YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – In the school of rock, John Anthony is a teacher. His latest lesson – about Jimi Hendrix – will be taught to students across the country.

The course will get a very public kickoff in New York City next week, and Anthony will be part of the event. 

Anthony teaches a groundbreaking rock music class at Austintown Fitch High and often takes his students to venues to perform. He’s also an adjunct music instructor at Slippery Rock University.

As lead guitarist of the popular Youngstown-based rock act The Vindys, he also has real-world rock experience.

Anthony is also involved with the TeachRock program, which creates lessons that incorporate pop music that are provided at no charge to teachers nationwide.

His latest course is on Hendrix, and that’s why he’s headed to New York for the Wednesday event.

Anthony wasn’t expecting to be invited to the ceremony and was surprised when he got word this week.

“I am still in shock,” he said.

TeachRock has created a library of more than 500 lessons that use music and popular culture to teach history, social studies, language arts and other core subjects.

It was founded by Stevie Van Zandt, who is a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. 

Anthony’s new multimedia curriculum on Hendrix is designed for middle and high school students.

At Wednesday’s event in New York, the city will officially co-name West 8th Street as Jimi Hendrix Way in honor of the late, legendary guitarist and cultural icon. The ceremony will take place at the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 8th Street in Greenwich Village, one block from the historic Electric Lady Studios, which Hendrix launched in 1970. The studio is still in use today.

The street co-naming project was led by New York Councilman Harvey Epstein and spearheaded by Experience Hendrix, the Hendrix family-owned company led by Janie Hendrix (Jimi’s stepsister), along with guitarist and writer Jeff Slate.

The event will also serve as the public launch of a new partnership between Experience Hendrix and the TeachRock program.

Present at the ceremony will be Van Zandt; Janie Hendrix; guitarist Vernon Reid of Living Colour; songwriter and performer Valerie Simpson; guitarist Felicia Collins; and producer-engineer Eddie Kramer, who worked with Hendrix and helped conceptualize Electric Lady Studios.

About the Course

As creator of the new lesson, “Jimi Hendrix: Rock’s Trailblazing Innovator and Influential Guitarist,” Anthony will also be part of the event.

The lesson unveils Hendrix’s musical journey, which started with blues and R&B and evolved into his revolutionary style that impacted rock music, sound design and live performance. The course includes video, interactive tools and hands-on projects that teachers can use.

Archival footage, including Hendrix’s iconic 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival performance, and interviews with experts that were provided by Experience Hendrix are also in the lesson.

Van Zandt and some of his famous colleagues, including Springsteen and Bono of U2, created TeachRock in 2007 to address the student dropout crisis and to keep music instruction in schools despite budget cuts. More than 80,000 educators and over 1 million students across all 50 states have used TeachRock. The course reportedly has improved students’ attendance, engagement and academic outcomes.

Music Instructor

Anthony has been part of the TeachRock team for over six years, working as “a lesson-writer for hire,” he said. His initial courses delved into the Grateful Dead.

TeachRock already had a Hendrix course, but Van Zandt wanted it to be improved and updated. He gave Anthony the task in 2025, shortly before the rock star visited Youngstown to give a lecture at Stambaugh Auditorium.

“Steven was talking about how the lesson that they had on Jimi Hendrix on their website seemed a bit outdated,” Anthony said. “He  wanted to do a fresh lesson on Hendrix that explored his individualism.”

Anthony and Rick Deak, guitarist in The Vindys,  came up with ideas together while traveling to concerts last year when the band was opening for the Pat Benatar tour.

Like all TeachRock courses, the new Hendrix offering is a complete package.

“What’s beautiful about these lessons is that they come with the entire lesson plan – with all of the videos, images, activities and printouts –  and it costs absolutely nothing for a teacher to do these lessons, which is incredible,” Anthony said.

The Hendrix course has another benefit: It will reawaken interest in the rock legend.

That is something that has become necessary, Anthony said.

“What I’ve noticed is Hendrix is getting a slight backseat in the history of rock ’n’ roll among the kids coming up in high schools, because he’s just not in their face as much as some of the other rock musicians,” he said. “When I was in high school, Hendrix had been dead for 30 years, and we loved him. We thought he was like the king. He was a mysterious figure who died when he was 27, and we were obsessed with him.”

Today, that role seems to have been taken by the late Kurt Cobain, who led the rock band Nirvana. Cobain also died when he was 27.

“This is a really great lesson, because it’s helping to bring Jimi back into the forefront for these kids, who are missing out on him because he’s not in the popular culture as much as he was a decade or two ago,” Anthony said.

Pictured at top: John Anthony.