Grave of Jimi Hendrix
Renton, Washington
The music of rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix moved a generation, and pilgrims have trekked to the Seattle area to pay their respects for decades. Hendrix, the most famous resident of Greenwood Memorial Park and Cemetery in Renton, WA, had been resting under a simple tombstone since he'd died in 1970 (determined in the autopsy to have been the result of "inhalation of vomit due to barbiturate intoxication"). The rock star's remains were secretly moved to a new grave on November 26, 2002, the day before what would have been his 60th birthday.
The more elaborate half-million dollar monument was originally designed to feature a life-size bronze sculpture of Hendrix and a purple fountain, but those embellishments were nixed at some point. A stone block is sheltered by a 30-foot-high granite dome supported by three pearl-gray granite columns trimmed in "rainbow" marble. The memorial, where other family member are or will be interred, is on a circular drive in the southwest corner of the cemetery.
We pulled up to the monument after a brief rain squall, and an eerie sunbeam suddenly illuminated the deserted cemetery. After a few minutes, a teenager with shaggy hair and a guitar emerged from the distant woods and walked directly to the monument. He sat down and started playing a tune, and soon other of his family members showed up. The muse magnetism still works, even without a purple fountain.
This memorial is a primary attraction in any Seattle-area Jimi Tour, which also includes the bronze statue on Capitol Hill near downtown.