Chair of Newham Council and Forest Gate South ward councillor Winston Vaughan has unveiled the new Newham Heritage Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze plaque.

“The plaque on Woodgrange Rd will be forever linked with his most successful hit, Purple Haze, penned in the once famous Upper Cut club. We are delighted to have this plaque in our ward,” he said.

The idea started because I didn’t just want to write about the Purple Haze story, I wanted to replace the plaque that had been taken down. I wanted to celebrate the fact that Jimi Hendrix wrote the lyrics to one of his most iconic songs before performing at the Upper Cut Club in Forest Gate on Boxing Day 1966.

There is already a link to Forest Gate in Purple Haze. Lloyd Jeans, Forest Gate musician, explained: “He used the chord of E7 (as is appropriate for Forest Gate), but to give it striking dissonance he added a sharp ninth on top. The chord is now known the world over as the “Purple Haze chord”.

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