This Week in History, 1970: Jimi Hendrix dies of a barbiturate overdose

Performer had strong ties to Vancouver, had last played the Pacific Coliseum two years prior

Published Sep 20, 2024  •  4 minute read

Sept. 7 1968:, Jimi Hendrix backstage at the Pacific Coliseum with drummer Mitch Mitchell. Photo by Susan Kerr photography.

On Sept. 18, 1970, English paramedics arrived at the Samarkand Hotel in London to find Jimi Hendrix unresponsive and covered in his own vomit.

He was pronounced dead at nearby St. Mary Abbots Hospital; a coroner would eventually establish that Hendrix, who had alcohol, cannabis, amphetamines and barbiturates in his system, choked on his own vomit after overdosing on sleeping pills.

Article content

His Vancouver Sun obit noted that Hendrix spent a lot of time in Vancouver while growing up “to see his Cherokee Indian grandmother. He also had Mexican and Negro blood.”

The article said Hendrix “made a heavily physical thing of his singing. He had been accused of being too sexual, even for swinging London, with his gyrating pelvis and guitar banging.”

The article went on mention Hendrix’s arrest and later acquittal on drug-possession charges in Toronto 16 months earlier.

And the story mentioned a year-old quote: “I tell you, when I die I’m not going to have a funeral, I’m going to have a jam session.

“And, knowing me, I’ll probably get busted at my own funeral.”

The next day, Sept. 19, The Vancouver Sun carried a story headlined “Requiem for guitarist Jimi Hendrix”.

Eric Burdon performed the 70-minute requiem and “millions of fans around the world who mourned the death of the great guitarist would have found it right,” United Press International’s John Meehan wrote.

“Eric sobbed his sadness in uptempo blues.”

Jimi Hendrix remains one of the most influential rock guitarists of all time. Brunswick News

Hendrix, the article noted, had once been quoted as saying “the person who’s dead ain’t cryin’ … when I die I want people to play my music, go wild, break out and do anything they wanna do.”

Article content

Article content

The Sun article was peppered with tributes to Hendrix from the likes of Janis Joplin (“he made the music business aware he was ready for musical expression”), John Mayall, Paul Simon, and impresario Bill Graham.

“Jimi had a certain bravura, he invented sounds with his guitar that were incredible, like at Woodstock when he played the Star Spangled Banner — you could hear the rockets, feel the battle,” the article said.

Two years prior, on Sept. 7, 1968, Hendrix had played his final Vancouver concert at the Pacific Coliseum.

Overall, six people aged 15 to 23 were arrested at the “electronic music concert,” including a man who told police he was “wired on LSD and pot” who tried forcing his way into the show, and another who bloodied a police officer’s nose in a scuffle.

When Hendrix stayed with his grandmother Nora Hendrix in Vancouver she would enthrall him with Indigenous stories she learned as a young girl.

His paternal grandmother, who was half Cherokee, worked as a cook at Vie’s Chicken and Steakhouse, long ago demolished along with most of Hogan’s Alley, but she had been a vaudeville dancer when she moved to Vancouver in 1911.

Article content

The only time she saw him perform in person was at the Pacific Coliseum on Sept. 7, 1968.

Reviews of that concert — a four-band affair headlined by the Jimi Hendrix Experience — lamented how long the breaks were between bands and how late Hendrix finally appeared on stage.

Local reviewers were impressed, one saying Hendrix had never played so well to so many people — more than 10,000 in attendance.

Another review said Hendrix was “doing all sorts of freaky things with his guitar and complement of foot pedals. He played with his teeth, and played with no hands at all.”

And one more: “A wonderful, mind-blowing, ear-shattering, sensual performance.”

Vancouver Sun rock critic Lloyd Dykk, who would go on to become one of Canada’s best theatre and then classical music critics, wrote a review which was as much a sociological critique as anything else.

“Granted the man and the myth have blended into one, but even the most cynical efforts to separate the two would have resulted in strong endorsement of the thunderous reception Jimi Hendrix got,” Dykk wrote.

“He has a special magnetism that draws an audience into the lines of force he generates around him, an embodied spirit of sex, violence and animalism.”

Article content

Grandma Nora, on the other hand, told legendary broadcaster Jack Webster her grandson’s music was not her thing.

“I had a seat near the front,” she said. “It was so noisy, I said, ‘Well, I’ve got to get out of here.’

“All those drums and way he was picking that guitar, my gracious life, I don’t see how he could stand all that noise.”

[email protected]

x.com/gordmcintyre

Recommended from Editorial

1. 

   This Day in History: The great postcard photographer of early Vancouver finally gets his due. See his photos.

2. 

   This Day in History: An atomic bomb 'devastates' downtown Vancouver

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add VancouverSun.com and TheProvince.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.

You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber: For just $14 a month, you can get unlimited access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.

Article content