Over the past two days, I have immersed myself in all things Jimi Hendrix in and around Seattle, Washington. Besides beings an ultra-cool place for music and technology (Nintendo HQ!), Seattle is the hometown and burial site for the world’s most mysterious genius.

I started off at the Experience Music Project in Seattle’s City Center. It is a brand new museum dedicated to music history, instrument crafting, and teaching the art itself (and also holds the national Science Fiction Museum inside). There are exhibits on The Supremes, the design of guitar and basses throughout history, an awesome two-story area to sing and play different instruments in-studio, a chronology of the northwest’s place in music throughout the 80s and 90s, and a large portion to Seattle’s most famous native son, Jimi Hendrix.

I’ve seen Hendrix memorabilia before. I’ve even seen a few of the places he played at and recorded in London. But this was a true tribute to the man. It displayed some of his clothing and guitars for people to awe at, but it also showed me the process of what it was like to be in the studio with Hendrix and engineer Eddie Kramer throughout the different albums. It was an intimate outsider’s look inside the creative forces surging through Hendrix’s young mind.

From my five hours spent at the museum, I learned many things, but none more important than this: a person like Jimi Hendrix doesn’t come around once in a lifetime. He comes around once. Some geniuses are so alone, and can’t relate to anyone what they are feeling inside themselves. Musicians worldwide still don’t know how Jimi made some of the signature sounds he used so craftily. We need to learn to take special care of people so gifted, so they don’t meet such tragic ends. What a treat it would have been to us to see him flourish with age.

Guitars: Top left- Strat burned and smashed at the Monterey Pop Festival 1967; Center Right- Strat smashed at Royal Albert Hall 1969; Bottom Right- Strat smashed at the Saville Theater 1967

Strat used during the legendary Woodstock "Star-Spangled Banner" Performance

Some of Jimi's on-stage gear

A drawing of Elvis Presley that Jimi drew in grade school

A phantom Jimi Hendrix Experience

Unrelated:

Seattle is fond of my name. They've even named a street and a bay after it.

The next stop was the Jimi Hendrix Memorial in Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton. The Hendrix family designed it based upon the ideas of Jimi’s father, Al, but as of now, it is still incomplete. Here’s a look inside:

Notice the "Purple Haze" inspired flowers.

Song lyrics from the inside: Voodoo Child, Little Wing, Angel

Voodoo Child

Little Wing

Angel

On the inside columns:

My favorite.

The last destination to pay my respects was on the corner of Broadway and Pine St in downtown Seattle. Here is what I found.

No, I did not bring the flowers.

Goodnight Seattle, we love you.