Crash Course in Rock History: The Day Jimi Hendrix Died
Seared into my memory, but probably not why you might think
Fifty-three years ago this week, Jimi Hendrix died.
I woke up the next morning in a hospital with a concussion. My mom and other family members stood around, looking on as I groggily woke up.
“What happened? Where am I?” I said, uncertain of what was going on.
“You were in a car accident, and you’re in the hospital,” my mom said matter-of-factly.
At the time, I didn’t remember any accident, so this confused me greatly. I was just fifteen years old and was at least aware enough to ask if anyone else had been hurt as badly as I was.
“No, you’re the only one in the hospital. Everyone else is fine.”
As time wore on, I started to recall a few things, piece by piece. I remembered the day before, September 18th, 1970, was a Friday. I deduced that today, here in the hospital bed, it was now Saturday, and the previous night, I was to have marched in a half-time show for a football game at Bend Senior High School in Bend, Oregon. I didn’t make the show.
To be honest, the bits and pieces of those two days are still jumbled up a bit in my brain, especially since this was over fifty years ago, but I’ve recalled several things, most shortly thereafter the accident.
While I still don’t remember the actual moment of impact, I do remember that we were heading home from Bend. My older brother, Mark, was behind the wheel, and before we headed home to Santiam Pass, forty miles from Bend, we stopped at Pilot Butte Junior High to pick up my next younger brother, Ben, and a neighbor, Mabel, before heading home for dinner, when we would then return to Bend for the football game.
That was when we heard about Jimi.
On the way from one school to the other, we had the local TOP 40 station, KGRL turned up loud as usual, and the radio announcer hit us with a bulletin: Jimi Hendrix had just died. I don’t remember any details of Jimi’s death or the announcement at the time, except that shortly after we heard the bulletin, we saw a friend of mine, Steve, on the street near his house. I had my brother pull over, so Steve and I could chat. I told him the news about Jimi. Steve was a musical compatriot of mine, and we used to spend hours in the music department, Steve on piano pounding out great songs – he was an extremely gifted piano player – and me providing the beat on a drumset.
“Jimi Hendrix is dead? Really?”
“Yeah. Bummer, huh?”
“Yeah.”
And off we went.
As time passed, more memories of the day floated back up, and I recall wandering around at the scene of the accident in a daze before the ambulance arrived, but that’s essentially all I remember about the accident. Apparently, my brother had taken his eye off the road and was looking at something in the rearview mirror, and we rear-ended an older car at about fifty miles per hour. I was the only one seriously hurt, and it was only a concussion. No broken bones, no lacerations. I got lucky, I guess.
Jimi Hendrix is still one of my favorite guitarists, and when I put on one of his albums, I often wonder what might have been. Here’s a short playlist of a handful of my fave Jimi tunes: