Jimi Hendrix’s death has long been one of the few rock demises to lack a well-publicised conspiracy theory.
Over the years his death has been overshadowed by tinfoil-hatted conspiracies attached to the deaths of the likes of Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones and Jim Morrison of The Doors.
Indeed the popular perception of Hendrix’s demise seems to be that when he accidentally inhaled his own toxic vomit and passed away in 1970 at the age of 27, everyone just kind of murmered “woah, that’s heavy”, dropped a quaalude, and then continued tie-dyeing their kaftans.
But there have always been disagreements about how Jimi Hendrix popped his psychedelic clogs, and now an ex-roadie of his – who just happens to have a book to pimp – is claiming that the guitar genius had pills n’booze shoved down his gullet by his own bloody manager
James “Tappy” Wright writes in his startlingly-titled tome Rock Roadie that Jimi Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffrey, once confessed to having offed the star. The motivation? He stood to collect $2 million in insurance if Jimi died.
Michael Jeffrey himself died in a plane crash in 1973, meaning his alleged confession is now over 35 years old, but that does not apparently diminish the author’s ability to quote him:
I was in London the night of Jimi’s death and together with some old friends … we went round to Monika’s hotel room, got a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth … then poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe.
A few bottles? Down his windpipe? Yeah, that’d do it.
Impressive powers of recall from James “Tappy” Wright, then. One can’t help wondering, however, if the credibility of his claim may be harmed somewhat by the fact that he’s kept it to himself for over a quarter of a century, wheeling it out only as his book prepares to hit the shelves.
And let’s not forget this guy was a roadie, and his book’s about being a roadie – it’s probably fair to imagine that the remainder of the pages revolve around:
a) lugging amps
b) lugging instruments
c) lugging staging and lighting rigs
d) lugging the back of his jeans up to hide his arse cleavage
Oh, I’m sure there’s at least one story about taking advantage of a young Foxy Lady who hoped she’d get close to Jimi Hendrix if she flashed the hairy old guy with the tool belt. But the chances of Tappy coming up with an autobiography as interesting or entertainingly depraved as the many rock biographies that have gone before him must surely be slim.
The sequel, however, could be an altogether more fascinating read, telling the story of an ageing accessory to Jimi Hendrix’s murder as he lumbers across the globe attempting to escape the clutches of the police.
This was a guest blog by Stuart Waterman from the wonderful My Chemical Toilet. It’s wonderful.
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Karla says
LOL!!!
nyda says
seems like roadie boy might’ve fallen on hard times and he pulls this little revelation out of his ass! actual rockers always write the best autobiographies, who wants to read a roadie’s watered down version, especially when he revealed the only possible controversial piece?
dude says
while it’s no secret Jimi Hendrix’s death is sketch and involved foul play, this guy is trying to milk that for money and is really making Jimi’s legacy look bad and desperate.
of course I encourage everybody to do their research on Jimi’s death, and look at the autopsy. the man had almost no alcohol in his blood, 46 mgs only…and he asphyxiated on lung fulls of wine, which he himself did not voluntarily consume.
Jimi knew he was going to die though. his close friends all testify to this and he even told the foreign press he wouldn’t see 28 years old only a couple months before his birthday.
Adam Horovitz says
The comment below is posted on behalf of James ‘Tappy’ Wright author of Rock Roadie – check with Borkowski PR in the UK for confirmation.
“I knew what Mike Jeffrey had done and I kept quiet for all this time because I was terrified. It wasn
James says
I have long believed Jimi was murdered, if not by his notorious manager, Mike Jeffreys, then by the mob, CIA, etc. Jimi had
Andr says
Since 1988 I’ve red a lot about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and all the other people who died very young!!!
What about Jimi Hendrix???
Since he died at the age of 27 on September 18, 1970, there has been a lot of written!!!
9 sleeping-pills (Vesparax) and a lot of alcohol, they said!! It seems that the father of his German girlfriend Monika Danneman had a chemistry.
Monika herself took one sleeping-pill at the fatal day in 1970!!!
The coroner found a lot of red wine in his hair and in his body; he couldn’t exactly explain it!!!
Jimi Hendrix died 40 years ago and the “case” has never been closed till today!!!
My own conclusion:
There’s a good possibility Jimi Hendrix was murdered, but there’s no proof!!!
The people who can tell us more about it, had died too!! Monika Danneman “committed suicide” in 1996!!!
Buster says
The author of this cheap article does a serious disservice to Hendrix and his memory. People should understand that the media is controlled by the dark side and the truth will never be printed in it.
There’s a simple way to PROVE Hendrix was murdered. His blood barbiturate level was recorded at the autopsy as being 3.9mgs, which means he was passed-out. The attending Resuscitation Room physician Doctor Bannister witnessed a stomach and lungs full of wine like he had never seen in his career. He later determined that Jimi Hendrix was drowned in red wine instead of choking on his vomit. Since Jimi could not have drank any large amounts of wine while passed-out on sleeping pills that means someone else had to have poured the wine into him. And he could not have drank the wine earlier because it would necessarily have reflected in his blood alcohol content, which was only 5mg/100ml. This low blood alcohol content was seriously incongruent with the “bottles worth” of wine Doctor Bannister witnessed. And Jimi had a wine-soaked scarf around his neck and spilled wine saturated his bed and hair. This splashed pure wine is forensic evidence of wine spilled while waterboarding.
The autopsist recorded undigested rice in Jimi’s stomach. Since it takes about 4-5 hours for the stomach to clear its contents that means Jimi died less than 5 hours after eating the rice. Jimi was seen eating that rice at a party between 11pm and midnight, which means he died somewhere around 4am.
The autopsist, Doctor Teare, made the mistake of forming his opinions by means of Monika Dannemann’s account of that morning. He assumed Jimi had time to digest the wine down to 5mg overnight up until the official time of death at 11:30am. But further research since then, especially the rice stomach contents, prove Jimi died closer to 4am.
Sharon Lawrence called Monika Dannemann 2 days after Jimi’s murder to ask her about the wine. Monika reacted in an extremely stressful way moaning and whining and finally conceded she washed ‘sick’ off Jimi’s face with wine. She then abruptly changed the subject. However in her official account she said Jimi only had a small trickle of vomit running down his chin. The two ambulance men said Jimi was covered in a “horrific” amount of vomit from his shoulders up. What this is evidence of is Monika knew she could not explain away the profuse vomit while claiming she was sleeping right next to Jimi at the time. So she lied about the trickle of vomit in order to cover herself. It is very clearly obvious that Monika knew Jimi was dead. The reason the ambulance men found Jimi in the exact same position he died in was because he was obviously dead. That’s why no one bothered to roll him over and slap the vomit out of his throat, or clean the pile of vomit off him. They knew Michael Jeffery had waterboarded Jimi to death and there was no point. Monika’s statement to Lawrence was the obvious excuse for knowledge of this that it was. In any case Monika was recorded as saying “Jimi was a mess”. Since this conforms to the condition witnessed by the ambulance men that means she fatally-contradicted her official claim of “only a trickle of vomit”. But let’s practice some common sense here, no one washes a choking dying person’s face with wine. Monika was making a quick excuse for something she knew she couldn’t explain. She was making an excuse for the wine she was aware was used to waterboard Jimi Hendrix to death.
Monika claimed she road with the ambulance men to hospital and that one of them kept pushing Jimi’s head back. Her claim of being there and riding in the ambulance has been proven to be a lie. So maybe she is alluding to someone she witnessed pushing Jimi’s head back while he choked at the Samarkand? It matters not because the forensic evidence is conclusive and irrefutable and THAT’s why the British Government refuses to re-open the case.
Unfortunately the evidence points towards Eric Burdon knowing Jimi was murdered. Knowing how dangerous Jeffery was, especially since he was managed by him and had Jimi’s dead body in front of him as proof, Burdon’s quick claim of suicide looks like he was covering himself from possible revenge by Jeffery.
Fallen Angel says
I think Buster comes the closest to what really happened to Jimi Hendrix.I have read and watched years of interviews from Jimi Hendrix,people who were closest to him and all the investigational information involved in jimi’s death,from Doctors,EMS,Coroners reports.Anyone who has any doubt that Jimi Hendrix was murdered has to be very naive or stupid.Jimi and his so called friends know the truth.
Fallen Angel
Buster says
Yeah, thanks ‘Fallen Angel’. This is stuff that any first year criminology student or detective would have seen right away. The reason it wasn’t investigated at the time is because Jimi Hendrix’s death was a political assassination. British tabloids did CIA’s COINTELPRO dirty work by announcing Jimi had died from a heroin overdose even though the coroner said there was ZERO trace of heroin in his system or any traces of heroin use on his body. To this day, even with this screaming evidence of Jimi’s murder being so obvious and so brazenly denied by the authorities, Jimi’s death is still announced by those fascist Nazi murderers as being a moral lesson and drug overdose.
Some people need this interpreted to them. Jimi’s UPI reporter friend Sharon Lawrence heard about mess at Jimi’s death scene and spoke to Monika at the hotel Eric Burdon had her hiding out in the day after Jimi’s death. Monika was mainly interested in discussing her new career as a Hendrix painter, an opportunity Jimi’s death now provided. And this was 24 hours after Jimi died in her flat. Sharon Lawrence said this strange detachment was creepy. She then asked Monika about the wine that was spilled around Jimi at the death scene. Monika’s reaction was to moan, whine, and whimper in response to the question. For those who are slow on the uptake the reason Monika reacted that way to the question is because she was aware Jeffery had waterboarded Jimi to death with wine and was cornered by something she hadn’t expected to be asked.
Again, for those who need this explained to them slowly, Monika’s response to Lawrence that she “washed ‘sick’ off Jimi’s face with wine” was the quick off-the-cuff excuse she thought-up at the moment. Let me frame what is happening in this discussion between Sharon Lawrence and Monika Dannemann on September 19th 1970 in London. Sharon is curious about exactly how Jimi died. Monika is aware Michael Jeffery murdered Hendrix but is trying to lay low and play it off as an accident. Sharon sees all the clues but she doesn’t come to the correct conclusion and ultimately writes in her book ‘Jimi Hendrix Betrayed’ that Jimi may have committed suicide. Sharon wrote the book prior to all this Tappy Wright confession business. She, or anyone else, could have pursued this by asking: “Why then did you say Jimi only had a trickle of vomit on his chin? And that if he only had a small drool of vomit running down his chin then why would you need to wash’ sick’ off Jimi face with wine of all things? Especially when the small flat had warm water and a towel nearby and just as close as any wine would have been?” Nobody ever asked these basic questions until now.
Again, for those who need this interpreted slowly Monika either committed suicide or was “suicided” right before being forced into court by Etchingham to answer these questions. It’s very obvious to anyone with any common sense why that happened. No one bothered to point out to Monika that the ambulance men witnessed a Hendrix with a face full of vomit that hadn’t been “washed off”. Besides what person who isn’t retarded reacts to a choking dying person by washing their face with wine instead of trying to revive them by slapping the vomit out of their throat and getting them to breathe? Face it, everything we know tells us Monika and everyone else knew Jimi was dead and that he had been murdered by Jeffery. Devon knew this which is why she was found under the 8th floor window of the Chelsea Hotel 5 months later.
The so-called “Hendrix Community” has taken a pass on this evidence. They have no credibility. They are basically spineless jellyfish who see it as easier to let Jimi flap in the wind murdered than disrupt their hedonistic sucking-off his music and talent. This is something that hasn’t changed since the day Jimi was murdered. I condemn them.
What needs to be done here is either a mock trial needs to be filmed and presented showing the real evidence and how it was criminally-avoided by the British Government -or- a movie needs to be made showing the real story. As sinful as Jimi personally was himself, his story is very Christ-like. Christ’s story being the “Story of you and me”. Jimi knew he would be murdered by Jeffery for firing him.
Jimi Streets says
Another freeking ghoul squeezing dollars out of a man 40 years gone. I hope is book fails, and fails badly. This wanna-be whistle-blower should have spoken up decades ago if this were true. He very easily could have gone to the police and told them what he “knew”. How would anyone know that it was a road-goat that informed them? Did Jeffrey tell the Mob that he confessed to a roadie? That’s the thing with conspiracies: It takes lots of people to pull it off, then lots of people to keep it quiet. If Jeffrey was cold-hearted enough to murder Jimi, why in the hell would he then turn around and confess to a freeking roadie?! Crap like this does nothing more than fuel the internet fires among simple-minded conspiracy sleuths with too much time on their hands that love to think they possess some special knowledge that the simple uninformed public does not. PLEASE, just let the great man rest in peace, okay? Geez…
Buster says
Jimi Streets, unfortunately, represents too large a segment of the “Hendrix Community”. His questions are foolish and are easily shown to be by simple research that he obviously hasn’t bothered to do – but still insists on offering a strongly-held opinion.
Jimi Streets ignores the fact that the British Government has been covering-up the truth behind Hendrix’s death from day one. Not only did they do no basic criminal investigation, or explore Michael Jeffery’s more than obvious motives, but they also took Monika Dannemann’s easily-disproven lies and used them directly to form their official verdict. Jimi Streets apparently accepts this without question himself and sees nothing wrong with it.
Tappy Wright had good reason to not come forward. Devon Wilson was spreading the word Jimi was murdered and she ended up dead herself in a way that was also never investigated. Tappy wasn’t a fool, he saw the corruption and non-investigation that was happening and shut-up out of fear and self-preservation. He wasn’t the only one to do that. Eric Burdon and Monika also shut-up.
Tappy was more involved with this than people know. He’s not the advantage-taking exploiter Jimi Streets tries to paint him as. He was heavily involved with Jeffery’s office and ran suitcases of cash to the Bahamas for Jeffery and also witnessed other Jeffery employees doing so, including Jeffery himself. Tappy knew the dirty business Jeffery was involved in personally. He even went to the New Jersey house of the New York mafioso Jeffery was borrowing money from as a bag man. He had a lot to fear, so his shutting-up isn’t as suspicious as ill-informed Jimi Streets tries to make it. Jimi Streets is the denier he looks like, and is trying to avoid all the pertinent evidence by calling Tappy Wright a fraud. The evidence, however, won’t let him get away with that.
Any fool can see that Jimi Streets spends all his time answering his own denier logic. He spends zero time answering the provable facts. He’s simply a person looking to satisfy all the weak arguments that justify his denial. Any intelligent, honest person who actually bothers to address the operative evidence (which Jimi Streets grants himself the privilege of not doing) would see right away that the evidence is valid and proves murder, and that Jimi Streets’ foolish entries don’t come anywhere near disproving it.
Both Eric Burdon and Monika made outwardly indirect confessions. Eric confessed that he was called “in the early hours of the morning as the first light of dawn was coming through the window”. This was around 5:30am. He also confessed they spent 5 hours cleaning the flat before the ambulance arrived. In 1975 Monika told the Hendrix Information Center’s Caesar Glebbeek that “There was evidence that could not be brought to the police that showed the mafia murdered Hendrix, and that it was “for sure”. Also, Crawdaddy Magazine did an article in 1975 which came to the conclusion Jimi Hendrix was murdered by a death squad of some sort (exactly what Jeffery confessed). Jimi Streets has no problem what so ever trying to sell us that the evidence didn’t come out for 40 years when any basic research shows that isn’t true. Streets has no problem with these open admissions not being investigated by the British authorities even when what they were admitting has later been proven to be true by means of the very “conspiracy theorist” investigations of the evidence, including Monika Dannemann’s now totally-disproven story, Streets tries to discredit.
I think most people would see it as foolish to try to deny this by calling it “conspiracy theory” at this point. The fact Streets can’t answer the direct evidence says enough. But so does the fact no one is following-through on Tappy Wright and his story – including a lie detector test which would pretty much cinch it. (Though it has already been cinched by all the other evidence)