Jimi Hendrix, the American pop singer and guitarist, died in London yesterday. He had been taken by ambulance from a flat in a private hotel in Notting Hill but was dead on arrival at St Mary Abbot╒s Hospital, Kensington.
The cause of death was most probably an overdose of drugs, said Scotland Yard, but a post mortem examination would be carried out today. The hospital said it did not know how Mr Hendrix had died.
Mr Hendrix, who was 24 years old, stayed in Britain after the Isle of Wight music festival, where he shared the top of the bill. He recently returned from a European tour which was cut short because of the illness of another member of the group.
He had been staying at the Cumberland Hotel in the West End and on Thursday asked to extend his stay to include that night, but a spokesman for the hotel said he was last seen there on Wednesday night, when he ordered a meal to be sent to his ú17-a-day suite.
The flat where he was found was at the Hotel Samarkand and was booked in the name of Miss Marika Dannenman, a West German girl who spent most of yesterday afternoon in hospital. Last night she was back at the flat, but under sedation. Mr Danny Hall, the manager of the hotel, said he did not know Mr Hendrix and the first he had known of his death was when police called and took a number of blankets which they had told him were for analysis. At the flat a coroner╒s officer took possession of some sleeping tablets.
Miss Dannenman made her six-week booking through an agent in West Germany, he said, and she had arrived there some time in August.
Mr Hendrix first appeared on the British pop scene in 1967 with a record called ╥Hey Joe.╙ Mr Les Perrin, his agent, said: ╥On stage he was a very warm man with a great sense of humour. He was a world-class talent. It╒s a great loss for the pop business.╙
With his group ╥Experience,╙ Mr Hendrix had a new single scheduled for release in about three weeks. Mitch Mitchell, his drummer, said he had been talking to Hendrix about the release of a new album and about another European tour.
Mr Hendrix was the grandson of a Cherokee Indian but part Negro as well. Apart from his flamboyant clothes he was distinguished by his long frizzy hair. In December last year he was acquitted at a Toronto court of possessing heroin and cannabis at the airport.
