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Jimi Hendrix 1942 - 1970

Jimi Hendrix was born on November 27, 1942 in Seattle, King County, Washington United States of America to James Allen Hendrix and Lucille Jeter, and had siblings Leon Hendrix, Joseph Hendrix, Kathy Hendrix, and Pamela Hendrix. Jimi's partner was Eva Sundquist in 1968 and they later separated in 1968. They had a child James Daniel Sundquist. Jimi's partner was Diana Carpenter and they later separated. They had a child Tamika Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix died at age 27 years old on September 18, 1970 in London, England United Kingdom.

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall Hendrix

November 27, 1942

Seattle, King County, Washington, United States of America

September 18, 1970

London, England, United Kingdom

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Jimi Hendrix Jimi Hendrix (1942 - 1970)

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Jimi Hendrix's History: 1942 - 1970

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Introduction

OCTOBER 15, 1970 3:10PM ET LONDON — Jimi Hendrix is dead at age 27. The exact nature of the death is still vague, and a coroner’s inquest is to be held in London September 30th. Police, however, say it was a drug overdose. They say he took nine sleeping pills and died of suffocation through vomit. According to Eric Burdon [The Animals, War], Hendrix left behind for the girlfriend in whose apartment he died what Burdon called a “suicide note” which was a poem several pages in length. The poem is now in the possession of Burdon, the last musician with whom Hendrix played before he died. Said Burdon: “The poem just says the things Hendrix has always been saying, but to which nobody ever listened. It was a note of goodbye and a note of hello. I don’t think Jimi committed suicide in the conventional way. He just decided to exit when he wanted to.” “I’ve been going through a whole stack of papers, poems and songs that Jimi had written, and I could show you 20 of them that could be interpreted as a suicide note,” he continued. He went off stage and came back, playing the background to ‘Tobacco Road.'” That song was his last. Hendrix had been for some time attempting to become more independent in his business affairs. He saw Electric Lady as a step toward that goal. Burdon says that a week before Hendrix died, Jimi told him he was going to get new management. “The few good things Jimi got, he really deserved. Even more things, as far as I’m concerned. When I left the Band of Gypsys, I know Jimi was extremely unhappy,” “Both he and I felt that the three-way function of manager – artist – agent was quite likely to fall apart, because the times are different than they once were in show business. People outside the circle mistook this for discontent, but it wasn’t, because Jimi was intelligent and bright enough. If he wanted to split, he would have split. “He realized that the only way he could get what he wanted, helping the Panthers, and setting up an anti-ghetto project in Harlem, was to die and hope that someone else would take care of the business for him using the things that he left behind, his music and his last poem, to make the money,” stated Burdon. Jimi’s affairs were in a state of confusion at the time. At one point his road manager, Jerry Stickles, said that the day Hendrix died, he (Stickles) had called Dick Katz, his European agent, to tell him that Jimi wanted to do another European tour and a British tour as soon as possible. Katz lined up a German tour and some British dates that day before he heard the news, according to Stickles. At another point, however, Stickles said that at Jimi’s request he made airline reservations to return to the States September 21st, because Jimi wanted to finish up some recording for a new album by the Experience. (All that needed to be done on that album was the mastering, which Hendrix was going to do himself at Electric Lady.) None of Jimi’s friends or associates except Burdon, at first, would discuss the matter, and in the absence of a complete report, the London press chose to carry instead pure sensationalism. One Sunday paper had an “exclusive story” by a groupie which told of five-in-a-bed orgies with Hendrix. In America, the first report – spread across the country primarily by FM radio within hours after his death – was that Hendrix had died of a heroin overdose. American newspapers generally carried the story of his death on the front page Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. September 26th, Radio Geronimo in England played unreleased Hendrix material the entire evening, including a tape of Jimi with Buddy Miles and the Last Poets, and another unreleased live album. The funeral was to have been Monday, September 28th, in Jimi’s hometown of Seattle, Washington. James Marshall Hendrix was born November 27th, 1945. On the day of his death, his father, James, a landscape architect, talked about his son’s childhood. The Hendrix family lives in a simple house with lawn and garden in the better part of Seattle’s black neighborhood, near Lake Washington. The mantel is covered with pictures, guitar straps, magazine clips and other evidence of Jimi’s illustrious career. Mr. Hendrix has remarried, and has two daughters by that second marriage. He also has a 22-year-old son, Leon, by the first marriage. The last time the family saw Jimi was on July 26th, the day after Leon began doing time for grand larcency. As always when he was in Seattle, Jimi stayed at the Hendrix house that weekend. Mr. Hendrix recalled that Jimi first became interested in music when he was 10 years old. His father remembers going into Jimi’s room one night in the dark and tripping over a broom. He asked Jimi why the broom was there, since he obviously wasn’t using it to clean up his room. “That’s my guitar, Dad,” Jimi had answered. “I’m learning how to play it.” When he was 11, his father bought him a cheap acoustic guitar, and at 12, Jimi got his first electric guitar. He learned quickly, and was playing in bands at 13. When he was 14, that first electric guitar (inscribed “Jimmy”) was stolen, and he was unable to replace it until his sophomore year at Garfield High. Members of Jimi’s bands were quite surprised when he became a star, because he seemed the least likely person in any of his groups to make it. He was then only an average musician, and gave no indication of the almost compulsive creativity that he showed later. He was also known for being very shy and reserved. He displayed no stage presence at all. Jimi quit Garfield High in the middle of his senior year and went to work as a handyman for his father, who was then doing mostly gardening and lawn jobs. One day as they were working, Jimi told his father that he felt the work was a drag, and that he’d just decided to join the Army instead. This was in 1963. He left Seattle within a few days and joined the 101st Airborne Division, stationed in the South. His father remembers going into Jimi’s room right after he left, seeing the guitar, and expressing surprise that Jimi hadn’t taken it with him. Sure enough, a few days later he got a call from Jimi, who said the Army was driving him mad and he needed his guitar “right away.” Except for a photo he received in the mail, that was the last time Mr. Hendrix heard from his son until Jimi reached England in 1966. Using the name Jimmy James, he played for six months with a New York group called the Blue Flames. At various times, he backed Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, the Isley Brothers, and Wilson Pickett. “I got tired of feeding back ‘In the Midnight Hour,'” he told an interviewer in 1968. “I was a backing musician playing guitar.” He also played with a group called Curtis Knight and the Squires, and, after he became a star in 1967, Capitol Records embarrassed him by releasing an album called Got That Feeling; Jimi Hendrix Plays, Curtis Knight Sings, an album that was poorly recorded and of no historical value. It revealed only traces of the Hendrix artistry. Hendrix said: “The Curtis Knight album was from bits of tape they used from a jam session, bits of tape, tiny little confetti bits of tapes … it was done. Capitol never told us they were going to release that c***. That’s the real drag about it. It shows exactly how some people in America are still not where it’s at, regardless. You don’t have no friend scenes, sometimes makes you wonder. A few days later, James Hendrix, Sr., received a phone call at about 4 a.m. “It’s me, Jimi. I’m in England, Dad,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “I met some people and they’re going to make me a big star. We changed my name to J-i-m-i.” Surprised, his father asked why he’d changed his name, and Jimi replied that it was “just to be different.” Mr. Hendrix remembers telling Jimi that if he was really calling from London, the call was going to be very expensive. They both started crying over the phone. “We were both so excited I forgot to even tell him I’d remarried,” his father says. Once in England, Hendrix formed a new band. Noel Redding, who had come to audition as guitarist in the Animals, met Hendrix through Chandler. “Can you play bass?” was the first thing Jimi asked Redding. He never had before, but he immediately became bassist, and sometimes-guitarist, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mitch Mitchell, another Englishman, was picked as drummer. Six weeks after he left New York, four days after forming his trio, Hendrix opened at the Olympia in Paris, on the bill with French pop star Johnny Halliday. They took off on a tour of Europe. Eight days after the Beach Boys broke an attendance record by playing to 7,000 in two shows at the Tivoli in Stockholm, the Experience drew 14,500 for two shows. Now it was time to return to America. With several hit singles and a successful album in Europe behind him, Hendrix made his U.S. debut in 1967 at the Monterey International Pop Festival. Few in the audience knew that, until nine months ago, Hendrix had lived his whole life in this country. Few knew anything about him except that this “freaky black English bluesman” was making his “American debut.” Lou Adler, with John Phillips, co-producer of the festival, said he heard of Hendrix from Paul McCartney – “He told me about some guy in England playing guitar with his teeth.” Adler decided on Hendrix and the Who as the “new” acts to be introduced to the Monterey audience. In the liner notes to the live recording of Jimi’s performance (ironically, it was the last Hendrix recording to be released before his death), Pete Johnson of Warner Brothers writes what happened: “Their appearance at the festival was magical; the way they looked, the way they performed and the way they sounded were light years away from anything anyone had seen before. The Jimi Hendrix Experience owned the future, and the audience knew it in an instant.”
11/27

1942

Birthday

November 27, 1942

Birthdate

Seattle, King County, Washington United States of America

Birthplace

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Military Service

He had been discharged from the military after 14 months when he suffered a back injury in a parachute jump, and he’d spent the next couple of years criss-crossing the United States, playing with more than 40 rhythm and blues groups.
Professional Career

And yet another fallen star was at Monterey – Brian Jones, who attended the festival with Nico and spent most of his time as a spectator, seated in the press section. Adler recalled: “Brian was over here for his own pleasure, but he went up on stage and introduced one of the English acts – either Jimi or the Who.” Hendrix was on the same bill as the Who and the Mamas and the Papas. His next performance would be at the Hollywood Bowl with the Mamas and the Papas. The stories that came out about Hendrix after Monterey were enough to shoot him straight to the top, just like in Europe. “Purple Haze” became a hit single, Are You Experienced? a hit album. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, electric hair and all was taking America by storm. But if the audience knew just where Jimi Hendrix was at, the same can’t be said of the music business brains. In one of those showbiz anomalies, the Experience took off on a tour, second-billed to the Monkees, playing to the kiddies. When a promoter complained (under pressure from the Daughters of the American Revolution) that their stage act was “too sexy,” the Experience refused to modify it, instead dropping out of that tour and packing houses on one of their own. Monterey was where Jimi introduced his guitar-burning bit, and by now he was finding it necessary to explain: “At the Monterey Festival, I decided to destroy my guitar at the end of the song. The British pop magazine Disc voted him Musician of the Year for 1967, as did the pop newspaper Melody Maker. In 1968 – by which time each of his first three albums were gold – he was named Performer of the Year by Rolling Stone. When Jimi made his triumphant return to Seattle early in 1968, he received a key to the city and an honorary diploma from Garfield High. His father was floored when he saw Jimi in a purple velvet cape and rainbow shirt. Not only did the elder Hendrix not realize how big a star Jimi had become, but he remembered his son as a conservative dresser with a subdued, reserved personality. But if Hendrix was a brash dresser, if his stage act was pure mayhem, he also had a distinct ambivalence toward being a rock and roll star. Onstage, he was what every mother feared when she expressed doubts about rock and roll’s effect on her daughter. Offstage, he remained the same quiet, boyish, seemingly vulnerable Jimi Hendrix as always.
Personal Life & Family

Celebrity, Famous, Musician
09/18

1970

Death

September 18, 1970

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

London, England United Kingdom
Death location

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Obituary

NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY Jimi Hendrix 1942‐1970 By Michael Lydon Sept. 27, 1970 Jimi Hendrix 1942‐1970 “Rock Star Jimi Hendrix Dead at 27” —that's what the papers said. Sad enough and true. Jimi Hendrix is dead, he was 27, and he was a star, as brightly gorgeous a star as ever graced rock ‘n’ roll music. And yet, and yet. Twenty-seven is too young to die, even for a blues singer, and Jimi Hendrix was more than a star. He was a genius black musician, guitarist, singer, and composer of brilliantly dramatic power. He spoke in gestures as big as he could imagine and create; his willingness for adventure knew no bounds. He was wild, passionate, and abrasive, yet all his work was imbued with his personal gentleness. He was an artist extravagantly generous with his beauty. My words do not do him justice; his own do. “I want to hear and see everything, I want to hear and see everything.” "Stone free, to do as I please.” “Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” It does not do to read them; they must be heard as he sang them, his voice urgent, earnest, and humorous over his quirky rhythms while his awesomely inventive guitar splashed sound in dazzling hues. It will be years before we know enough to know how fine an artist he was. Jimi Hendrix was a blues man, perhaps the greatest of his generation. Like his predecessors in that noble line, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Redding and all the rest, he was a man, proud and boldly sexual: a musician, a dedicated innovator who immeasurably widened the range of the electric guitar and a dreamer, alternately dazzled and plagued by visions he could not help but pursue. Some say the blues are declining. The evidence is that they are the most vital art form in the world today. Each decade has brought new syntheses, each generation new leaders. Jazz has never strayed far from its blues roots, and the blues mainstream, after successfully negotiating the move from Southern country to Northern city in the forties, took over electric music in the fifties. Rock ‘n’ roll was, as everybody knew at the time, blues with a beat, created by men whose potency had wider scope than sex alone. “I'm a MAN,” sang Bo Diddley, “spell it M. A. N.” announcing the end of the days of black boyhood, while Chuck Berry in his zoot suit, eyes burning with liberated anger, dared to take on Beethoven. White kids, first country boys like Carl Perkins, ‘then high school teenagers like Bob Dylan, responded with their own blues. Then gospel singers began to sing the blues and that became soul music. They even started “reelin’ and rockin’ “ in Eng land. Jimi Hendrix was heir to all those traditions. The first music that turned him on was Muddy Waters; he heard the Hit Parade and the Top‐40 in his Seattle high school. He was in the Air Force like Johnny Cash, and he toured with the first gospel rocker, Little Richard, and also with Ike Turner, who long before that had inspired Chuck Berry in St. Louis and even before that had signed B. B. King to his first contract in Memphis. The black show biz world, however, had an automatic ceiling that Jimi could not accept. His friends, who are still playing the same anonymous honky tonks, advised caution, but Jimi split for New York to break the big time. Greenwich Village with its interracial underground of artists and heads was more congenial than bleak Harlem, where competition was cruel for the smallest gigs. Challenged by the freedom of Bob Dylan's imagery, he began to write his own songs, though at first he didn't dare sing them. When, in 1966, he was invited to England, where experimental black musicians have been given a gratifying welcome since Duke Ellington's first visit in 1933, he accepted at once. In six months he and his Experience (bassist Noel Redding and drummer Keith Moon) had conquered the English pop scene. Monterey in June, 1967, was his triumphant return home. A psychedelic hootchie‐kootchie man, suave in red and orange, he was magnificent, at the very edge of the believable and totally real. His first American tour that summer (part of it on a bill below the Monkees) was not exactly a failure, but the second the following winter was a complete success. A year after the Monterey Pop Festival, Jimi was the superstar of rock, second only to the inactive Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Dylan. A dazzling stage performer, he also made masterful records: “Are You Experienced,” a no-holds-barred debut; “Axis: Bold As Love,” a mellow second, and “Electric Ladyland,” both bluesy and surreal. Stardom is never an easy life, and rock stardom in the late 1960's was as tough as any created by stage or screen. A lot of people want ed pieces of Jimi for their scrapbooks. He was arrested and tried for possession of drugs in Toronto in 1969, but was acquitted, He was at the center of an energy vortex as powerful as the music he created: The Experience faltered and broke up. Jimi experimented with several groups of musicians to get something new that worked. A few performances (one recorded) as the Band of Gypsies were the result; they were good but not good enough. Last spring The Experience came together again. At times it was brilliant, yet it too was often close to breaking up again. He and the group were resting from a European tour when he died. Friends say he had a troubled and unhappy summer. The records are left, as well as, luckily, two superb films of him onstage— at Monterey and at Woodstock where, with surgical and demonic precision, he gave “The Star‐Spangled Banner” what it deserves. I met him twice as a reporter; both times he was open and friendly. I would like to think his death was accidental; if it was not, it is not hard to guess the strains he was under. I just wish Jimi Hendrix were alive and making music today.

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15 Memories, Stories & Photos about Jimi

Amanda S. Stevenson

16.8k+ favorites

08/23/2023

Jimi Hendrix

His philosophy.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

16.8k+ favorites

04/19/2019

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

A photo of James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

16.8k+ favorites

04/19/2019

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

A photo of James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

16.8k+ favorites

04/19/2019

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

A photo of James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Michelle Cassidy

171 favorites

06/22/2012

Jimi Hendrix & Billy Cox

Photo of Jimi Hendrix on guitar and Billy Cox on bass. The two met during their time in the Army.

Hendrix, born Johnny Allen Hendrix and then James Marshall, was born on November 27, 1942 in Seattle Washington. He died on September 18, 1970 in London.

Jimi Hendrix enlisted in the army May 31, 1961,. He completed basic training at Ford Ord in California. He then was assigned to the 101st airborn division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. While at the base recreation center he met fellow soldier and bass player Billy Cox. He was discharged from the Army after serving for a year.

He and Billy Cox performed together under the band name the Casuals while in Clarksville,Tennessee. The later changed the name to the King Kasuals once in Nashville.

Billy was a member of both the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1966-1969) and the Band of Gypsys (1969-1970). The Band of Gypsys’ live album was the last album Hendrix authorized. It was released 6 months before his death in 1970.

Date & Place: November 1, 1961 at Fort Campbell Recreation Center in Fort Campbell, Kentucky USA

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Gary Gray

65 favorites

11/21/2013

Jimi Hendrix, band, & Ron Gray

Jimi Hendrix with Ron Gray and band members: My father, Ron Gray, was a concert promoter in the 1960's in central to northwest Louisiana (Monroe, Shreveport, etc). Jimi Hendrix played a concert in Shreveport, Louisiana on July 31, 1968. My father, Ron Gray, is standing next to Hendrix. Comments by Gary E. Gray.
People in photo include: Mitch Mitchell, Noel Redding, and Ronald Eugene Gray

Date & Place: July 31, 1968 in Shreveport, Caddo County, Louisiana United States

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AncientFaces

400 favorites

02/23/2022

Member Gary G. shared this 1968 photo of musicians Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell, and Noel Redding with Gary's father Ron Gray in 2013. Ron was a concert promoter in northwest Louisiana and when Jimi and his band played Shreveport, Ron grabbed the chance for a photo.

Member Gary says he met a lot of famous people when he was a little boy. Who is the most famous person you have met?

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