On this day · 80 years ago · 1946
80 Years Ago Today: Jimi Hendrix Experience Drummer Mitch Mitchell Was Born, Not in 1947
Mitch Mitchell brought jazz drumming into rock through the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He was born July 9, 1946, in Ealing, England, a year earlier than the date widely repeated across obituaries and music sites.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was born July 9, 1946, in Ealing, Middlesex, England, not 1947 as widely repeated, including until today on this site. He won the drum chair in an October 1966 coin toss over Aynsley Dunbar, then brought Elvin Jones-style jazz phrasing to all three Experience studio albums. He died November 12, 2008, at age 62, math that only fits a 1946 birth year.
Getting the date right
Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was born on July 9. The year is where things get complicated: he was born in 1946, not 1947, and 1947 is the year that's been repeated across obituaries, reference sites, and until today, this one.
Per Wikipedia's sourcing, Mitchell himself cleared this up in his 1990 book, Jimi Hendrix: Inside the Experience, co-written with John Platt, in which he recalled celebrating his 21st birthday while on tour on July 9, 1967. That math only works if he was born in 1946. Independently, major obituaries in Billboard, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone all listed him as 62 years old at his death in November 2008, which also confirms a 1946 birth year rather than 1947. The 1947 date traces back to a handful of secondhand obituaries and reference entries that never checked against Mitchell's own account.
A coin toss and a jazz drummer's ear
Mitchell auditioned for the Jimi Hendrix Experience on October 6, 1966, and won the drum chair over Aynsley Dunbar in a coin toss. What he brought to the band wasn't standard 1966 rock drumming. He named Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, and Joe Morello, all jazz drummers, as his primary influences, and it shows: the polyrhythmic tom patterns and sustained ride-cymbal density across the Hendrix catalog draw directly on Elvin Jones's work with the John Coltrane Quartet, brought into a power-trio rock context almost nobody else was attempting at the time.
He played on all three Experience studio albums, Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (1967), and Electric Ladyland (1968), and stayed with Hendrix through Woodstock in 1969 and the sessions that became the posthumous Cry of Love. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and Rolling Stone ranked Mitchell the eighth-greatest drummer of all time in 2016.
Mitchell died in his sleep on November 12, 2008, in Portland, Oregon, five days after wrapping the Experience Hendrix tribute tour, at age 62, the number that helps settle his birth year for good.
Regular Slinky Cobalt (.010–.046)
Why this one: A modern standard-tuning electric set for players chasing this era's Strat-driven power-trio tone today, not a documented claim about Mitchell's own gear as the band's drummer.