The legend of Jimi Hendrix is soaked with extreme tales of brainrocking acid trips that produced songs like “Purple Haze,” as well as drug horror stories that paint Jimi as an unrepentant junkie. In honor of the late musician’s birthday November 27, we’re republishing Eric Danville’s August, 2000 article that gets to the bottom of Jimi Hendrix’s involvement with drugs.
If everything goes as planned, September 18, 2000, the 30th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s much-fabled death, will see the unveiling of a stunning tribute in Renton, Washington’s Greenwood Memorial Park, near Jimi’s hometown of Seattle. With architecture inspired by the song “If 6 Was 9,” a nine-column structure surrounding a statue of Jimi performing at Woodstock is scheduled to be erected in the park’s Greenwood Cemetery where he now rests. A total of 54 gravesites—six times nine—reserved for other members of the Hendrix family will ring the monument, serving the double duty of bringing the family together in the afterlife and saving the graves of others interred in the park from desecration by well-meaning but thoughtless Hendrix fans.
Announced in late November 1999, the memorial is the brainchild of Jimi’s father, James “Al” Hendrix, who says, “A resting place for a loved one is almost always a private issue dealt with quietly by family members. However, I have always understood that Jimi in some way belongs to his fans and the world. This is something I always wished I could have done for my son, but I was not able to until now. This brings me great peace.”
Al Hendrix’s comments about the memorial can be found on the Jimi Hendrix Memorial Website (www.jimihendrixmemorial.com), a niche of cyberspace that’s part press release, part publicity stunt and part pledge drive meant to solicit funds …
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Author: High Times / High Times
