Dean Martin Invited Jimi Hendrix On Stage to Mock Him — Nobody Expected the Song Jimi Played

In October 1968, Dean Martin — one of the last unchallenged legends of American entertainment — invited Jimi Hendrix onto his NBC television stage and introduced him to forty million viewers with a smile that carried the exact weight of a dismissal. What Jimi chose to play that night was not what anyone in that studio expected, and not what Martin had quietly carried with him for the three months before that broadcast. This is a story about a guitar, a blues song, and a moment that belongs in rock history not because it was loud — but because it wasn't. Jimi Hendrix never announced what he was about to do. He just played.