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Chapter 7:
I DON'T BELIEVE
FOR ONE MINUTE THAT HE KILLED HIMSELF. THAT WAS OUT OF THE QUESTION.
CHAS CHANDLER, HENDRIX PRODUCER
I BELIEVE THE
CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING HIS DEATH ARE SUSPICIOUS AND I THINK HE WAS
MURDERED. ED CHALPIN, PROPRIETOR OF STUDIO 76
I FEEL HE WAS
MURDERED, FRANKLY. SOMEBODY GAVE HIM SOMETHING. SOMEBODY GAVE HIM
SOMETHING THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE. JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, GUITARIST, MAHAVISHNU
ORCHESTRA
HE DIDN'T DIE FROM
A DRUG OVERDOSE. HE WAS NOT AN OUT-OF-CONTROL DOPE FIEND. JIMI HENDRIX
WAS NOT A JUNKIE. AND ANYONE WHO WOULD USE HIS DEATH AS A WARNING TO
STAY AWAY FROM DRUGS SHOULD WARN PEOPLE AGAINST THE OTHER THINGS THAT
KILLED JIMI -- THE STRESSES OF DEALING WITH THE MUSIC INDUSTRY,
THE CRAZINESS OF BEING ON THE ROAD, AND ESPECIALLY, THE DANGERS OF
INVOLVING ONESELF IN A RADICAL, OR EVEN UNPOPULAR, POLITICAL MOVEMENTS.
COINTELPRO WAS OUT
TO DO MORE THAN PREVENT A COMMUNIST MENACE FROM OVERTAKING THE UNITED
STATES, OR KEEP THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT FROM BURNING DOWN CITIES.
COINTELPRO WAS OUT TO OBLITERATE ITS OPPOSITION AND RUIN THE REPUTATIONS
OF THE PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT, THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT, AND THE ROCK REVOLUTION. WHENEVER JIMI HENDRIX'S DEATH
IS BLAMED ON DRUGS, IT ACCOMPLISHES THE GOALS OF THE FBI'S
PROGRAM. IT NOT ONLY SLANDERS JIMI'S PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL
REPUTATION, BUT THE ENTIRE ROCK REVOLUTION IN THE 1960s. JOHN
HOLMSTROM, "WHO KILLED JIMI?!" [1]
As the music of
youth and resistance fell under the cross-hairs of the CHAOS war, it is
not unthinkable that Jimi Hendrix -- the tripping, peacenik "Black
Elvis" of the '60s -- found himself a target.
Agents of the
pathologically nationalistic FBI opened a file on Hendrix in 1969 after
his appearance at several benefits for "subversive" causes. His most
cutting insult to the state was participation in a concert for Jerry
Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, Bobby Seale and the other defendants
of the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial. [2] "[We have to] get the Black
Panthers not to kill anybody," he told a reporter for a teen magazine,
"but to scare [federal officials] .... I know it sounds like war,
but that's what's gonna have to happen. It has to be a war. ... You come
back to reality and there are some evil folks around and they want you
to be passive and weak and peaceful so that they can just overtake you
like jelly on bread. ... You have to fight fire with fire." [3]
On tour in
Liesburg, Sweden, Hendrix was interviewed by Tommy Rander, a reporter
for the Gotesborgs-Tidningen. "In the USA, you have to decide which side
you're on," Hendrix explained. "You are either a rebel or like Frank
Sinatra." [4]
In 1979, college
students at the campus newspaper of Santa Barbara University (USB) filed
for release of FBI files on Hendrix. Six heavily inked-out pages were
released to the student reporters. (The deletions nixed information
"currently and properly classified pursuant to Executive Order 11652, in
the interest of national defense of foreign policy.") On appeal, seven
more pages were reluctantly turned over to the USB students.
The file revealed
that Hendrix had been placed on the federal "Security Index," a list of
"subversives" to be rounded up and placed in detainment camps in the
event of a national emergency.
If the
intelligence agencies had their reasons to keep tabs on Hendrix, they
couldn't have picked a better man for the job than Hendrix's manager,
Mike Jeffrey. Jeffrey, by his own admission an intelligence agent, [5]
was born in South London in 1933, the sole child of postal workers. He
completed his education in 1949, took a job as a clerk for Mobil Oil,
was drafted to the National Service two years later. Jeffrey's
scores in science took him to the Educational Corps. He signed on as a
professional soldier, joined the Intelligence Corps, and at this point
his career enters an obscure phase.
Hendrix
biographers Shapiro and Glebeek report that Jeffrey often boasted of
"undercover work against the Russians, of murder, mayhem and torture in
foreign cities. ... His father says Mike rarely spoke about what
he did -- itself perhaps indicative of the sensitive nature of his work
-- but confirms that much of Mike's military career was spent in
'civvies,' that he was stationed in Egypt and that he could speak
Russian." [6]
There was,
however, another, equally intriguing side of Mike Jeffrey. He frequently
hinted that he had powerful underworld connections. It was common
knowledge that he had had an abiding professional relationship with
Steve Weiss, the attorney for both the Hendrix Experience and the
Mafia-managed Vanilla Fudge, hailing from the law firm of Seingarten,
Wedeen & Weiss. On one occasion, when drummer Mitch Mitchell found
himself in a fix with police over a boat he'd rented and wrecked,
mobsters from the Fudge management office intervened and pried him
loose. [7]
Organized crime
has had fingers in the recording industry since the jukebox wars.
Mafioso Michael Franzene testified in open court in the late 1980s that
"Sonny" Franzene, his stepfather, was a silent investor in Buddah
Records. [8] At this industry oddity the inane, nasal, apolitical 1960s
"bubblegum" song was blown from the goo of adolescent mating fantasies.
The most popular of Buddah's acts were the 1910 Fruitgum Company and
Ohio Express. These bands shared a lead singer, Joey Levine. Some
cultural contributions from the Buddha label: "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy,"
"Simon Says," and "1-2-3 Red Light."
In 1971, Buddha
Records' Bobby Bloom was killed in a shooting sometimes described as
"accidental," sometimes "suicide," at the age of 28. Bloom made a number
of solo records, including "Love Don't Let Me Down," and "Count On Me."
He formed a partnership with composer Jeff Barry and they wrote songs
for the Monkees in their late period. Bloom made the Top 10 with the
effervescent "Montego Bay" in 1970. Other Mafia-managed acts of the late
1960s were equally apolitical: Vanilla Fudge ("You Keep Me Hangin' On,"
"Bang, Bang"), [9] or Motown's Gladys Knight and the Pips. [10] In the
'60s and beyond, organized crime wrenched unto itself control of
industry workers via the Teamster's Union. Trucking was Mob controlled.
So were stadium concessions. No rock bands toured unless money exchanged
hands to see that a band's instruments weren't delivered to the wrong
airport. [11]
Intelligence agent
or representative of the mob? Whether Jeffrey was either or both -- and
the evidence is clear that a CIA/Mafia combination has exercised
considerable influence in the music industry for decades -- at a certain
point, Hendrix must have seen something that made him desperately want
out of his management contract with Jeffrey.
Monika Dannemann,
Hendrix's fiance at the time of his death describes Mike Jeffrey's
control tactics, his attempts to isolate and manipulate Hendrix, with
observations of his evolving awareness that Jeffrey was a covert
operator bent on dominating his life and mind:
Jimi felt more and more unsafe in
New York, the city where he used to feel so much at home. It had begun
to serve as a prison to him, and a place where he had to watch his back
all the time.
In May 1969 Jimi was arrested at
Toronto for possession of drugs. He later told me he believed Jeffrey
had used a third person to plant the drugs on him -- as a warning, to
teach him a lesson.
Jeffrey had realized not only that
Jimi was looking for ways of breaking out of their contract, but also
that Jimi might have calculated that the Toronto arrest would be an easy
way to silence Jimi. ... Jeffrey did not like Jimi to have friends
who would put ideas in his head and give him strength. He preferred Jimi
to be more isolated, or to mix with certain people whom Jeffrey could
use to influence and try to manipulate him.
So in New York, Jimi felt at times
that he was under surveillance, and others around him noticed the same.
He tried desperately to get out of his management contract, and asked
several people for advice on the best way to do it. Jimi started to
understand the people around him could not be trusted, as things he had
told them in confidence now filtered through to Jeffrey. Obviously some
people informed his manager of Jimi's plans, possibly having been bought
or promised advantages by Jeffrey. Jimi had always been a trusting and
open person, but now he had reason to become suspicious of people he
didn't know well, becoming quite secretive and keeping very much to
himself. [12]
Five years after
the death of the virtuoso, Crawdaddy reported that friends of Hendrix
felt "he was very unhappy and confused before his death. Buddy Miles
recalled numerous times he complained about his managers." His chief
roadie, Gerry Stickells, told Welch, "he became frustrated ... by a lot
of people around him." [13]
Hendrix was
obsessed with the troubles that Jeffrey and company brought to his life
and career. The band's finances were entirely controlled by management
and were depleted by a tax haven in the Bahamas founded in 1965 by
Michael Jeffrey called Yameta Co., a subsidiary of the Bank of New
Providence, with accounts at the Naussau branch of the Bank of Nova
Scotia and the Chemical Bank in New York. [14] A substantial share of
the band's earnings had been quietly drained by Yameta. The banks
where Jeffrey opened accounts have been officially charged with the
laundering of drug proceeds, a universal theme of CIA/Mafia activity.
The Chemical Bank was forced to plead guilty to 445 misdemeanors in 1980
when a federal investigation found that bank officials had failed to
report transactions they knew to derive from drug trafficking. [15] The
Bank of Nova Scotia was a key investor in the Bank of Commerce and
Credit International, (BCCI), once described by Time magazine as
"the most pervasive money-laundering operation and financial supermarket
ever created," with ties to the upper echelons of several governments,
the CIA, the Pentagon, and the Vatican. [16] BCCI maintained warm
relationships with international terrorists, and investigators turned up
accounts for Libya, Syria and the PLO at BCCI's London branch, recalling
Mike Jeffrey's military intelligence interest in the Middle East. And
then there were bank records from Panama City relating to General
Noriega. These "disappeared" en route to the District of Columbia under
heavy DEA guard. An internal investigation later, DEA officials admitted
they were at a loss to explain the theft. [17]
Friends of
Hendrix, according to Electric Gypsy, confiscated financial documents
from his New York office and turned them over to Jimi: "One showed that
what was supposed to be a $10,000 gig was in fact grossing $50,000."
"Jimi Hendrix was
upset that large amounts of his money were missing," reports rock
historian R. Gary Patterson. Hendrix had discovered the financial
diversions and took legal action to recover them. [18]
But there was
another factor also involving funds.
Some of Hendrix's friends have concluded that "Jeffrey stood to make a
greater sum of money from a dead Jimi Hendrix than a living one. There
was also mention of a one million dollar insurance policy covering
Hendrix's life made out with Jeffrey as the beneficiary." The manager of
the Experience constructed "a financial empire based on the posthumous
releases of Hendrix's previously unreleased recordings." [19] Crushing
musical voices of dissent was proving to be an immensely
profitable enterprise because a dead rocker leaves behind a fortune in
publishing rights and royalties.
Roadies couldn't
help but notice that Mike Jeffrey, the seasoned military intelligence
officer, was capable of "subtle acts of sabotage against them," reports
Shapiro. Jeffrey booked the Experience for a concert tour with the
Monkees and Hendrix was forced to cancel when the agony of playing to
hordes of 12-year-old children, and fear of a parental backlash,
convinced him to bailout.
As for the arrest
in Toronto, Hendrix confidantes also blame Jeffrey for the planted
heroin. The charges were dropped after Hendrix argued that the unopened
container of dope had been dropped into his travel bag upon departure by
a girl who claimed that it was cold medicine. [20]
In July, 1970, one
month before his death, at precisely the time Hendrix stopped all
communications with Jeffrey, he told Chuck Wein, a film director at Andy
Warhol's Factory: "The next time I go to Seattle will be in a pine box."
[21]
And he knew who
would drop him in it. Producer Alan Douglas recalls that Hendrix "had a
hang-up about the word 'manager."' The guitarist had pled with Douglas,
the proprietor of his own jazz label, to handle the band's business
affairs. One of the most popular musicians in the world was desperate.
He appealed to a dozen business contacts to handle his bookings and
finances, to no avail. [22]
Meanwhile, the
sabotage continued in every possible form. Douglas: "Regardless of
whatever else Jimi wanted to do, Mike would keep pulling him back or
pushing him back. ... And the way the gigs were routed! I mean, one
nighters -- he would do Ontario one night, Miami the next night,
California the next night. He used to waste [Hendrix] on a tour -- and
never make too much money because the expenses were ridiculous." [23]
The obits were a
jumbled lot of skewed, contradictory eulogies: DRUGS KILL JIMI
HENDRIX AT 24, ROCK STAR IS DEAD IN LONDON AT 27, OVERDOSE. Many of the
obituaries dwelt on the "wild man of rock" image, but there were also
many personal commentaries from reporters who followed his career
closely, and they dismissed as hype reports of chronic drug abuse.
Mike Ledgerwood, a writer for Disc and Music Echo, offered a portrait
that the closest friends of Jimi Hendrix confirm: "Despite his fame and
fortune -- plus the inevitable hang-ups and hustles which beset his
incredible career -- he remained a quiet and almost timid individual.
He was naturally helpful and honest." Sounds magazine "found a
man of quite remarkable charm, an almost old-world courtesy."
Hendrix biographer
Tony Brown has, since the mid-'70s, collected all the testimony he could
find relating to Hendrix's death, and finds it "tragic" but
"predictable." The official cause of death was asphyxiation caused by
inhaling his own vomit, but in the days and weeks leading up to the
tragedy anyone with an ounce of common sense could see that Hendrix was
heading for a terrible fall. Unfortunately, no one close to him managed
to steer him clear of the maelstrom that was closing in. Brown sent a
report based on his own investigation to the Attorney General's office
in February, 1992, "in the hope that they would reopen the inquest into
Jimi's death. The evidence was so strong that they ordered Scotland Yard
detectives to conduct their own investigation." Months later, detectives
at the Yard responded to Sir Nicholas Lyle at the Attorney General's
office, rejecting the proposal to revive the inquest. [24]
The pathologist's
report left the cause of death "open." Monika Dannemann had long
insisted that Hendrix was murdered. At the time of her own death, she
had brought media attention to the case in a bitter and
highly-publicized court battle with former Hendrix girlfriend Kathy
Etchingham. On April 5, 1996, her body was discovered in a fume-filled
car near her home in Seaford, Sussex, south England. Police dismissed
the death as a "suicide" and the corporate press took dictation. But the
Eastern Daily Press, a newspaper that circulates in the East
Anglian region of the UK, raised another possibility: "Musician Uli Jon
Roth, speaking at the thatched cottage where Miss Dannemann lived, said
last night: 'The thing looks suspicious. She had a lot of death
threats against her over the years. ... I always felt that she was
really being crucified in front of everybody, and there was nothing
anyone could do about it.' Mr. Roth, formerly with the group The
Scorpions, said Miss Danneman 'is not a person to do something to
herself."' Roth threw one more inconsistency on the lot: "She
didn't believe in the concept of suicide."
Devon Wilson,
another Hendrix paramour, in Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell's view,
"died under mysterious circumstances herself a few years later." [25]
Red, Red Wine
Was Hendrix
murdered while under the influence? Stanton Steele, an authority on
addiction, offers a seemingly plausible explanation, "Extremely
intoxicated people while asleep often lose the reflexive tendency to
clear one's throat of mucus, or they may strangle in their vomit. This
appeared to have happened to Jimi Hendrix, who had taken both alcohol
and prescription barbiturates the night of his death." [26]
PRESS REPORTS
ON THE DEATH OF JIMI HENDRIX CLAIMED FALSELY THAT THE VIRTUOSO OVERDOSED
ON HEROIN.
Evidence has
recently come to light clarifying the cause of death -- extreme alcohol
consumption aggravated by the barbiturates in Hendrix's bloodstream --
drowning. Hendrix is said to have choked to death after swallowing nine
Vesperax sleeping tablets. This is not the lethal dose he'd have taken
if suicide was the intent -- he surely would have swallowed the
remaining 40 or so pills in the packets Dannemann gave him if this was
the idea -- as Eric Burdon, the Animals' vocalist and a friend of
Hendrix, has suggested over the years.
Hendrix was not
felled by a drug overdose, as many news reports claimed. The pills were
a sleeping aid, and not a very effective one at that. The two Vesperax
that Dannemann saw him take before she fell asleep at 3 AM failed to put
him under. He had taken a Durophet 20 amphetamine capsule at a dinner
party the evening before. And then Hendrix, a chronic insomniac with an
escalated tolerance level for barbiturates, had tried the Vesperax
before and they proved ineffective. He apparently believed nine tablets
would do him no harm.
At 10 AM,
Dannemann awoke and went out for a pack of cigarettes, according to her
inquest testimony. When she returned, he was sick. She phoned Eric
Bridges, a friend, and informed him that Hendrix wasn't well. "Half
asleep," Bridges reported in his autobiography, "I suggested she give
him hot coffee and slap his face. If she needed any more help to call me
back." Dannemann called the ambulance at 18 minutes past 11 AM. The
ambulance arrived nine minutes later. Hendrix was not, she
claimed, in critical condition. She said the paramedics checked his
pulse and breathing, and stated there was "nothing to worry about."
But a direct
contradiction came in an interview with Reg Jones, one of the
attendants, who insisted that Dannemann wasn't at the flat when they
arrived, and that Hendrix was already dead. "It was horrific," Jones
said. "We arrived at the flat and the door was flung wide open. ... I
knew he was dead as soon as I walked into the room." Ambulance
attendant John Suau confirmed, "We knew it was hopeless. There was no
pulse, no respiration." [27]
The
testimonies of Dannemann and medical personnel at the 1970 inquest are
disturbingly contradictory. Hendrix, the medical personnel stated,
had been dead for at least seven hours by the time the ambulance
arrived. Dr. Rufus Compson at the Department of Forensic Medicine at St.
George's Medical School undertook his own investigation. He referred to
the original medical examiner's report and discovered that there were
rice remains in Hendrix's stomach. It takes three-four hours for the
stomach to empty, he reasoned, and the deceased ate Chinese food at a
dinner party hosted by Pete Cameron between the hours of 11 PM and
midnight, placing the time of death no later than 4 AM.2 [28] This is
consistent with the report of Dr. Bannister, the surgical registrar,
that "the inside of his mouth and mucous membranes were black because he
had been dead for some time." Dr. Bannister told the London Times,
"Hendrix had been dead for hours rather than minutes when he was
admitted to the hospital." [29]
The inquest itself
was "unusual," Tony Brown notes, because "none of the other witnesses
involved were called to give their evidence, nor was any attempt made to
ascertain the exact time of death," as if the subject was to be avoided.
The result was that the public record on this basic fact in the case may
have been incorrectly cited by scores of reporters and biographers. Tony
Brown: "Even [medical examiner] Professor Teare made no attempt to
ascertain the exact time of death. The inquest appeared to be conducted
merely as a formality and had not been treated by the coroner as a
serious investigation." [30]
In 'S'cuse Me
While I Kiss the Sky (1996), Bill Henderson describes the inquest
and its aftermath: "Those who followed his death ... noticed many
inconsistencies in the official inquest. It has been an open and shut
affair that managed to hide its racist intent behind the public
perceptual hoax of Hendrix as a substance abuser. ... As a result,
millions of people all over the world thought that Hendrix had died that
typical rock star's death: drug OD amid fame, opulence, decadence.
But it seems that Hendrix could very well have been the victim not of
decadence, but of foul play." [31]
Forensic tests
submitted at the inquest have been supplemented over the years by new
evidence that makes a reconstruction of the murder possible. In October,
1991, Steve Roby, publisher of Straight Ahead, a Hendrix fanzine,
asked, "What Really Happened?": "Kathy Etchingham, a close
friend/lover of Jimi's, and Dee Mitchell, Mitch Mitchell's wife, spent
many months tracking down former friends and associates of Hendrix, and
are convinced they have solved the mystery of the final hours."
Central to
reconstructing Hendrix's death is red wine. Dr. Bannister reports that
after the esophagus had been cleared, "masses" of red wine were "coming
out of his nose and out of his mouth." The wine gushing up in great
volume from Hendrix's lungs "is very vivid because you don't often see
people who have drowned in their own red wine. He had something
around him -- whether it was a towel or a jumper -- around his
neck and that was saturated with red wine. His hair was matted. He was
completely cold. I personally think he probably died a long time before.
... He was cold and he was blue." [31]
Henderson writes:
The abstract
morbidity of Hendrix's body upon discovery may indicate a more complex
scenario than has been commonly held. Hendrix was not a red wine
guzzler, especially in the amounts found in and around his body. He was
known to be moderate in his consumption. If he was 'sleeping
normally,' then why was he fully clothed? And how could the ambulance
attendants have missed seeing someone who was supposed to be
there? The garment, or towel, around his neck is totally mysterious
given the scenario so widely distributed. But it is consistent with the
doctor's statement that he drowned. Was he drowned by force? In a radio
interview broadcast out of Holland in the early 1970s, an unnamed
girlfriend answered 'yes' to the question, 'Was Hendrix killed by the
Mafia?' [33]
Tony Brown, in
Hendrix: The Final Days (1997), correlates the consumption of the wine
to the approximate time of death: "Jimi must have drunk a large quantity
of red wine just prior to his death," suggesting, the quantity of
alcohol in his lungs was the direct cause. [34]
The
revised time of death, 3-4 AM, contradicts the gap in the official
record, and so does the revelation that Jimi Hendrix drowned in red
wine. While it is common knowledge that Hendrix choked to death, it has
only recently come to light that the wine -- not the Verparex -- was the
primary catalyst of death. Hendrix was, the evidence suggests, forced to
drink a quantity of wine. The barbiturates, as Brown notes, "seriously
inhibited Jimi's normal cough reflex." Unable to cough the wine
back up, "it went straight down into his lungs. ... It is quite possible
that he thrashed about for some time, fighting unsuccessfully to gain
his breath." [35] It is doubtful that Hendrix would have continued to
swallow the wine in "massive" volumes had it begun to fill his lungs.
One explanation that explains the forensic evidence is that Jimi Hendrix
was restrained, wine forced down his throat until his thrashings
ceased. All of this must have taken place quickly, before the alcohol
had time to enter his bloodstream. The post mortem report states that
the blood alcohol level was not excessive, about 20 mg over the legal
drinking limit. He died before his stomach absorbed much of the wine.
Jimi Hendrix choked to death. That much of the general
understanding of his demise is correct, and little else.
The kidnapping,
embezzling, and numerous shady deceptions would make Jeffrey the leading
suspect in any proper police investigation. And his reaction at the news
of Hendrix's death did little to dispel any suspicions that associates
may have harbored. Jim Marron, a nightclub owner from Manhattan, was
vacationing with Jeffrey in Spain when word of the musician's death
reached him. "We were supposed to have dinner that night in Majorca,"
Marron recalls. Jeffrey "called me from his club in Palma saying that we
would have to cancel. ... I've just got word from London. Jimi's dead."
The manager of the Hendrix Experience took the news completely in
stride. "I always knew that son of a bitch would pull a quickie,"
Jeffrey told Marron. "Basically, he had lost a major property. You had
the feeling that he had just lost a couple of million dollars -- and was
the first to realize it. My first reaction was, Oh my God, my friend is
dead." [36] But Jeffrey reacted coldly, comparing the fatality to
a fleeting sexual romp in the afternoon.
His
odd behavior continued in the days following the death of Hendrix. He
appeared to be consumed by guilt, and on one occasion "confessed." On
September 20, recording engineer Alan Douglas received a call from
Jeffrey, who wanted to see him. Douglas drove to the hotel where Jeffrey
was staying. "He was bent over, in misery from a recent back injury. We
started talking and he let it all out. It was like a confession."
"In
my opinion," Douglas observed, "Jeffrey hated Hendrix."
Bob Levine, the
band's merchandising manager, was perplexed by Jeffrey's response to the
tragedy. First, Hendrix's manager dropped completely out of sight. "We
tried calling all of Jeffrey's contacts ... trying to reach him. We were
getting frustrated because Hendrix's body was going to be held up in
London for two weeks and we wanted Jeffrey's input on the funeral
service. A full week after Hendrix's death, he finally called. Hearing
his voice, I immediately asked what his plans were and would he be going
to Seattle. 'What plans?' he asked. I said, 'The funeral.' 'What
funeral?' he replied. I was exasperated: 'Jimi's!' The phone went quiet
for a while and then he hung up. The whole office was staring at me,
unable to believe that with all the coverage on radio, print and
teIevision, Jeffrey didn't know that Jimi had died." As noted, Jeffrey
had been notified and almost grieved, in his fashion. "He called back in
five minutes and we talked quietly. He said, 'Bob, I didn't know,' and
was asking about what had happened. While I didn't confront him, I knew
he was lying." [37]
It was reported
that Michael Jeffrey "paid his respects" sitting in a limousine parked
outside Dunlap Baptist Church in Seattle. He refused to go inside for
the eulogy. [38] Hendrix was buried at the family plot at Greenwood
Cemetery in Renton.
Screenwriter Alan
Greenberg was hired to write a screenplay for a film on the life of Jimi
Hendrix. He traveled to England and taped an interview with Dannemann
shortly before her death in April, 1996. In that interview, Dannemann
sketched in more details of Jeffrey's skullduggery, which continued
after Hendrix's death and has long been concealed behind a wall of
misconceptions. On the Greenberg tapes, Dannemann denied allegations of
heroin use, as do others close to Hendrix: "You should put that into the
right perspective since all of the youngsters still think he was a drug
addict. The problem was, when he died, I was told by the coroner not to
talk until after the inquest, so that's why all these wild stories came
out that he overdosed from heroin." The coroner found no injection
tracks on Hendrix's body. That he snorted the opiate, a charge advanced
by biographer Chris Welch in Hendrix, is disputed by Jimi's
closest friends. He indulged primarily in marijuana and LSD. The popular
misconception that Hendrix was a heroin addict lingers on but should
have been buried with him. One of rock's greatest talents was
maliciously smeared by the press on this count.
At times, the
public has been deliberately misled about Hendrix's drug habits. Kathy
Etchingham, a former girlfriend, was deceived into giving an article
about Jimi to a friend in the corporate media, and it was snatched up by
a newspaper, rewritten, and the story that emerged depicted the
guitarist as a violent and drug-infested lunatic. The editor later
apologized in writing to Kathy for falsifying the record, but failed to
retract in print. [39] Media swipes at Hendrix to this day are often
unreasonably vicious, as in this transparent attempt to shape public
opinion from London's Times on December 14, 1993:
Not only did [Hendrix] leave
several memorable compositions behind him; he left a good-looking
corpse. Kathy Etchingham, a middle-class mother of two, who used to be
one of Hendrix's lovers, still mourns his passing and is seeking to
persuade the police that there is something suspicious about the
circumstances in which he died. Quite why she should bother is hard to
say. Perhaps she is bored.
Hendrix, we are
advised, "lived an absurdly self-indulgent life and died, in essence, of
stupidity."
Close friends of
Jimi Hendrix suggest that Jeffrey was the front man for a surreptitious
sponsor, the FBI, CIA, or Mafia. In 1975, Crawdaddy magazine
launched its own investigation and concluded that a death squad of some
kind had targeted him: "Hendrix is not the only artist to have had his
career sabotaged by unscrupulous sharks and leeches." The recent memory
of the death of Average White Band drummer Robby McIntosh from
strychnine-laced heroin circulating at a party in Los Angeles "only
serves to update this fact of rock 'n' roll life. But an industry that
accepts these tragedies in cold blood demonstrates its true nature --
and the Jimi Hendrix music machine cranks on, unencumbered by the
absence of Hendrix himself. One wonders who'll be the next in line?"
[40]
On March 5, as if
in reply, Michael Jeffrey, every musician's nightmare, was blown out of
the sky in an airplane collision over France, enroute to a court
appearance in London related to Hendrix. Jeffrey was returning
from Palma aboard an Iberia DC-9 in the midst of a French civil air
traffic control strike. Military controllers were called in as
contingency replacements for the controllers. Hendrix biographer Bill
Henderson considers the midair collision fuel for "paranoia." The nature
of military airline control "necessitated rigorous planning,
limited traffic on each sector, and strict compliance with regulations.
The DC-9 however was assigned to the same flight over Nantes as a
Spantax Coronado, which 'created a source of conflict.' And because of
imprecise navigation, lack of complete radar coverage, and imperfect
radio communications, the two planes collided. The Coronado was damaged
but remained airworthy; no one was injured. The DC-9 crashed, killing
all 61 passengers and seven crew. ..." There are theories that Jeffrey
was merely a tool, a mouthpiece for the real villains lurking in
the wings, that he was "the target of assassination." [41]
A quarter-century
after Hendrix died, his father finally won control of the musical
legacy. Under a settlement signed in 1995, the rights to his son's music
were granted to 76-year-old Al Hendrix, the sole heir to the estate. The
agreement, settled in court, forced Hendrix to drop a fraud suit filed
two years earlier against Leo Branton Jr., the L.A. civil rights
attorney who represented Angela Davis and Nat King Cole. Hendrix accused
his lawyer of selling the rights to the late rock star's publishing
catalogue without consent.
Hendrix, Sr. filed
the suit on April 19, 1993, after learning that MCA Music Entertainment
-- a company rife with Mafia connections -- was readying to snatch up
his son's recording and publishing rights from two international
companies that claimed to own them. The MCA deal, estimated to be
worth $40 million, was put on hold after objections were raised in
a letter to the Hollywood firm from Hendrix. By this time, Experience
albums generated more than $3 million per annum in royalties, and $1
million worth of garments, posters and paraphernalia bearing his name
and likeness are sold each year. All told, Al Hendrix should
receive $2 million over 20 years. [42]
NOTES
1. John Holstrom,
"Who Killed Jimi?" Lions Gate Media Works, http://lionsgate.com/Music/hendrix/I_Dont_Live
Today.html
2. John Raymond
and Marv Class, "The FBI Investigated Jimi Hendrix," Common Ground,
University of Santa Barbara, CA student newspaper, vol. iv, no. 9,
June 7, 1979, p. 1
3. "Jimi Hendrix,
Black Power and Money," Teenset, January, 1969.
4. Tony Brown,
Hendrix The Final Days, London: Rogan House, 1997, p. 43.
5. On Mike
Jeffrey's undefined politics, see. John McDermott with Eddie Kramer,
Hendrix Setting the Record Straight, New York: Warner, 1992, p. 180.
6. Harry Shapiro
and Ceasar Blebbeek, Jimi Hendrix, Electric Gypsy, New York: St.
Martin's, 1990, p.120.
7. Bill Henderson,
"IT'S LIKE TRYING TO GET OUT OF A ROOM FULL OF MIRRORS," Jimi Hendrix
web page, http.//www.rockmine.music.co.uk/jimih.html.
8. Fredric Dannen,
Hit Men, Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Industry, New
York: Times Books, 1990, p. 164-5.
9. Shapiro and
Blebbeek, Jimi Hendrix, Electric Gypsy, New York. St. Martin's, 1990, p.
294. The Fudge once booked a tour with Jimi Hendrix, per arrangement
between the band's mobbed-up management and Michael Jeffrey, Hendrix's
manager.
10. Dannen, p.
165.
11. Shapiro and
Glebbeek, p. 295.
12. Monika
Dannemann, The Inner World of Jimi Hendrix, New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1995, pp 76-8.
13. John Swenson,
"The Last Days of Jimi Hendrix," Crawdaddy, January, 1975, p. 43.
14 Ibid., p. 488.
15. "Banks and
Narcotics Money Flow in South Florida," US Senate Banking Committee
report, 96th Congress, June 5- 6, 1980, p. 201
16. Jonathon
Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots. A Truee Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and
the CIA, New York: Touchstone, 1987, p. 153.
17. Josh Rodin,
"BANK OF CROOKS AND CRIMINALS?" Topic 105, Christic News, August 6,
1991.
18. R. Gary
Patterson, Hellhounds on Their Trail. Tales from the Rock n' Roll
Graveyard, Nashville, Tennessee. Dowling Press, 1998, p. 208.
19. lbid.
20. Shapiro and
Glebbeek, p. 473.
21. Shapiro and
Glebeek, p. 477.
22. Swenson. In
Crosstown Traffic (1989), Charles Murray reports that Hendrix "began
consulting independent lawyers and accountants with a view of sorting
out his tangled finances and freeing himself from Mike Jeffrey," p. 55.
23 Henderson
website.
24. Brown, p. 7.
25 Mitch Mitchell
with John Platt, Jimi Hendrix -- Inside the Experience, New York: St.
Martin's, 1990, p. 160.
26. E. Stanton
Steele, "The Human Side Of Addiction. What caused John Belushi's death?"
US Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence, April 1982, p. 7.
27. David
Henderson, 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, New York: Bantam, 1996, pp.
389-90.
28. Brown, p. 164.
29. Henderson, p.
392
30. Brown, p. 163.
31. Henderson, p.
388.
32. Ibid., p. 392.
33. Henderson, 'Scuse
Me While I Kiss the Sky, p. 393. If the Mafia did indeed participate,
Hendrix wasn't the first African-American musician to have a contract on
his head. In May 1955, jazz sax man Wardell Gray was murdered, probably
by Mafia hitmen. Gray had toured with Benny Goodman and Count Basie in
1948. His remarkable recording sessions of the late 1940s, especially
with Dexter Gordon, brought him fame. Bill Moody, a jazz drummer
and disk jockey, published a novel in 1996, Death of a Tenor Man, based
on the life and death of Gray. "It's strange," a publisher's press
release comments, "that 1950s Las Vegas, a town in which the Mob and
corrupt police worked hand in glove, became the home of the first
integrated nightclub in the country. The Moulin Rouge was owned by
blacks and had the honor of being the only casino hotel in Vegas that
allowed African-Americans to mingle with white customers. On opening
night, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra sat in with Benny Carter's band.
The second night, Wardell Gray, a black sax player in the Carter band
with a growing reputation, was beaten to death. The police said he
overdosed and 'fell out of bed,' dying later 'of complications.' Some
suspected Gray's death was the Mob's way of telling the African-
American businessmen who backed the Moulin Rouge that 'this town isn't
big enough for the both of us.'" Gray's murder has never been
investigated. It "hung over the Moulin Rouge like a storm cloud" and
remains unsolved. The casino went out of business a few months later.
And the 1961
attempt on the life of soul singer Jackie Wilson has never been
rationally explained. Wilson was shot in the stomach by a fan supposedly
trying to "prevent a fan from killing herself." He recovered from the
assault and went on to release "No Pity (In the Naked City)" and "Higher
and Higher."
The Halloween 1975
murder of Al Jackson, percussionist for Booker T. and the MGs, at the
age of 39, also appeared to be a premeditated hit. Barbara
Jackson, his wife, was the sole eyewitness. She told police, according
to Rolling Stone, that she "arrived home on the night of the shooting
and was met by a gun-wielding burglar who tied her hands behind her back
with an ironing cord." Al Jackson, who'd been taking in a closed circuit
teecast of the Muhammad Ali Joe Frazier fight, arrived an hour later.
Any burglar would have collected valuables in the house and fled by this
time, but he waited a full hour for Jackson to return home. Barbara
Jackson was freed from the ropes and the "burglar" ordered her at
gunpoint to open the door for him. "After confronting Jackson and asking
him for money, the intruder forced him to lie on the floor. He then shot
Jackson five times in the back and left." (Rolling Stone, November
1975).
34. Brown, p. 165.
35. Brown, pp.
165-66
36. McDermott and
Kramer, pp. 286-87.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Shapiro and
Glebeek, p. 474.
40. Swenson, p.
45.
41. Henderson
website
42. Chuck Philips,
"Father to Get Hendrix Song, Image Rights," Los Angeles Times (home
edition), July 26, 1995, p. 1 Also named as defendants were producer
Alan Douglas and several firms that have profited from the Hendrix
catalogue since 1974 under contracts negotiated by Branton: New
York-based ella Godiva Music Inc; Presentaciones Musicales SA (PMSA),
a Panamanian corporation; Bureau Voor Muzeikrechten Elber B.V. in
the Netherlands; and Interlit, based in the Virgin Islands.
Branton negotiated
two contracts in early 1974 -- signed by Al Hendrix -- that relinquished
all rights to his son's "unmastered" tapes for $50,000 to PMSA and all
his stock in Bella Godiva, his son's music publishing company, for
$50,000. "PMSA and the other overseas companies were later discovered to
be part of a tax shelter system created by Harry Margolis," reported the
Los Angeles Times, "a Saratoga attorney whom federal prosecutors charged
but never convicted of tax fraud. The tax shelter plan collapsed after
Margolis' death in 1987, and also [prompted] complaints from the estates
of other entertainment clients, including singer Nat King Cole,
screenwriter Larry Hauben as well as from followers of New Age
philosopher Werner Erhard, who allegedly stashed revenues from his EST
enterprise in the foreign account."
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