Remembering Jimi Hendrix’s Vulnerable Side

Paco Dennis

SF VIP
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Mid-Missouri
"It saddens me that we can’t see beyond the “disgrace” of his overdose and the corny image (which he told me he longed to retire) of the satyr-guitarist feigning sex with his instrument—that we can’t get to re-know him. Drug-taking notwithstanding, life back then had an innocence to it, a constant search for an epiphany, and, though the term didn’t exist yet, a multicultural idealism that cannot be described now without sounding silly and nostalgic. And Jimi Hendrix personified this entire—dare I say it—heady sensibility. When I met him, he had just named his new band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, and in the house during my visit he and his group were playing what he called “cosmic music.” Later in his car, with our *Hair-*cast mélange—Jimi, Chinese-American Linda, Juma in his African threads, the English avant-garde pianist Michael Ephron, a beautiful blue-eyed black girl named Betty who practiced Islam and whose brother went to Amherst, and the little blonde Jewish writer from Beverly Hills—all flashed the peace sign (yes, really—the peace sign!) to passing cars full of an analogous collection of wandering souls. Peel back the many years of deserved parody and understand: this was America, where a Seattle street urchin who’d used a broom as an imaginary guitar had become a paratrooper all set to fight in Vietnam, a chitlin-circuit sideman, and then a psychedelic superstar—all by the tender age of 25. There was an awesome lesson in that sweeping journey: it was a sweet time and he was a sweet man, as awed by what he had helped create as everyone around him was."

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/09/remembering-jimi-hendrixs-vulnerable-side

I was awestruck when I first heard his solo in "All Along the Watchtower", ESPECIALLY when he plays with echoing slide. I saw him live at Winterland in SF, and he did the slide part of the solo with the Mic stand against his guitar fret board. Stunning.

 

Not sure Jimi overdosed on his own.
“Before becoming Jimi Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffery had been a covert op for British Intelligence. According to one of his original clients, Eric Burdon of the Animals, Jeffery often boasted of his 007 escapades during the Cold War — staging assassinations in Greece, torturing KGB agents, blowing up Russian/Egyptian bases in the Suez.
‘Someone apparently poured red wine down Jimi’s throat to intentionally cause asphyxiation after first causing barbiturate intoxication,’ Dr. Bannister concluded. ‘Without the ability to cough he was easily drowned.’

Waterboarding and Forced Ingestion were commonly used by MI6 and other intelligence agents during the Cold War. It was a preferred interrogation or assassination technique since it left no marks on the body.

Almost no alcohol was found in Hendrix’s blood. Moreover, friends stated that he didn’t drink red wine.
In his 2009 title, ‘Rock Roadie,’ James Wright wrote that Jeffrey, his employer, confessed to the murder in 1971. ‘That son of a bitch was going to leave me,’ the manager said. ‘If I lost him, I’d lose everything.’

Instead, he gained a fortune: his management contract was renewed by default, he reaped the immense profits of posthumous record sales, and he collected on a $2 million dollar insurance policy which he had taken out on the star.
https://selvedgeyard.com/2018/11/27...ide-over-the-rainbow-bridge-to-the-afterlife/
 

I can't find it right now (well, I only looked in my bookmarks), but I'd read that manager Michael Jeffrey had been ripping off Jimi and the band (they were getting $100,000 USD per concert in the late '70s) ... and when Jimi looked to get a new manager -poof!- suddenly dead from "overdose."
 
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Way back in the day I had just arrived at a good friend's house where he was having a party. I was in the front room visiting and having fun with everybody when someone started playing Electric Ladyland on the stereo. I knew of Jimi Hendrix but this was the first time I ever heard this album.

For me being a very young and very wet behind the ears guitarist, listening to Jimi's Electric Ladyland for the first time that night had a very profound effect on me. I ended up finding a chair in front of the stereo, sat down, and just listened to whole thing, wave after wave..

We still have his posters hanging in the studio. Thanks Jimi.. 🎸🎶
 
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Well, I'll post some of the text from the https://selvedgeyard.com/2018/11/27...ide-over-the-rainbow-bridge-to-the-afterlife/ page, in case it disappears. And ... the only reason I looked further into this was that Monika Danneman's (a friend/girlfriend of Jimi) story kept kind of changing around.

And I'll note that Michael Jeffrey (Jimi's manager) was not only ripping him off, but had been with MI6.

===start of quote===
Dr. John Bannister, the physician on duty at St Mary Abbot’s hospital when the ambulance arrived, later testified: ‘Jimi Hendrix had been dead for some time… Red wine was coming out of his nose and out of his mouth. It was horrific.’ He described how he tried to clear the singer’s windpipe with an 18-inch metal sucker, but finally gave up due to the inexhaustible volume of liquid.

‘Someone apparently poured red wine down Jimi’s throat to intentionally cause asphyxiation after first causing barbiturate intoxication,’ Dr. Bannister concluded. ‘Without the ability to cough he was easily drowned.’

Waterboarding and Forced Ingestion were commonly used by MI6 and other intelligence agents during the Cold War. It was a preferred interrogation or assassination technique since it left no marks on the body.

Almost no alcohol was found in Hendrix’s blood. Moreover, friends stated that he didn’t drink red wine.

<snip>

Within hours of Jimi’s death, all his hotel rooms and crash pads in London as well as New York were turned over: clothes, instruments, writings, drugs — everything vanished. An investigation was not launched until twenty-three years later when all evidence was long gone.
<snip>
In his 2009 title, ‘Rock Roadie,’ James Wright wrote that Jeffrey, his employer, confessed to the murder in 1971. ‘That son of a bitch was going to leave me,’ the manager said. ‘If I lost him, I’d lose everything.’

Instead, he gained a fortune: his management contract was renewed by default, he reaped the immense profits of posthumous record sales, and he collected on a $2 million dollar insurance policy which he had taken out on the star.

Michael Jeffery reportedly perished in a mysterious plane crash over France in 1973. But his remains were never found. Eric Burdon, Noel Redding, and others believe he may have checked luggage but slipped away during the boarding process. Jeffery was due in London court the very next day to defend himself in several huge lawsuits relating to his embezzlement, money laundering, and fraud.”
===end of quote===

Yeah, if Jimi had left and discovered he'd been ripped off, he'd likely have reported it to the authorities as well.

Very sad. This really ticks me off.
 
"Drifting"

Jimi was working on a new album that didn't get released before he died in 1970.

"Hendrix was working intermittently on a new album, tentatively titled First Ray Of The New Rising Sun (finally released in 1997), when he died in London on September 18, 1970 from "drug-related complications." Many of the songs probably wouldn't have made the actual release if Hendrix had lived."
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/jimi-hendrix/drifting

I first heard it today, when Misa mentioned the song had been going through her head all day. I went right away to listen to it. It took me back to when I first heard "Little Wing"...that amazing world he created was unlike anything I/we had ever heard. This one does it, again. I will listen to the whole album soon.


First Ray Of The New Rising Sun
 

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