Fifty years after guitar legend Jimi Hendrix’s death, a village on Morocco’s Atlantic coast pulsates with his memory. Some there claim to have seen him, others to have spoken with him. In the summer of 1969, Hendrix, the pioneering US guitar wizard whose hits included Purple Haze and Hey Joe, made a brief stop in Essaouira, a former fort town and latter-day tourist magnet located five kilometres (three miles from the village. There are no soundtracks or images left from the rock icon’s journey, but countless myths surround his fleeting trip. Images celebrating the American musician are a permanent fixture in Diabat’s white houses, nestled in coastal sand. With its Cafe Jimi and the Hendrix Inn, the village has an air of sanctuary, half rock and half flower power.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA