10/15/2023
Jimi Hendrix left us on this date in 1970. I got home from work in Boston in the afternoon that day and someone in my apartment building was blasting Jimi loud through open windows. It was so extreme I immediately knew Jimi must be dead. The radio, the only way to get news almost immediately then, confirmed it.
I saw Jimi play on June 27, 1970. I have been playing guitar for a few years, but looking straight at him, watching as closely as I could, I could not understand how his graceful hands were making the sounds that came out of his three Marshall amplifiers.
 in 1973, I asked Muddy Waters if he knew Jimi. He said Jimi used to come to his shows in New York City, and even sit in. I would love to see a video of that. Muddy said Jimi wanted to join his band, ”but I already had someone.“
Jimi’s music was genius, beyond even what other geniuses were creating. His showmanship, getting wild while he played that amazing music, was also extreme. But according to interviews, video and in print, the showmanship was a trap for him. He said that after he burned his guitar onstage, his audience felt he was letting down if he didn’t do that every night. In an interview near the end of his life, I think I recall he said he wanted to change direction and create “sky church music.“
Who knows where he would have gone and what he would have done if he had a long life. I think this would literally be a different world — for the better.💙🙏 Thank you, Jimi Hendrix