MUSICIAN TRIP

From the book: Rock Prophecy

by Michael Fairchild

page 2 of 2

MY OBSTRUCTED JANUARY 1996 LETTER TO MUSICIAN MAGAZINE:

I had influence in the accumulation of data about Jimi's death, much more than many of the people mentioned and credited in your article titled "Killing Floor" [Musician Feb. 1996]. Several of the main insights and connections presented in your story were discovered by me. The connections I contributed to the Hendrix death investigation are:

1) I was the first to notice and report Eric Burdon's published and recorded memory about the time of day [he arrived at Jimi's death scene, very early in the morning]. The Burdon link is my insight, Steve Roby expanded upon it in his interview with Burdon [Straight Ahead Aug. 1995]. The 1990 edition of Electric Gypsy [Hendrix bio] doesn't mention Burdon saying he got a call about Jimi [being near death] at "first light" [crack of dawn]. When Harry Shapiro [author of Electric Gypsy] was revising Electric Gypsy for a new 1992 version of the Hendrix biography, I told Kathy Etchingham [in May 1991] about Eric Burdon's autobiography and what Burdon says about Jimi's death. Burdon's quotes in his book about learning that Jimi was in trouble "at first light" were then brought to Shapiro's attention via Kathy. When Shapiro used this information in his 1992 revised edition of Electric Gypsy he added, (p. 473) "Admittedly, a musician's 'crack of dawn' could be anything up to midday."

Shapiro cast doubt on Burden's memory of that morning. When this Electric Gypsy revision was published in late-1992, I then wrote an article titled "Christians In Rome" for [Straight Ahead]. Since Shapiro had cast doubt on Burdon's memory, my article pointed out additional information from Burdon about the "window fog." My point is that Burdon's memory can be pinned down more accurately (than in Electric Gypsy) by the temperature in London the morning Jimi died, since Burdon was at the scene while it was still cold enough for car windows to be fogged. Therefore Monika couldn't have been telling the truth about when she noticed Jimi was in trouble.

2) I was the first to notice and report the discrepancy in Monika's 1975 interview about waking at "9 a.m." when Jimi died. My "Christians In Rome" article was the first and only source to reveal the 1975 radio interview in which Monika said she woke up "at 9 a.m." - a contradiction to her other statements about the time that she awoke. The 1975 interview with Monika is extremely obscure. Researchers learned of its significance from me. When Scotland Yard was deciding whether or not to re-open the inquest, the information I provided about Eric Burdon and Monika helped persuade them to investigate.

3) I wrote the first series of articles which reported the new details of Jimi's death. Kathy Etchingham had compiled most of the new information and submitted it to England's Attorney General. My article titled "The Etchingham and Mitchell Files," which appeared in Straight Ahead in September 1992, was the first published account of the new details of Jimi's death. Two months later, in December 1992, Straight Ahead published my follow-up article, an interview I did with Kathy titled "Why Take Five Hours To Call An Ambulance?" This article was then followed by "Christians In Rome."

In early 1993 only four articles had been published on the new information about Jimi's death: my three articles in Straight Ahead, and a short report in Rock World magazine. Then, in November 1993, Scotland Yard announced that British officials would investigate the information that Kathy had presented to the Attorney General. It was my "Christians In Rome" article that tipped the scale in favor of investigating the information compiled by Kathy.

I was the writer for Are You Experienced? Ltd., the official Hendrix company. After my articles were published, London's Attorney General's Office perceived how treatment in Britain of the facts surrounding Jimi's death was being scrutinized and publicized in an official way by someone from the Hendrix production company. "Christians In Rome" included an address for British authorities. Thus the charges I made came to the attention of England's Attorney General, Sir Nicholas Lyell. With resentment I pointed to "an inept British inquest" which botched the 1970 inquiry into Jimi's death. My article ended with a plea for readers to write letters and demand a proper investigation.

4) In summer 1994 Kathy Etchingham and I completed a 60 page manuscript which details the Scotland Yard investigation. This manuscript remains the most comprehensive analysis of the information surrounding Jimi's death. It has not found a publisher. The media elite aim to see that a stigma of "drug overdose" and "responsible for his own death" sticks to Jimi. Musician [Feb. 1996] claims that we have to "hold Hendrix himself responsible for actions that brought his life to an end." Has this view of Jimi been the result of a cover-up by "other hands" that were at play on that morning in 1970? We don't know how Monika's nine sleeping pills got into Jimi's body. In the absence for so many years of so many crucial testimonies to cross reference, public perception of his death is manipulated.

My 1992 article points out: "if any one of the people with him . . . were more responsible for what happened . . . they have . . . shifted that responsibility onto Jimi and forever condemned him . . . Future generations will . . . condemn what they have wrought."

Four years later Musician [Feb. 1996 p. 40] asks, "What's at stake? The image of who Hendrix actually was, and the story future generations will accept as the true account of his final days . . . New evidence in the form of testimony delivered to British authorities and to Musician, raises questions about Dannemann's story."

I am the source connection for much of that key "testimony delivered." Without my work much less would've been "delivered."

END OF MY JANUARY 1996 LETTER TO MUSICIAN MAGAZINE (which the editor refused to publish).

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In June 1995, David Henderson, author of the first authoritative Hendrix biography, phoned me. "I want to ask you about that thing you wrote in Straight Ahead, Christians In Rome," said David, "where you were talking about the Dannemann case and Etchingham and the ambulance attendants. Is there an update on that?"

I told David about three people that Jimi and Monika had spent time with on the afternoon before Jimi's death: Philip Harvey, Penny Ravenshill and Anne Day. Kathy Etchingham had interviewed these people in the spring of 1995, and in June she told Steve Roby (of Straight Ahead magazine) that they described how Monika was very abusive to Jimi just hours before his death. Roby then went ahead and published the interviews in Straight Ahead (without crediting Kathy for conducting the interviews and making them available to him).

I related these developments to David Henderson. But he had called to ask me about Christians In Rome because, after reading my article, he realized the significance of Eric Burdon's statement about being at Jimi's death scene so early in the morning on that day, early enough to recall fog on the windows. Then David told me, "That interview with Burdon is from 1982, that was the interview that we did, me and Bari Scott from KPFA. It was a produced tape. I did the interview. We went and saw Eric and did it in New York at the Ritz where he was playing."

I said to David, "For some reason there was a delay [in calling the ambulance for Jimi]. Monika has changed the time when she says she woke up and left the flat. She's changed that over the years in different interviews . . . The ambulance drivers now waver on the point [of Jimi being dead when they arrived], saying that he was not dead at the scene, that he died en route to the hospital, which is just as bad, because if he was still alive at Monika's flat, and Monika and Eric were there all that while [since early morning], what were they doing to cause that delay [in waiting until 11:18 a.m to call for help] if Jimi was still alive when the ambulance got there? Evidence points to the fact that people were there for hours with him while he was in trouble. Trying to revive him? we don't know, we can't say, we can say just that there is doubt here on a lot of different accounts."

These issues had all been summed up in 1992 in Christians In Rome.

During the 1993-94 Scotland Yard investigation Kathy Etchingham and I worked on a manuscript titled The Hendrix-Etchingham Story. On August 10, 51 U.E. (1994), we copyrighted our manuscript. It remains the most detailed and comprehensive analysis of the information surrounding Jimi's death. When it is eventually published, everyone who is interested in the fate of Hendrix will get the clearest picture of what happened on his last day.

Ironically, one hundred American publishers obstructed publication of The Hendrix-Etchingham Story. There exists treMENdous pleasure among the media elite over widespread misperceptions of Jimi's death.

"Ultimately, one has to hold Hendrix himself responsible for actions that brought his life to an end." - Musician 1996

Musician doesn't get it.

"Has the general public's view of Jimi as the 'drug addict zombie responsible for his own death' been the result of a cover-up by 'other hands' that were at play that morning? We don't know how Monika's nine sleeping pills got into Jimi's body. But in the absence for so many years of so many crucial testimonies to cross reference, public perception of his death remains outrageously manipulated." - Christians In Rome 1992

Rock Prophecy explains what so threatens T.H.E.M. about Hendrix.

"New evidence in the form of testimony delivered to British authorities and to Musician, raises questions about Dannemann's story." - Musician 1996

I am the source connection for much of that "testimony delivered," and I was not identified nor credited by Musician magazine. And then the editor of that magazine refused to publish my letter (shown above) when Musician ran responses to their article about Jimi's death. Readers were unable to see the truth. How petty can an editor get? Is he in that much need of crediting himself with quality research?

In 1997 a collector gathered much of the data about Jimi's death into a book put out by an English publisher. Again my work went unacknowledged.

On Jimi's 53rd birthday (November 27, 1995), David Henderson phoned me to read a dedication he wrote for the new revised edition of his Hendrix biography: "Thanks especially to Michael Fairchild for his important chronological notes, and also for his new information regarding Jimi Hendrix's death."

Amen.

Visit These Links for Details About How Jimi Died:

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Responsible for Scotland Yard Probe of Hendrix Death

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[NOTE: A research thief called Mr. Rob(ber)y has appeard in a British documentary which credits him for the work Michael Fairchild did with Kathy Etchingham and Dee Mitchell about Jimi's death.

Also, please be aware that for years the owners and staff at the Yahoo search engine have artificially/surgically removed this rockprophecy.com website from all listings under the words "jimi hendrix." Following the example of Paul Allen, the owners of Yahoo are intent on concealing the insights and research of Hendrix scholar Michael Fairchild, out of sheer pathological jealousy.
- James Sedgwick]