He happens to have a book coming out next month, and in it he alleges that Michael Jeffery, Hendrix's manager, was responsible for the musician's death.
The Telegraph today has a story about a juicy passage from the book, in which Wright makes the claim that Jeffery confessed to murdering the star a year after Hendrix died in 1970. The book “Rock Roadie," doesn't have a release date yet, according to Amazon.com.
Rather than alert the authorities (police inquisitions are such a buzz kill), Wright clearly did the honorable thing of holding onto such information for nearly 40 years before using it to sell a book.
Well, Pop & Hiss is here to save you some cash in these hard economic times, so here's the gist: Jeffery was apparently trying to cash in on an insurance policy rather than risk Hendrix leaving him for another manager.
Writes the Telegraph:
Wright claims Jeffery, who was married to actress Gillian French, made the confession at his apartment in 1971, two years before he died in a plane crash.
He 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."
He says Jeffery told him: “I had to do it, Tappy. You understand, don't you? I had to do it. You know damn well what I'm talking about."
He quotes Jeffery as saying: “I was in London the night of Jimi's death and together with some old friends ...we went round to Monika's 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."
Hendrix died in his sleep in September 1970 in the London room of his girlfriend Monika Dannemann.
