Jimi Hendrix Memorial

Guitar Legend. Unquestionably one of modern music's most influential figures on the electric guitar. His styles ranged from Rhythm and Blues, to jazz, to funk. Born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle, Washington, his father changed the boy's name to James Marshall Hendrix. Left-handed, he self taught himself how to play a right-handed guitar when he was a young boy, specializing in southern-blues style. In September 1966, Hendrix arrived in London, and formed a new group using English musicians, called the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In December 1966, they released their first single, "Hey, Joe" which quickly went to the top 10 in the UK, followed by "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary." Returning to the US in June 1967, he appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, where he played the guitar with his teeth, then burned the guitar with lighter fluid. His American audience continued to grow with the release of "Axis: Bold as Love" and the jazz influenced "Up From the Skies." Internal differences between several members of the group led to their breakup. One of Hendrix's most memorable performances was at the Woodstock Festival in New York, where Hendrix played his famed version of "The Star Spangled Banner", which some listeners perceived as a political statement. On the morning of 18 September 1970, his girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, could not wake him, and she called an ambulance, but he was pronounced dead. A coroner's inquest recorded the cause of death as suffocation due to inhalation of vomit. Since then, others have claimed either overdose of drugs or suicide, but these claims remain in dispute. A Jimi Hendrix Museum was created in Seattle, Washington, in his honor. On November 26, 2002 Hendrix's body was exhumed and reburied under a marble dome memorial in another section of Greenwood Memorial Park. Hendrix's father Al and his step mother Ayako 'June' Hendrix have also been placed in the vault in the center of the memorial.