There is a certain rage prerequisite to considering the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Alan Wilson. Of all the people we’ve lost (death-wise, if not jail-wise) these two deaths make the least sense.

One can cope with the basically organic death of John Coltrane, as disheartening as his loss was, and despite the shock of Brian Jones’ death at least there was some question there as to whether or not the cause was drugs. But with these two, the cause was certainly drugs, of one sort or another, the only definite decision being that they were downers.