Jimi Hendrix
Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix was never suspected of being a Communist. But, nevertheless, some establishment figures certainly thought he might be a threat to ‘the American way of life’. Not only did he play rock music, he was also a known drug user. So, when Hendrix was arrested in 1969 in Toronto for possession of a small amount of marijuana and the Canadian authorities asked the FBI to help them find an excuse to deport him from the country, the G-Men were only too happy to help.
So, Hoover’s men got busy trying to find something incriminating their colleagues across the Canadian border could use. As the FBI’s own file shows, they looked into Hendrix’s history. However, they came up virtually empty handed. Sure, the Agency did uncover the fact that eight years previously the rock god had been stopped for driving a car without the owner’s permission, but that was it. Any evidence of past drug-related misdemeanours simply couldn’t be found. Nevertheless, the FBI did go ahead with making a full file on Hendrix and then sharing it with the Canadian authorities.
In the end, all the charges facing Hendrix in Canada were dropped. Despite their best efforts, the investigators couldn’t prove that the drugs found in his luggage were put there by him. The FBI file, then, turned out to be something of a waste of time. Today, therefore, it’s one of the least interesting of celebrity files. But still, it is useful in showing just how seriously the Agency took the job of monitoring rock and pop stars and just how worried they were that this new generation of musicians might be a bad influence on the American youth.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the FBI file on Hendrix is the section addressing rumors that he would put LSD tabs in his bandana. These would steadily dissolve during the course of his epic concerts, keeping him tripping and the music flowing. While the Agent who wrote the file acknowledged that this could be possible, no evidence was found that Hendrix ever did this. Hendrix died suddenly in September of 1970 in London. The file was promptly closed, and it can now be viewed in its entirety on the FBI website.