Jimi Hendrix was killed by manager, says pal

Jun 3 2009 by Tom Mullen, The Journal

SENSATIONAL claims about the last moments in the life of rock giant Jimi Hendrix are made in a new book by a North East friend of the star.

Since Hendrix’s death in a London hotel room in September 1970, it has generally been accepted he drowned on his own vomit after a drinking binge.

But in his book Rock Roadie, James ‘Tappy’ Wright, of Whitley Bay, alleges the guitarist was killed by his manager, who feared he was about to be ditched.

Mr Wright, 65, says Michael Jeffrey drunkenly confessed to the killing him by stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them down with several bottles of red wine because he feared Hendrix intended to sack him.

The author says Jeffrey told him in 1971 that Hendrix had been “worth more to him dead than alive” as he had taken out a life insurance policy on the musician worth $2m (about £1.2m at the time), with himself as the beneficiary. Two years later, Jeffrey, also of Whitley Bay, was killed in a plane crash.

Hendrix died, aged 27, in the Samarkand Hotel, west London, in the room of a woman called Monika Dannemann, whom he had known for only a few days.

Hendrix was alone in the room, lying on his back, with the gas fire on and the door open. There was no record of who had called the ambulance. His inquest recorded the cause of his death as barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit, and recorded an open verdict.

Describing the night of Jeffrey’s confession, Mr Wright writes: “I can still hear that conversation, see the man I’d known for so much of my life, his face pale, hand clutching at his glass in sudden rage.”