No rock star death is ever easily explained – there always has to be dark and mysterious forces at work – the Mafia, the CIA, aliens from the planet Zog. The current speculation over the death of Michael Jackson is a case in point. Suspects are being interviewed, accusations litter the tabloid press. We await the inquest – but it seems reasonable to speculate that while the pills probably did the actual damage, they were ably assisted by a combination of the benign and malign neglect administered by the legion of ‘personal assistants’ ’security guards’, doctors , go-fers and hangers-on who orbited the star.
Michael Jackson had too much protection, while Jimi Hendrix never had enough. Remarkably after nearly forty years, his tragic death is back in the news. Jimi died in September 1970, apparently the victim of a pill/booze overdose. The Coroner hastily despatched the case, failed to interview key witnesses and with no obvious signs of suicide, declared an open verdict. Among the subsequent whisperings, blame was laid at the door of Jimi’s manager Mike Jeffery, for whom it was alleged, Jimi was worth more dead than alive. With his murky army past and Mob connections, Jeffery was an easy target, especially as Jimi had complained that Jeffery wouldn’t let him off the rock ‘n roll treadmill of constant touring. The wisdom of the day was ‘if you weren’t out there all the time, the fans would forget you’, and so Jimi was in a never-ending struggle to get enough head space to develop the new directions that nobody, save Jimi, wanted. In a sense, there was an unspoken conspiracy between the industry and the fans for Jimi to keep on doing what they all loved and be ‘the wild man of rock’. Like Jacko, Jimi was the loneliest man in the world surrounded by an army of people, but was even more exposed. Fans could just wander into recording studios or up to his hotel bedroom or stop him in the street – it was Jimi Hendrix, Access All Areas.
Then this summer came the revelation from Jeffrey’s right hand man, ‘Tappy’ Wright, that in February 1973, Mike had confessed to murdering Jimi because he feared Jimi would not renew his contract and for Mike, the Hendrix Gravy Train would hit the buffers. Details are scant and Mike’s secret died with him when his plane crashed only a month later. So is this story credible against the stack of evidence which has emerged over the years about how Jimi died?
I became quite involved sifting the evidence while writing my biography of Jimi, ‘Electric Gypsy’ and for some years after. Check the latest issue of ‘Classic Rock’ for my interview with Tappy Wright and a review of what we know. With so many of the main characters dead, there is no direct proof for Mike Jeffery’s confession, but there are still some time gaps in Jimi’ s last hours where this version of events could sit. The mystery remains.
http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/
Tappy Wright’s autobiography ‘Rock Roadie’ is published by JR Books http://www.jrbooks.com/newtitles.html
