Jimi Hazel is an American guitarist, who was born in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He gets his name from his guitar idols,

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

and Eddie Hazel. He was childhood friends with

Ronny Drayton Ronny Drayton (May 19, 1953 – February 7, 2020) was a guitarist based in the New York City area and Monroe, New York. Born and raised in South Jamaica, Queens, New York City, Drayton started out playing drums at St. Clement The Pope Middl ...

, who joined the group Hazel founded,

24-7 Spyz 24-7 Spyz (pronounced "twenty-four-seven spies") are an American rock band from the South Bronx, New York, formed in 1986, originally consisting of Jimi Hazel (born Wayne K. Richardson) (guitars), Rick Skatore (born Kenneth D. Lucas) (bass), Ki ...

. In 2009, Hazel formed a

supergroup Supergroup or super group may refer to: * Supergroup (music), a music group formed by artists who are already notable or respected in their fields * Supergroup (physics), a generalization of groups, used in the study of supersymmetry * Supergroup ...

with

Doug Pinnick Douglas Theodore Pinnick (born September 3, 1950), sometimes stylized as dUg Pinnick or simply dUg, is an American musician best known as the bass guitarist, co-lead vocalist, and songwriter for the hard rock and progressive metal band King's ...

of King's X, and members of Fishbone. In April 2002, he released a solo album, ''21stCenturySouthBronxRockStar''. On working with 24-7 Spyz: ''"With the first version of the Spyz I have to say on a given night we could give any band a run for their money. I mean the bands we toured with would freak out at how crazy their fans would get when we hit the stage. Some of the bands loved it. The Ramones and Jane's Addiction loved it. PIL, not so much, ha! That first version was like dynamite on stage. The second version of the band was more like a fine wine! HA! Seriously, the second version of the band was my chance to write for a singer who could really sing. Peter was a great frontman but it got to the point where he would rather be doing cartwheels on stage than actually sing! Jeff was a real singer and I got to write better songs for a better band."''.

References

American rock guitarists American male guitarists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-guitarist-stub