed Woodstock with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He became a global sensation. A year later, he died of an overdose.
Jimi Hendrix was a visionary creator, a brilliant musician, and one of those human comets that rise high into the sky before burning out. When I was 19 and living in my first apartment in Isla Vista, we had a large poster of Hendrix on our living room wall. Listening to his music and seeing him perform evoked awe.
In my early 20s, my youthful abandon was calming down and I began to buy fewer rock albums. For the first time, I learned to “hear” classical music. Before then, I thought it was meant to be just pleasant and pretty. But I discovered human spirits from the past were sharing with me passionate, sublime and profound truths they had experienced. I latched on to Beethoven first, then other composers. When I finally began listening to Handel’s “Messiah,” I learned why it has been treasured by millions of people for more than 250 years. The most well-known selection is, of course, the “Hallelujah Chorus.” When we hear it sung well, it feels as if the heavens have opened and we join all humanity celebrating something gloriously greater than our self.
Like Hendrix, Handel created experiences that evoke awe. Both artists have their place in my life. I couldn’t wait to visit the place they both lived.
My sister and I followed the Google maps on our phones. We got to 23 and 25 Brook Street. It looks like this:
You enter the red door of the gray building on the right and you are in Handel’s house. You go upstairs and come to a drawing room where Handel composed and rehearsed for many years. It was in this room that he famously composed the complete “Messiah” in 24 days. There is a replica of his keyboard:
Some days they have guest musicians playing. We heard a cellist performing pieces from Handel’s era:
You next pass into his bedroom.
A sign says: “Here Handel could find privacy and tranquility in his sometimes busy home…It is here that Handel slept, dreamt, recovered from illnesses and wrapped up warm amidst some of the coldest winters on record…He never married and we know nothing about his romantic liaisons while he lived here…In this bedroom, his sanctuary, he may have drawn his last breath.”
You go to the top floor and pass through a door into the Hendrix apartment. There’s a spare room where people such as George Harrison and Billy Preston gathered late into the night…
Then there is Hendrix’ s bedroom…
…and a room where you can view his stereo and collection of LPs…
…nearby is this display, noting that Hendrix apparently was inspired by listening repeatedly to a recording of “The Messiah:”
In one of the rooms, a guitarist was playing blues:
And then you’re done.
Completing the tour and heading outside, I was left to wonder what it meant.
The two men could not have been from more different backgrounds. Handel was nurtured in the courts of 18th Century Europe; Hendrix had to make his way through the “chitlin” circuit of segregated night clubs in the turbulent 1960s. Handel lived to be 74, Hendrix died tragically at 27. But both found great success and fame. Both entertained friends and musicians late at night in their Brook Street residence. Both are gone. But both have given us the great gift of their artistry and music which continues to inspire feelings of awe.
In the movie “Sinners,” the character Annie says: “There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true, it conjures spirits from the past and the future.” Handel and Hendrix seem to have that power. And for that we can be grateful.
Steve Jacobsen, Ed.D 