Jimi's Coat of Many Colours

Goodness - another Jimi Hendrix post. Jimi's on my mind  lately as I have a burgeoning left-handed guitar player in the house. Susan at Bricolage brought my attention to this article at the Washington Post.

Now I knew that James Marshall Hendrix had spent a lot of time in Vancouver with his grandmother Nora. And that his Canadian cousins found him so obnoxious that they buried him up to his neck at the beach and left him there ( I heard that on CBC Radio). I didn't know that his grandmother Nora was of Native descent - her mother was half Cherokee. Zenora (her full name) and her sister, whose stage name was Belle Lamar, toured the U.S. in a traveling vaudeville group and were known for their extravagant costumes.

Could Jimi have developed his love for brightly coloured clothing at his Grandmother's knee? Could her native heritage have had an influence on her style? The National Museum of the Native Indian seems to think so. Half-sister Janie Hendrix has donated Jimi's patchwork coat for an exhibit opening in July entitled " Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture." I'm guessing from the title that Buffy Sainte-Marie will be included too.

Here's a lovely picture of Jimi's grandparents found at www.blackpast.org. Can you see the family resemblance? I can.

The top picture was taken by Katherine Fogden for the Smithsonian