Report: "The FBI Considered JIMI HENDRIX A Dangerous Subversive And Targeted Him For Surveillance And Harassment"
September 12, 2010, 14 years ago
David T. Rowlands from Green Left Weekly is reporting:
September 18 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of US musician JIMI HENDRIX, widely regarded as one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time.
Hendrix’s identification with progressive politics embodied the ferment of the late 1960s, with songs like 'If Six Was Nine' (“I’m gonna wave my freak flag high”), 'I Don’t Live Today' (about the plight of Native Americans) and the visceral anti-war tone poem 'Machine Gun'.
Hendrix spoke out in favour of the radical anti-racist Black Panthers and criticised the US war on Vietnam. He played free at a benefit concert for the Chicago Seven (activists charged with conspiracy to riot over the protests outside the1968 Democratic National Convention) and famously performed a radical deconstruction of the US national anthem, “Star Spangled Banner” at the 1969 Woodstock festival.
The FBI considered him a dangerous subversive and targeted him for surveillance and harassment.
Forty years on from his death, a web of intrigue continues to surround the legacy of this visionary guitarist and composer. Hendrix may have been a musical genius, but he was a babe in the woods when it came to the hard commercial realities of the music business.
Read more here.
