The World Lost Jimi Hendrix 44 Years Ago Today

My mother was about six months pregnant.  I was inside her womb. Clearly, I had no clue about the passing of James Marshall Hendrix on Sept.18, 1970.

I'm not sure if my mom is even all that familiar with him to this day, but 44 years later I sure as hell am and I'm sorry that he isn't still around.

"Jimi" was actually born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle in 1942. Yeah, he'd be 72 this November, but so what? I have no doubt that he would still be making ground-breaking, avant garde music and we, as well as fellow musicians alike, would still be scratching our heads in disbelief.

"How in the ...?"
"What the fuhh ...?"

I believe this because many are still asking that more than four decades after he was pronounced dead in a London hospital after dying from asphyxia due to an overdose of barbiturates. Less clinically, he took a bunch of sleeping pills and choked on his own vomit while asleep. Jimi's mainstream success lasted only about four years, yet his genius lives on to this day.

What would popular music and especially rock 'n' roll sound like if he had continued to explore? Sadly, we will never know.

I remember first hearing the words to his classic song "Hey Joe" in a "Weird" Al Yankovic song. I was barely 13 when "Polkas on 45" came out on the "In 3-D" album, so there is my excuse.  A few years later, as peer pressure and other influences came into the picture, a buddy of mine lent me a cassette copy of the Jimi Hendrix Experience "Are You Experienced?"

Mind forever blown.

The fact that, like me, he was left-handed and born in Seattle made me that much more infatuated. Hell, I even once won a Jimi Hendrix "air guitar" contest at Grant's Brew Pub in the old train depot in downtown Yakima to prove my mania.

Damn. I really need to make a pilgrimage to his gravesite to pay homage. Jimi is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Renton, (just outside his birth town).