Before His Time: Jimi Hendrix, and others who passed too early
On Sept. 18, 1970 — 55 years ago Thursday — the entertainment world lost a man who has been called “the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music.” That was when singer, songwriter and guitarist Jimi Hendrix died in a London apartment. He was 27.
A Life of Glory That Ended Too Soon
Jimi Hendrix was more than just a great musician. He was an innovator. A showman. A man who fought to put his vision on his records — and on the stage — and then set the music world on fire with his success.
Hendrix was also exhausted. He had literally set his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival. After he succeeded in placing an album at the top of the Billboard album chart, he disbanded his group, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, headlined Woodstock — his guitar solo version of “The Star Spangled Banner” was nothing short of stunning — and he assembled a new band he called the Band of Gypsys.
All this and other ventures — opening his own studio, a paternity lawsuit and various contract disputes — had left Hendrix angry, frustrated and tired. His temper flared and his use of illegal drugs increased.
On Sept. 17, 1970, he spent the evening with his girlfriend, a German figure skater and artist, and, finally in the wee hours of the next morning, tried to get some rest.
His girlfriend found him in bed, breathing but unresponsive. She called for an ambulance, but Hendrix was pronounced dead at 12:45 p.m. from having asphyxiated on his own vomit. A postmortem showed he had taken 18 times the recommended dosage of his prescription sleeping pills.
Hendrix was 27 years old. Less than a month later, Janis Joplin, also 27, would die of a drug overdose.
Not long after the Monterey show, Hendrix told a reporter for Newsweek about his hopes for the future. “In five years, I want to write some plays” he said. “And some books, I want to sit on an island — my island — and listen to my beard
grow. And then I’ll come back and start all over again as a bee — a king bee.”
“He never really left,” wrote David Fricke in an essay about Hendrix for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “And he’ll always be a king.”
Jimi Hendrix's Album Chart History
Electric Ladyland: 2 weeks at No. 1
Included the single “All Along the Watchtower” The British release had a photo of 19 nude women on the cover.
Source: Reprise Records
Musicians Who Died Too Soon
Hendrix was a huge name in the music industry in 1970, but he was by no means the first or the last big name to leave the stage before the world was ready to let them go. Here are a few others from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
