Jimi Hendrix's death inside a London hotel on September 18, 1970 was due to an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills that caused him to choke on his own vomit — though some believe there's more to the story.
Evening Standard/Getty ImagesA few weeks before Jimi Hendrix’s death, he played at the Isle of Wight festival in August 1970. This would be his last performance in England.
On September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix’s girlfriend Monika Dannemann woke up inside the apartment they were sharing at London’s Samarkand Hotel — but he was unresponsive. She quickly called an ambulance, which took him to St Mary Abbots Hospital, but he could not be saved. Just like that, Jimi Hendrix was dead at the age of only 27.
But what had happened to this beloved rock icon? How did Jimi Hendrix die?
Jimi Hendrix spent the night before his death drinking wine and smoking hashish with Dannemann. The pair left her apartment at the Samarkand in Notting Hill to attend a party hosted by his business associates and returned at around 3 a.m., talked for a while, and finally went to sleep.
The reason he never woke up would soon become clear. The cause of Jimi Hendrix’s death, according to the autopsy, was aspirating his own vomit, causing him to asphyxiate. The underlying cause of this was that he’d overdosed on alcohol and barbiturates in the form of nine Vesparax sleeping pills.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Jimi Hendrix died after aspirating on his own vomit following a barbiturate overdose, but some say that foul play may have been involved.
In the decades since, some have claimed that there’s more to the story of how Jimi Hendrix died. Everything from suicide to murder has been debated, though no hard evidence has emerged indicating that this was anything other than a tragic accident.
This is the full story of Jimi Hendrix’s death and everything that led up to it.
Jimi Hendrix’s Road To Becoming A Rock Icon
Jimi Hendrix was born James Marshall Hendrix on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington. Hendrix took up a fascination with music early, and his father recalled tripping on a broom in his room that he had been using as a practice guitar. He received his first guitar at 11. He joined his first band by age 13.
Oddly enough, Hendrix’s early bandmates described him as shy and lacking much stage presence. They were utterly surprised to see him skyrocket to fame as the brash rock star he would later become.
FacebookA 19-year-old Jimi Hendrix during his time in the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army in 1961.
Hendrix eventually dropped out of high school and joined the U.S. Army. He found a way to sustain his love of music in the military by forming a band called the King Casuals.
After an honorable discharge in 1962, Hendrix started to tour and play with such big names as Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, and Wilson Pickett. He eventually formed his own group, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which would release several classic albums in 1967 and 1968.
Time and again, he would electrify audiences with his raw talent, energy, and pure star power. All of this was on full display in what might be his most famous performance: “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock in 1969.
But while he was making rock history, Hendrix was also struggling with addiction.
A year before Jimi Hendrix died, he stood trial in Toronto, Canada, for heroin and hashish possession, but was never convicted. While he admitted to using LSD, marijuana, hashish, and cocaine, he firmly denied any heroin use.
Hendrix stated following his trial, “This I really believe: anybody should be able to think or do what they want as long as it doesn’t hurt somebody else.”
In the end, Jimi Hendrix would end up hurting himself.
The Events That Led Up To Jimi Hendrix’s Death
Monika DannemannJimi Hendrix’s girlfriend Monika Dannemann photographed him with the guitar he called Black Beauty on the day before he died.
In September 1970, Jimi Hendrix was exhausted. Not only was he overworked and stressed, but he had enormous trouble sleeping — all while battling a nasty case of the flu. He and his girlfriend Monika Dannemann spent the evening before his death at her Samarkand Hotel apartment in London.
After unwinding with some tea and hashish at Dannemann’s posh Notting Hill residence, the couple had dinner. At one point in the evening, Hendrix made a phone call to discuss getting out of his relationship with his manager Mike Jeffery. He and Dannemann shared a bottle of red wine, after which Hendrix took a bath.
One of his business associates Pete Kameron was throwing a party that night — and Hendrix felt he had to attend. Brown writes that the musician ingested “at least one amphetamine tablet” known as a “Black Bomber” after Dannemann drove him to the party.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
There, the couple appeared to have an argument after Dannemann demanded to speak with him. According to guests, Hendrix had become quite irritated because she “wouldn’t leave him alone.” Nonetheless, the rockstar acquiesced — and spoke to her privately.
What the pair discussed remains unknown. What’s certain is that the couple unexpectedly left the party afterward, and got home at around 3 a.m.
After arriving back home, the couple wanted to go to bed but the amphetamine that Hendrix had taken was keeping him awake. Dannemann claimed that when he asked if he could take some of her sleeping pills, she refused. By the time 6 a.m. rolled around, she defeatedly took one herself and went to sleep.
How Did Jimi Hendrix Die? The Tragic Events Of His Demise
Peter Timm/Ullstein Bild/Getty ImagesHendrix had trouble sleeping in the last few weeks before his death.
Monika Dannemann claimed that when she woke up four hours later, at around 11 a.m., Jimi Hendrix was sound asleep with no visible signs of distress. Dannemann said she left the apartment to buy some cigarettes — and that the situation upon her return had dramatically changed.
Hendrix was now unconscious, but still alive. Unable to wake him, she called paramedics in a desperate attempt to save his life. Emergency services arrived at the Notting Hill residence at 11:27 a.m. — but Dannemann was nowhere to be found.
The paramedics were met only by a wide-open door, drawn curtains, and the lifeless body of Jimi Hendrix. The scene inside the Samarkand Hotel apartment was deeply disturbing. Paramedic Reg Jones recalled seeing Hendrix covered in vomit.
The singer’s airway had been fully clogged and completely closed all the way down into his lungs. It appeared he had been dead for some time. Once police arrived, Hendrix was transported to St Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington — where attempts to save his life failed.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesJimi Hendrix playing guitar with the pick clenched between his teeth.
“He was cold and he was blue,” said Dr. Martin Seifert. “On admission, he was obviously dead. He had no pulse, no heartbeat, and the attempt to resuscitate him was merely a formality.”
The coroner didn’t find evidence of suicide, however — so what did Jimi Hendrix die of? Dannemann later said she counted nine of her Vesparax pills missing, which would have been 18 times the recommended dose.
Hendrix was pronounced dead at 12:45 p.m. He was just 27 years old.
Days later, the autopsy concluded that Jimi Hendrix’s death was caused by asphyxiation on his own vomit — which contained the same red wine he had shared with his girlfriend the night before.
But is there more to the story of how Jimi Hendrix died?
Alternative Theories About What Caused Jimi Hendrix’s Death
Monika DannemannAnother photo from September 17, 1970, the day before Jimi Hendrix died.
The autopsy was over, with all requisite police efforts and medical work concluding that the death of Jimi Hendrix was accidental. However, some unanswered questions lingering in the aftermath have led to years of speculation, reassessment, and curious revelations.
For one, a poem Hendrix had given Dannemann after his final bath in her London apartment was seen by some as a type of suicide note. Could this poem answer the lingering question of how Jimi Hendrix died?
“I want you to keep this,” he told her. “I don’t want you to forget anything that is written. It’s a story about you and me.”
Wikimedia CommonsJimi Hendrix performing at Woodstock in 1969.
Later found by his deathbed, the verses certainly alluded to the temporal nature of our existence.
“The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye,” it read. “The story of love is hello and goodbye, until we meet again.”
For close friend and fellow musician Eric Burdon, however, Hendrix’s supposed suicide note was actually nothing of the sort. It’s unclear whether Dannemann left it to him, in honor of having been the last musician Hendrix played with before he died, but Burdon has been in possession of the pages-long poem ever since.
“The poem just says the things Hendrix has always been saying, but to which nobody ever listened,” said Burdon. “It was a note of goodbye and a note of hello. I don’t think Jimi committed suicide in the conventional way. He just decided to exit when he wanted to.”
Gunter Zint/K & K Ulf Kruger OHG/RedfernsJimi Hendrix backstage at the Love And Peace Festival on the Isle of Fehmarn, his final official concert appearance, on September 6, 1970 in Germany.
Michael Jeffery, meanwhile, who was Hendrix’s personal manager at the time, adamantly rejected the supposed suicide narrative.
“I don’t believe it was suicide,” he said.
“I just don’t believe Jimi Hendrix left Eric Burdon his legacy for him to carry on. Jimi Hendrix was a very unique individual. I’ve been going through a whole stack of papers, poems, and songs that Jimi had written, and I could show you 20 of them that could be interpreted as a suicide note.”
The Theory That Hendrix Was Murdered
Much more controversial than the suicide theory was the claim first uttered in 2009 when James “Tappy” Wright wrote a memoir of his days as a Hendrix roadie. The book contained a bombshell revelation: Jimi Hendrix was not only murdered but killed by Michael Jeffery himself. The manager purportedly even admitted it.
Supposedly, Jeffery said, “I had to do it, Tappy. You understand, don’t you? I had to do it. You know damn well what I’m talking about. . . I was in London the night of Jimi’s death and together with some old friends . . . we went round to Monika’s hotel room, got a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth . . . then poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe. I had to do it. Jimi was worth much more to me dead than alive. That son of a bitch was going to leave me. If I lost him, I’d lose everything.”
While Wright’s claim could very well be a ploy to sell books, Michael Jeffery did take out a $2 million life insurance policy on the rock star before he died. Perhaps the most harrowing thing about this theory is that John Bannister, the surgeon who tended to Hendrix at the hospital, said he was convinced that the cause of Jimi Hendrix’s death was drowning in red wine — despite there being extremely little alcohol in his blood.
As he said, “I recall vividly the very large amounts of red wine that oozed from his stomach and his lungs and in my opinion there was no question that Jimi Hendrix had drowned, if not at home then on the way to the hospital.”
Wikimedia CommonsApartments of the Samarkand Hotel in Notting Hill, London.
So how did Jimi Hendrix die? If he was killed by Michael Jeffery, he certainly didn’t have enough time to reap the rewards — as he died three years after his client in 1973.
Jimi Hendrix’s Death Puts Him In The 27 Club
Regardless of how exactly it happened, perhaps the most noteworthy and tragic thing about Jimi Hendrix’s death is the young age at which he died: 27, two months shy of turning 28. Unfortunately, he thus found himself included among the tragic group of musicians who passed away long before their time. The so-called “27 Club” continues to be one of the most devastating parts of music history.
Bluesman Robert Johnson was the first notable musician to die tragically at 27, and was arguably the first victim of this tragic trend. However, the blues singer’s death in 1938 occurred during a simpler time where the show business spotlight shone much dimmer.
Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, for instance, also died at 27, but during an era when the spotlight of fame was much brighter. Jones died in London in 1969 after mixing drugs and alcohol and diving into his swimming pool.
Wikimedia CommonsA 27 Club mural depicting Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and the artist.
Mere weeks after Jimi Hendrix’s death at 27, fellow rock icon Janis Joplin died at the same age. She died of a heroin overdose in Los Angeles on October 4, 1970.
Notable artists that later joined the 27 Club were Jim Morrison of The Doors, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse.
Hendrix’s Enduring Legacy As A Rock Icon To This Day
Jimi Hendrix told a reporter just a year before his death, “I tell you when I die I’m 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.”
Hendrix’s funeral could, in fact, have turned into a jam session, given the amount of legendary musicians who showed up. Following a service at Dunlap Baptist Church in Seattle on October 1, he was interred near his mother at Greenwood Cemetery in Renton. In attendance were musical luminaries Miles Davis and Johnny Winter as well as former bandmates Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesJimi Hendrix’s casket is followed from the church by members of his family and childhood friends on October 1, 1970 in Seattle, Washington.
And beyond the musicians who showed up to his burial, Hendrix spoke to countless artists and listeners with his music in ways that can still be felt today. More than five decades later — as some still ponder the question of how Jimi Hendrix died — he continues to influence generations of musicians. Indeed, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett all say that Hendrix greatly influenced their music.
Despite the tragic circumstances of Jimi Hendrix’s death, the spirit of his music lives on.
After this look at the death of Jimi Hendrix, see what some of history’s most famous dead rock stars might look like today. Then, relive the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.
