Jimi Hendrix was one of the best rock influences to ever live. After he died, Margo Jefferson even dreamed that this was the plot point to “eliminate blacks from rock music so that it may be recorded in history as a creation of whites.”
A former roadie of Hendrix claimed that he didn’t kill himself. Instead, he declared that Michael Jeffrey (manager) murdered the guitarist. The roadie even claimed that Jeffrey confessed to the action.
James “Tappy” Wright was around when undiscovered Jimi Hendrix played in a smoky American club. He regularly traveled around with Hendrix and his band. Wright also looked after Tina Turner and her husband worked with Little Richard and played guitar with The Animals.
Michael Jeffrey was supposedly scared of getting replaced and decided that Hendrix was “worth more to him dead than alive”. Jeffrey was the recipient of the guitarist’s $2m life insurance policy (worth around £1.2m in 1970).
Hendrix was discovered dead at the Samarkand Hotel on the 18 of September 1970. His cause of death was listed as barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit.
Wright also claimed that Jeffery came forward about what he did in 1971, marking a year since Jimi Hendrix passed away. “I had to do it, Tappy,” Wright alleges Jeffery said. “You understand, don’t you? I had to do it. You know damn well what I’m talking about … We went round to [his] 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.”
“I have to say that it did confirm suspicions that I had, that a lot of people had, only everybody was too scared to come forward and say anything. He was telling me, I didn’t ask, and to be honest, I really didn’t want to hear this,” Wright said.
Michael Jeffery died in a plane crash two years later.
