Classic Rock N Recall: Hendrix Would Have Experienced 70 Today

Jimi Hendrix's 70th Birth Anniversary is Today

Jimi Hendrix was born Johnny Allen Hendrix on November 27th, 1942 in Seattle, Washington.  Hendrix's father changed Johnny's name to James Marshall Hendrix when the boy was four years old.  The self-taught guitarist began playing when he was 16, and immediately faced a challenge with the instrument.  Hendrix was left-handed, and had to adapt to a right-handed guitar.  He learned to play by listening to old blues and early rock records by such legends as Muddy Waters, B. B. King, and Chuck Berry.  In 1959 Hendrix joined the Army.  He was in the service for about two years, working with the 101st Airborne Division until he was injured while parachuting and discharged.  In the Army he met bassist Billy Cox, whom he'd work with later.

>>Hendrix - Big Wally's Experience.

It was the summer of somewhere in the vicinity of 1968 or '69 or maybe 1970, when I first heard Jimmy Hendrix, and I was floored.
I remember it being in the beach area at Chenango Valley State Park. That's where all the kids went in those days. kids from Endicott and Binghamton, Johnson City and closer to home. You see, I lived just across Page Brook, which separated the trailer park I lived in, with a camping area at 'State Park,' as we called it.

State Park was the place we all went to pick up chicks. (even though we were all of between 8 and 14 years old at the time) Myself, and my friends Mark and Jerry, along with my brothers Jeff and Rob, and cousin Elton, used to walk to the 'Park,' everyday.

Transistor radios with AM only stations were the thing of the day. They were a dime a dozen and everyone had one on their blanket. Except, there was this one guy... an older dude, maybe all of 16 or 17, and he.... he had the first ever portable, battery-operated FM Stereo Radio I had ever seen or heard. The very first song I heard on that radio was Hendrix's 'Purple Haze!' And the radio station it was playing on...... was WAAL-FM!  The year I remember may not be the correct one, but the radio station was, and still is, The Correct One! 99.1 The Whale.
Jimi Hendrix died on September 18th, 1970, in London.  The official cause of death was inhalation of vomit following barbiturate intoxication

source: metronetworks