Jimi Hendrix Was Murdered By His Manager, Says Man With Book To Sell
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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LOL!!!
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?
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.
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’t just me and him involved – the Mafia were part of this and Mike owed them money. He was paying out $30,000 a month to pay back the money he’d borrowed – I know this because I drove Bob Levine out to New Jersey to borrow it for him. I was one of his closest employees. If I hadn’t kept quiet, you’d have been reading about me in the obituaries. All this happened in 1973, not 1971 as has been reported, just months before Mike died in a plane crash.
“I waited to tell the truth because I was scared and there were people still alive who were involved. Some of them could still be alive today. I started to write the book ten years ago because Rod Weinberg told me I had a moral obligation to get the truth out there – he was right, but it would have been suicide not to wait. After talking to Rod I realised that it was my duty to set the record straight. That’s why I started writing the book ten years ago.
“Mike Jeffrey had Jimi killed because he needed the money. Jimi’s girlfriend Devon tried to take him away from Mike and she died – I believe she was thrown off the roof of the Chelsea Hotel. I don’t think she just fell. If I’d said anything before now, that could have been me.
“This is not about some broke roadie cashing in on a story. I’m comfortably off. It’s about a moral obligation. Of course I’d like the book to sell, but it’s not about the money. It’s about getting the truth out there. I was Mike Jeffrey’s longest serving employee, right from before The Animals were even called that – there’s no story about Hendrix without the Animals. What happened to Jimi Hendrix is not the only story in the book, but it was important to tell it.
“I remember all these things happening. I started writing the books ten years ago and I have thought long and hard about getting every memory down. I never took drugs during the 60s – except once, when Eric Burdon spiked me with acid. Girls, yes I slept with a lot of girls. But I never deliberately took drugs. So my memory is damned good and what gaps there were I filled in by talking to all the people who were involved and thinking back on what happened. You look at all the Hendrix books that have come out in the last 40 years and it’s all the same regurgitated shit. I knew the right people to ask and with their help I have remembered most of it.
“I’ve also been asked to think about the past a lot since those days. The papers in the North East of England come to me regularly for anecdotes when people like Elvis and Ike Turner die – all the people I met and worked with. I have kept the memories alive over the years.”
I have long believed Jimi was murdered, if not by his notorious manager, Mike Jeffreys, then by the mob, CIA, etc. Jimi had “out grown” drugs as he had told a Toronto Judge in his courtroom 15 months earlier in June ‘69.
Jimi had NO ILLEGAL DRUGS in his system, and NO wine in his blood stream, just full in his lungs and windpipe. He had been forced (9) powerful German Vesparax sleeping pills then drowned in gallons of red wine. Jimi was found laying in bed on his back fully-clothed, dead for hours, with wine & vomit all over the bed & room. With a local girlfriend scared to death and lying thru her teeth, conveniently ‘gone’ when he was killed, and the police & paramedics conveniently called 5-7 hours later anonymously, and Eric Burden refusing to call for help hours earlier…it ALL ads up to murder…
And 5 months later Jimi’s REAL girlfriend, Devon Wilson, is thrown out of an 8th story window of the Chelsea Hotel in NYC, a former heroin addict now clean, and actually filming a movie on quitting heroin cold turkey! She & Jimi were deeply in love and she arranged for Jeffreys to be fired & ‘replaced,’ which resulted in both Jimi & Devon being killed. It’s actually a tragic love story…
I just can’t get past this feeling I get from this nobody ‘roadie’ coming out-of-the-woodwork seemingly to just cash-in on Jimi’s legacy in this morbid way…even at this late stage… And the fact remains that it was Jimi’s longtime English girlfriend from ‘66/9, Kathy Etchingham, and his drummer Mitch Mitchell’s wife, who prompted the UK authorities to re-investigate Jimi’s death in the early ‘90s, ‘and to get the woman he was with when he died, Monika Danneman, in court ON THE RECORD. This however did not occur as she killed herself in ‘96 – a day prior to the proceedings which would have found her in Contempt Of Court AND JAILED! This ‘roadie’ had NOTHING to do with any of that, and it appears he just waited for Jimi’s fans to forget about all of THAT as well..
Everyone is dead except for Eric Burden and he is yet to come out with the truth…now 39 years later… He ‘had a hand in Jimi’s death’ as well as it was HE who immediately claimed Jimi committed suicide, and it was HE who refused to allow Danneman to call for help hours earlier when Jimi could perhaps had survived the attempt on his life. God WILL get him in the end! It’s time for YOU to ‘come clean’ Eric you SCUMBAG POS!