2008 – Mitch Mitchell, the innovative drummer who anchored the Jimi Hendrix Experience, has died at the age of 62. Mitchell passed away on November 12 in Portland, Oregon of natural causes.
The London native had completed an 18 city American tour as a featured performer with Experience Hendrix, a series concert series celebrating the legacy of Jimi Hendrix featuring an all-star line-up of artists including his one-time Hendrix bandmate and dear friend Billy Cox. Portland was the tour’s last stop and Mitchell had been staying in town for some vacation time before his planned return to England.
Janie Hendrix, CEO of Experience Hendrix, LLC commented, “We’re all devastated to hear of Mitch’s passing. He was a wonderful man, a brilliant musician and a true friend. His role in shaping the sound of the Jimi Hendrix Experience cannot be underestimated. Over the course of the recent tour, he seemed delighted with the interchange with the other musicians and the audiences. There is no question that he was doing what he loved.
2008 – Unreleased material Jimi Hendrix wrote and recorded with twin brothers Arthur and Albert Allen — a.k.a. the Ghetto Fighters — may finally be released through software/multimedia company we-R-you. The Allen brothers, who now go under the names TaharQa and Tunde Ra Aleem, first met Jimi in the mid-60s and worked with Hendrix on recordings that would ultimately wind up on posthumous releases like Rainbow Bridge, War Heroes and Cry Of Love. Among the material the Aleem brothers have unearthed is previously unheard recordings, a feature screenplay and a cartoon drawing of Hendrix drawn by Hendrix himself. “Jimi was a true visionary whose creativity went far beyond music,” says TaharQa Aleem. “He saw the future and while he may not have understood computers or known about digital technology and virtual worlds, he knew that things like this were coming and created material that would work in that world.” The unearthed material will be released through we-R-you in segments, as “each element needs to be released in its own time and way,” says the company’s chief branding and marketing officer Allen DeWinter.
2005 – a 1965 Fender Stratocaster guitar belonging to Jimi Hendrix sold for £100,000 at an auction in London. Other Hendrix items sold included a poem written two weeks after his appearance at the Monterey Festival which went for £10,000 and the first Jimi Hendrix Experience’s single ‘Hey Joe’, signed by all the band sold for £2,000.
Cooper Owen Jimi Hendrix Auction
Yesterday’s Cooper Owen auction of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia saw the sale of an Olympic White 1965 Hendrix-owned Stratocaster for 100,000 GBP, approximately $189,160 USD, which does not include the buyer’s auction premium or VAT (Value Added Tax). This was Lot #319. The winning bidder, who participated in the auction via telephone, requested anonymity.
Two other Hendrix guitars, Lot #318 and Lot #320, went unsold. Cooper Owen has posted the results on their website.
1970 – Jimi Hendrix is found dead from barbiturate overdose. The Jimi Hendrix Experience is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and Hendrix is posthumously voted a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992.
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi HendrixAKA Johnny Allen Hendrix
Born: 27-Nov-1942
Birthplace: Seattle, WA
Died: 18-Sep-1970
Location of death: London, England
Cause of death: Accident – Overdose
Remains: Buried, Greenwood Memorial Park, Renton, WA
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: Black
Sexual orientation: Matter of Dispute
Occupation: Guitarist
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Purple Haze
Military service: US Army (1961-62)
The pre-eminent “guitar hero” to emerge during the 1960s — as well as being fashioned into the principal deity in the pantheon of celebrity drug casualties — Johhny Allen Hendricks (soon re-named James Marshall Hendricks and eventually known as Jimi Hendrix) was brought into the world in the city of Seattle, the son of Al Hendricks and his wife Lucille Jeter. Although spending some of his early years living in Vancouver with his grandmother Nora Rose Moore, Jimi was primarily raised by his father following his parent’s divorce in 1951, his mother being removed from his life entirely in 1958 as a result of alchohol-induced cirrhosis. Al recognized and encouraged his son’s enthusiam for music, and provided him with first a ukelele and then a cheap guitar in the months following his mother’s death; Jimi subsequently immersed himself in learning the instrument, and joined his first band The Velvetones shortly afterwards.
By the summer of 1959 Hendrix had bought his first electric guitar and moved from The Velvetones to another local ensemble called The Rocking Kings. Two years later, however, his musical activities were temporarily hindered by a run-in with the law (apparently involving car theft), resulting in 2 years of compulsory service in the Army; a decidedly unenthusiastic soldier, Hendrix completed less than a year of training as a paratrooper at Fort Campbell in Kentucky before breaking his ankle and receiving a discharge. During this period he formed The King Casuals with Army friend Billy Cox, and after leaving the service the pair moved to Nashville, where they became active in the thriving R&B scene centered around the clubs on Jefferson Street. It was here that the guitarist (now using the name Jimmy James) began to establish a reputation for himself, struggling to earn a living as a session and backing musician for acts such as B. B. King, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson and Ike and Tina Turner; by 1964 he had relocated to New York and expanded his resumé to include work with King Curtis, The Isley Brothers and Curtis Knight.
After working as part of Little Richard’s backing band in 1965, Hendrix formed Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, assuming the role of both lead guitarist and singer for the first time. The band’s appearances on the Greenwich Village circuit quickly brought its dynamic frontman to the attention of fellow musicians such as Frank Zappa, session player Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and — most significantly — former bassist for The Animals Chas Chandler, who would sign Hendrix to his new management and production agency the following year. Chandler then moved the guitarist to London, altering the spelling of his first name to “Jimi” and helping him to organize a backing band: the result being a trio called The Jimi Hendrix Experience, featuring former guitarist for The Loving Kind Noel Redding on bass and jazz drummer Mitch Mitchell. The Experience’s impact on the London music scene was immediate and significant, with Hendrix himself earning the admiration of the leading British rock musicians of the time.
Making their entrance onto the music charts with the single Hey Joe in December of 1966 and then following with Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary and their debut full-length Are You Experienced in 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience quickly positioned themselves as one of the leading acts of the late 1960s, the hype generated by the records magnified by Hendrix’s stage persona — which included such visual theatrics as playing his guitar with his teeth or behind his head, and then setting it on fire and destroying his amplifiers at the end of the set. His appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival (instigated by Beatle Paul McCartney) provided an opportunity for this dramatic display to be captured on film, while also spreading the band’s popularity back to the States. A second album, Axis: Bold as Love, was released at the end of the year — not quite a chart-successful as the first, but containing one of Hendrix’s most enduring songs Little Wing.
In 1968 Hendrix moved his base of operations back to New York, establishing his own studio (named “Electric Lady”) in order to fully realize his musical ambitions without outside interference (although it would be two more years before work on the elaborate studio was completed). The ambitious double LP Electric Ladyland was issued later in the year, preceded by a single release of an interpretation of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower. The album was enthusiastically received, becoming Hendrix’s first #1 in the U.S.; it would also be the final offering from the Experience, as the guitarist’s obsessive perfectionism regarding his music — combined with increasingly erratic behavior fueled by his drug intake — had brought an end to his relationship with Redding by the middle of 1969 (manager Chandler having already quit in May of ’68). Hendrix assembled the six-piece unit Gypsy Sun and Rainbows immediately afterwards, using them as his backing band for his performance at the Woodstock Festival in August.
Not long after Woodstock, Hendrix assembled the trio Band of Gypsys with old Army friend/former King Casuals bandmate Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. This line-up endured only until the end of January 1970, but a self-titled live document culled from two performances on New Year’s Day was released later in the year, which would become one of his most popular albums. After the departure of Miles, Mitch Mitchell was subsequently brought back into the fold, with the band once again assuming the name The Jimi Hendrix Experience; recordings for what was intended to be another double LP were undertaken in between an active performance schedule, but the sessions were interrupted by a tour of Europe, launched at the end of August with an appearance at the third Isle of Wight festival. Cox was forced to abandon the tour after only a week for health reasons, after which Hendrix decided to spend a short time in London before returning to New York. On the morning of September 18th he was found dead by girlfriend Monika Dannemann, the guitarist having apparently asphixiated on his own vomit after taking an excess of sleeping pills. His body was subsequently brought back to the States and buried in Renton, Washington.
King County Hospital, Seattle, Washington.
Samarkand Hotel, London, England.
Charles R. Cross, Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (2005). Hendrix was discharged from the US Army in 1962 for “homosexual tendencies” after he told an army psychologist the he had fallen in love with a male soldier.
Father: James “Al” Hendricks (d. 2002, congestive heart failure)
Mother: Lucille Jeter (d. 1958, cirrhosis)
Brother: Leon (younger)
Sister: Janie (stepsister)
Girlfriend: Kathy Etchingham
Girlfriend: Monika Dannemann
Son: James Henrik Daniel Sundquist
Daughter: Tamika Laurice James
Jimi Hendrix
The Isley Brothers Guitarist 1965
The Jimi Hendrix Experience Guitarist/Vocalist 1966-69, 1970
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1992 (with The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
Grammy Hall of Fame Award (for Electric Ladyland (album), with The Jimi Hendrix Experience) (1999)
Grammy Hall of Fame Award (for Are You Experienced (album)) (1999)
Grammy Hall of Fame Award (for Purple Haze (single), with The Jimi Hendrix Experience) (2000)
Grammy Hall of Fame Award (for All Along the Watchtower (single), with The Jimi Hendrix Experience) (2001)
Drug Possession: Heroin Toronto, Ontario, Canada 3-May-1969, not guilty
Vandalism Gothenburg, Sweden 4-Jan-1968
Burglary (as a juvenile)
Coma
Autopsy
Cherokee Ancestry Paternal
Irish Ancestry Paternal
Mexican Ancestry
Risk Factors: Heroin, Alcoholism, Marijuana, LSD, Cocaine
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Woodstock (26-Mar-1970) Himself
Monterey Pop (26-Dec-1968) Performer
1969 – Jimi Hendrix appears in Toronto Supreme Court to answer charges of hashish and heroin possession. Hendrix admits he has used pot, hashish, LSD, and cocaine a handful of times. But he tells the judge he has “outgrown” drugs. The jury, presumably unfamiliar with Hendrix’s catalog, finds him not guilty.
1968 – Jimi Hendrix moves into a London townhouse formerly owned by the Messiah’s composer George Frederick Handel. The guitarist tells the Daily Mirror that he will “not let the tradition down.”
1967 – Paul McCartney advises Beatles publicist and Monterey Pop Festival organizer Derek Taylor that they should book some guitarist called Jimi Hendrix. Smart move.
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