How Jimi Hendrix’s Mother Died at the Age of 32

Jimi Hendrix is revered as a rock icon for his legendary skills as a guitarist, dating back to his childhood. By the time he stepped into the spotlight as an adult, he had been through many trying times in his life, not the least of which was the death of his mother.

Jimi Hendrix’s parents

Jimi Hendrix was the first child of Al Hendrix and Lucille Jeter, born in Seattle in November 1942. His brother Leon was born six years later, and would go on to become a guitarist himself in the years after his brother’s death.

In 1951, Al Hendrix and Lucille Jeter divorced, with Al gaining custody of both Jimi (who then went by the nickname of Buster) and Leon. Jeter eventually developed cirrhosis of the liver when Jimi was a teenager.

Jimi Hendrix’s mother died at age 32

Lucille Jeter died of a ruptured spleen in February 1958. The 2020 book Wild Thing: The Short, Spellbinding Life of Jimi Hendrix detailed the Jeter’s later years.

“[Jimi and Leon] had not seen their mother for several months. Lucille was remarried, to a retired longshoreman named William Mitchell, thirty years her senior, and her years of drinking and self-neglect were starting to tell,” author Philip Norman wrote. “In 1957, she was hospitalized twice with cirrhosis of the liver. Al seldom mentioned her and when he did, it was always disparagingly. Buster hated hearing her badmouthed, but always bit his tongue.” 

“Early in 1958, they heard she was back in hospital again with hepatitis after being found lying in an alley beside a tavern. When they went to visit her in Harborview — Buster’s birthplace — she hadn’t been thought worthy of a room and was lying on a bed out in the corridor,” Norman wrote.

Leon Hendrix remembered the morbid details of her last hours. “They put her into a wheelchair, and she seemed to be all glowing white, like she was floating,” he recalled.

Jimi, meanwhile, kept his feelings inside, but his Aunt Dolores sometimes heard him crying on her front porch. Years later, Hendrix wrote the song “Castles Made of Sand” from his band’s sophomore album Axis: Bold as Love, which was inspired by his mother and her escaping the tumultuous relationship with Al Hendrix. “He was always sore at our dad for not taking better care of Mama,” Leon said.

Jimi Hendrix died at age 27

In the early 1960s, Hendrix began working as a backup guitarist for the likes of Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, B.B. King, and Sam Cooke. After gaining notoriety as a guitar player, he formed his own band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and began releasing music of his own.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album Are You Experienced was released in February 1967. It was certified five-times platinum with over 5 million copies sold domestically, and is highly regarded as one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Their second album, Axis: Bold as Love, which contained Hendrix’s ode to his mother, was released that same year in December 1967. Their third and final album, Electric Ladyland, was released in October 1968; after the dissolution of the band shortly thereafter, Hendrix went on to perform at Woodstock in 1969 in a show that continues to live on in history.

Hendrix’s life began to deteriorate as he began dealing with addiction. A year after his Woodstock performance, Hendrix died of a barbiturate overdose at the age of 27 in September 1970. Janis Joplin, another beloved rock musician, died of a heroin overdose a month later in October 1970 at the same age.