PORTLAND, Ore. — Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience of the 1960s and the group’s last surviving member, was found dead in his hotel room early Wednesday. He was 61.
Mitchell was a powerful force on the Hendrix band’s 1967 debut album “Are You Experienced?” as well as the trio’s albums “Electric Ladyland” and “Axis: Bold As Love.” He had an explosive drumming style that can be heard in hard-charging songs such as “Fire” and “Manic Depression.”
The Englishman had been drumming for the Experience Hendrix Tour, which performed Friday in Portland. It was the last stop on the West Coast leg of the tour. Experience Hendrix had performed in Denver last month.
Hendrix died in 1970. Bass player Noel Redding died in 2003.
An employee of Portland’s Benson Hotel called police after discovering Mitchell’s body. Erin Patrick, a deputy medical examiner, said Mitchell apparently died of natural causes. An autopsy was planned.
“He was a wonderful man, a brilliant musician and a true friend,” said Janie Hendrix, chief executive of the Experience Hendrix Tour and Jimi Hendrix’s stepsister. “His role in shaping the sound of the Jimi Hendrix Experience cannot be underestimated.”
During his career, Mitchell played with the best in the business — not just Hendrix but Eric Clapton, John Lennon, the Rolling Stones, Jack Bruce, Jeff Beck, Muddy Waters and others.
Mitchell was a member of a later version of the Jimi Hendrix Experience that performed the closing set of the Woodstock Festival in August 1969 — where Hendrix played a psychedelic version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the band launched into “Purple Haze.” The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. According to the Hall of Fame, Mitchell was born July 9, 1947, in Ealing, England.
Hendrix, Redding and Mitchell held their first rehearsal in October 1966, according to the Hall of Fame’s website.
In an interview last month with the Boston Herald, Mitchell said he met Hendrix “in this sleazy little club.” “We did some Chuck Berry and took it from there,” Mitchell told the newspaper. “I suppose it worked.”
Other Deaths
Maria Elena Marques, 83, the Mexican actress who starred in the 1947 movie “The Pearl,” has died, her children announced Wednesday.
Marques played the long-suffering wife of a fisherman who finds a beautiful but ill-fated pearl in the film based on a book by John Steinbeck. The film won a Golden Globe award for the luminous cinematography of Gabriel Figueroa.
Tom Hunt, 85, the former chairman of Hunt Petroleum Corp. and nephew of famed oilman H.L. Hunt, died Tuesday of leukemia at a Dallas hospital. His death comes about five months after he helped engineer the $4.19 billion sale of Hunt Petroleum to XTO Energy Inc., which confirmed his death.
He served with the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and was on the first bomber to land in Japan. He also was aboard a B-24 that performed a flyover of Tokyo Bay when the Japanese formally surrendered.
After the war, Hunt studied chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas until his uncle recruited him into the family business.
