Hendrix Immortalized … A Super Guitarist & A Class Act … Gone Too Soon …

Perspective

Always wondered why the greats seem to die early … gone too soon. Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jacob Miller to name a few locals … recently Natalee Cole the likes of Don Drummond a guitarist, a legend, an icon and of course Jimi Hendrix, guitarist … songwriter & singer.

Hendrix was a real guy … mysterious, talented, so human yet so troubled … slid down the slippery slope and never recovered. Misguided with no one to put him back on course. What a pity!

At 27 he left us on a trip never to return, never to be seen alive again … yet his music and memory live on to continue to inspire us. At such an early age … many of us was just getting started. Hendrix has charted his own course and left an indelible mark … indelible footprints in the sands of time.

In his relatively short musically filled life he shone his musical light we saw “a new Jerusalem … not differently from John’s vision of the Holy City … as related in the very popular hymn of the same name. We were transformed … swept away to the heavens … in the twinkling of an eye the transformer Hendrix was gone.

Immortalized in song and now a museum in London in his memory.

As an ex-army operative Hendrix was well trained and inculcated with the values of discipline ..”he made his own bed” we are told … this paints a picture of a disciplined individual. So why the habit of dependency on a harmful substance …a slippery slope that leads to addiction and increases dependency to the point no return?

Such inexplicable contradictions makes life so unpredictable if not mysterious.

A Bottomless Pit

Hendrix was not a recluse, he had a relationship with the opposite sex … hopefully he got some fulfilment from that relationship … it was a live in relationship … he had it all … talent, a career, love, companionship and a soulmate … emotional support … ingredients for a fulfilled life, yet he was lured to a dead end …

Hendrix jumped unto an escalator heading to a bottomless pit … like quick sand the more you indulged the deeper you sink … to that point of no return.

What would have been the state of the music scene had Hendrix not been elevated to higher service at such an early age? This question may never be answered. One thing not in dispute is that a talented potential superstar is gone, gone long ago … gone too soon.

Hopeton O’Connor-Dennie is Senior International Correspondent for Vision Newspaper Canada.

Foot Note/Biographical

Birth Name: Johnny Allen Hendrix … adopted name JAMES MARSHALL “Jimi” Hendrix

Born November 27, 1942
Died September 18, 1970
Age 27

Museum … former London flat restored in his honour.

Researched by: Hopeton O’Connor-Dennie.