The Day the Seventies Began
On September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix was found dead in London. He had essentially drowned in his own vomit after taking nine sleeping pills. I've selected this event as the unofficial start date for the 1970s on this site, not so much because it meant the beginning of something new, but the end of something old.
Hendrix was a truly unique individual who not only revolutionized music, but broke all the rules - mostly in a good way. He did things with an electric guitar nobody else could. His music defied classification. Nobody dressed like him. And he broke the Color Barrier in both directions, not only by making it in an overwhelmingly white genre, but refusing to act 'black' (whatever that meant). For these reasons, he truly personified his era.
The tragic way in which Hendrix died also said something about what was lying ahead for our world. Prior to this, few really famous rock stars had died, and those who did, such as Richie Vallens, mostly went because of accidents. Rock and Roll was part of the "youth culture," after all, and kids have trouble conceptualizing death. But Hendrix died because of drugs, another important part of the Sixties which some naive people actually romanticized. ("One pill makes you larger...") Choking to death on one's own puke, all alone, is a pretty disgusting way to go. This was nothing to romanticize, like Bette Midler's collapsing on stage while singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" in "The Rose" (an obvious ripoff of the Janis Joplin story).
Hendrix's death seemed to say "Welcome to the Real World" to many of us. Less than a month later Janis Joplin also died, this time from an overdose of heroin and alcohol. And less than a year after that Jim Morrison passed on, officially due to a heart attack, but under circumstances that many people continue to question. As these icons of the Sixties left us, Rock and Roll became more and more just one more product to be mass produced and marketed. The decade to come would have some good music, but no rule-breakers like Hendrix.
Hendrix was a truly unique individual who not only revolutionized music, but broke all the rules - mostly in a good way. He did things with an electric guitar nobody else could. His music defied classification. Nobody dressed like him. And he broke the Color Barrier in both directions, not only by making it in an overwhelmingly white genre, but refusing to act 'black' (whatever that meant). For these reasons, he truly personified his era.
The tragic way in which Hendrix died also said something about what was lying ahead for our world. Prior to this, few really famous rock stars had died, and those who did, such as Richie Vallens, mostly went because of accidents. Rock and Roll was part of the "youth culture," after all, and kids have trouble conceptualizing death. But Hendrix died because of drugs, another important part of the Sixties which some naive people actually romanticized. ("One pill makes you larger...") Choking to death on one's own puke, all alone, is a pretty disgusting way to go. This was nothing to romanticize, like Bette Midler's collapsing on stage while singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" in "The Rose" (an obvious ripoff of the Janis Joplin story).
Hendrix's death seemed to say "Welcome to the Real World" to many of us. Less than a month later Janis Joplin also died, this time from an overdose of heroin and alcohol. And less than a year after that Jim Morrison passed on, officially due to a heart attack, but under circumstances that many people continue to question. As these icons of the Sixties left us, Rock and Roll became more and more just one more product to be mass produced and marketed. The decade to come would have some good music, but no rule-breakers like Hendrix.
posted by Tony the Tour Guy | 9:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home