Jimi Hendrix

European tour

The group then commenced on a tour of Europe designed to earn money to repay the studio loans, temper Jimi's mounting back taxes and legal fees, and fund the production of his next album, tentatively titled First Rays of The New Rising Sun. Longing for his new studio and creative outlets, the tour was a requirement by Jeffery that the already restless Hendrix was not eager to perform. Audience demands for the older hits and stage trickery that he had long tired of performing only served to worsen his mood. In Aarhus, Hendrix abandoned his show after only two songs, remarking: "I've been dead a long time".

While on tour in Sweden, Hendrix discovered the music of duo Hansson & Karlsson and became a big fan, recording a cover of their song "Tax Free". His LSD-fueled jam sessions with Swedish drummer-turned-TV-star Janne "Loffe" Carlsson (one half of Hansson & Karlsson), remain a legendary claim to fame in the Scandinavian country.

In the months before Hendrix's death, the British music press claimed that Hendrix had plans to join the band Emerson, Lake & Palmer which were prevented only by his death.

On September 6, 1970, his final concert performance, Hendrix was greeted with some booing and jeering by fans at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany in a riot-like atmosphere reminiscent of the failed Altamont Festival. Shortly after he left the stage, it went up in flames during the first stage appearance of Ton Steine Scherben. Billy Cox quit the tour and headed home to Memphis, Tennessee, after reportedly being dosed with PCP.

Hendrix retreated to London, where he reached out to Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, and other friends in a renewed attempt to divorce himself from manager Michael Jeffery. He caught up with Linda Keith, an old flame he still admired, and gave her a brand new black Fender Stratocaster as a token of his appreciation for her discovery efforts years earlier. Included in the guitar case was a stack of letters--all of their mutually written correspondence. Jimi's last public performance was an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Burdon and his latest band, War.

One of Hendrix's last known recordings was the lead guitar part on Old Times Good Times from Stephen Stills' eponymous album (1970), a track recorded at London's Island Studios.