The Covert War Against Rock

by Alex Constantine

  Not only did [Hendrix] leave several memorable compositions behind him; he left a good-looking corpse. Kathy Etchingham, a middle-class mother of two, who used to be one of Hendrix’s lovers, still mourns his passing and is seeking to persuade the police that there is something suspicious about the circumstances in which he died. Quite why she should bother is hard to say. Perhaps she is bored.

  Hendrix, we are advised, “lived an absurdly self-indulgent life and died, in essence, of stupidity.”

  Close friends of Jimi Hendrix suggest that Jeffrey was the front man for a surreptitious sponsor, the FBI, CIA, or Mafia. In 1975, Crawdaddy magazine launched its own investigation and concluded that a death squad of some kind had targeted him: “Hendrix is not the only artist to have had his career sabotaged by unscrupulous sharks and leeches.” The recent memory of the death of Average White Band drummer Robby McIntosh from strychnine-laced heroin circulating at a party in Los Angeles “only serves to update this fact of rock ‘n’ roll life. But an industry that accepts these tragedies in cold blood demonstrates its true nature—and the Jimi Hendrix music machine cranks on, unencumbered by the absence of Hendrix himself. One wonders who’ll be the next in line?”40

  On March 5, as if in reply, Michael Jeffrey, every musician’s nightmare, was blown out of the sky in an airplane collision over France, enroute to a court appearance in London related to Hendrix. Jeffrey was returning from Palma aboard an Iberia DC-9 in the midst of a French civil air traffic control strike. Military controllers were called in as contingency replacements for the controllers. Hendrix biographer Bill Henderson considers the midair collision fuel for “paranoia.” The nature of military airline control “necessitated rigorous planning, limited traffic on each sector, and strict compliance with regulations. The DC-9 however was assigned to the same flight over Nantes as a Spantax Coronado, which ‘created a source of conflict.’ And because of imprecise navigation, lack of complete radar coverage, and imperfect radio communications, the two planes collided. The Coronado was damaged but remained airworthy; no one was injured. The DC-9 crashed, killing all 61 passengers and seven crew. . . .” There are theories that Jeffrey was merely a tool, a mouthpiece for the real villains lurking in the wings, that he was “the target of assassination.”41

  A quarter-century after Hendrix died, his father finally won control of the musical legacy. Under a settlement signed in 1995, the rights to his son’s music were granted to 76-year-old Al Hendrix, the sole heir to the estate. The agreement, settled in court, forced Hendrix to drop a fraud suit filed two years earlier against Leo Branton Jr., the L.A. civil rights attorney who represented Angela Davis and Nat King Cole. Hendrix accused his lawyer of selling the rights to the late rock star’s publishing catalogue without consent.

  Hendrix, Sr. filed the suit on April 19, 1993, after learning that MCA Music Entertainment—a company rife with Mafia connections—was readying to snatch up his son’s recording and publishing rights from two international companies that claimed to own them. The MCA deal, estimated to be worth $40 million, was put on hold after objections were raised in a letter to the Hollywood firm from Hendrix. By this time, Experience albums generated more than $3 million per annum in royalties, and $1 million worth of garments, posters and paraphernalia bearing his name and likeness are sold each year. All told, Al Hendrix should receive $2 million over 20 years.42

  NOTES

  1. John Holstrom, “Who Killed Jimi?” Lions Gate Media Works, http://lionsgate.com/Music/hendrix/I_Dont_Live_Today.htmll.

  2. John Raymond and Marv Glass, “The FBI Investigated Jimi Hendrix,” Common Ground, University of Santa Barbara, CA student newspaper, vol. iv, no. 9, June 7, 1979, p. 1.

  3. “Jimi Hendrix, Black Power and Money” Teenset, January, 1969.

  4. Tony Brown, Hendrix: The Final Days, London: Rogan House, 1997, p. 43.

  5. On Mike Jeffrey’s undefined politics, see: John McDermott with Eddie Kramer, Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight, New York: Warner, 1992, p. 180.

  6. Harry Shapiro and Ceasar Glebbeek, Jimi Hendrix, Electric Gypsy, New York: St. Martin’s, 1990, p. 120.

  7. Bill Henderson, “IT’S LIKE TRYING TO GET OUT OF A ROOM FULL OF MIRRORS,” Jimi Hendrix web page, http://www.rockmine.music.co.uk/jimih.html.

  8. Fredric Dannen, Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Industry, New York: Times Books, 1990, p. 164–5.

  9. Shapiro and Glebbeek, Jimi Hendrix, Electric Gypsy, New York: St. Martin’s, 1990, p. 294. The Fudge once booked a tour with Jimi Hendrix, per arrangement between the band’s mobbed-up management and Michael Jeffrey, Hendrix’s manager.

  10. Dannen, p. 165.

  11. Shapiro and Glebbeek, p. 295.

  12. Monika Dannemann, The Inner World of Jimi Hendrix, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995, pp. 76–8.

  13. John Swenson, “The Last Days of Jimi Hendrix,” Crawdaddy, January, 1975, p. 43.

  14. Ibid., p. 488.

  15. “Banks and Narcotics Money Flow in South Florida,” US Senate Banking Committee report, 96th Congress, June 5–6, 1980, p. 201.

  16. Jonathon Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA, New York: Touchstone, 1987, p. 153.

  17. Josh Rodin, “BANK OF CROOKS AND CRIMINALS?” Topic 105, Christic News, August 6, 1991.

  18. R. Gary Patterson, Hellhounds on Their Trail: Tales from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Graveyard, Nashville, Tennessee: Dowling Press, 1998, p. 208.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Shapiro and Glebbeek, p. 473.

  21. Shapiro and Glebeek, p. 477.

  22. Swenson. In Crosstown Traffic (1989), Charles Murray reports that Hendrix “began consulting independent lawyers and accountants with a view of sorting out his tangled finances and freeing himself from Mike Jeffrey,” p. 55.

  23. Henderson website.

  24. Brown, p. 7.

  25. Mitch Mitchell with John Platt, Jimi Hendrix—Inside the Experience, New York: St. Martin’s, 1990, p. 160.

  26. E. Stanton Steele, “The Human Side Of Addiction: What caused John Belushi’s death?” US Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence, April 1982, p. 7.

  27. David Henderson, ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, New York: Bantam, 1996, pp. 389–90.

  28. Brown, p. 164.

  29. Henderson, p. 392.

  30. Brown, p. 163.

  31. Henderson, p. 388.

  32. Ibid., p. 392.

  33. Henderson, ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, p. 393. If the Mafia did indeed participate, Hendrix wasn’t the first African-American musician to have a contract on his head. In May 1955, jazz saxman Wardell Gray was murdered, probably by Mafia hitmen. Gray had toured with Benny Goodman and Count Basie in 1948. His remarkable recording sessions of the late 1940s, especially with Dexter Gordon, brought him fame. Bill Moody, a jazz drummer and disk jockey, published a novel in 1996, Death of a Tenor Man, based on the life and death of Grey. “It’s strange,” a publisher’s press release comments, “that 1950s Las Vegas, a town in which the Mob and corrupt police worked hand in glove, became the home of the first integrated nightclub in the country. The Moulin Rouge was owned by blacks and had the honor of being the only casino hotel in Vegas that allowed African-Americans to mingle with white customers. On opening night, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra sat in with Benny Carter’s band. The second night, Wardell Gray, a black sax player in the Carter band with a growing reputation, was beaten to death. The police said he overdosed and ‘fell out of bed,’ dying later ‘of complications.’ Some suspected Gray’s death was the Mob’s way of telling the African-American businessmen who backed the Moulin Rouge that ‘this town isn’t big enough for the both of us.’” Gray’s murder has never been investigated. It “hung over the Moulin Rouge like a storm cloud” and remains unsolved. The casino went out of business a few months later.

  And the 1961 attempt on the life of soul singer Jackie Wilson has never been rationally explained. Wilson was shot in the stomach by a fan supposedly tryi
ng to “prevent a fan from killing herself.” He recovered from the assault and went on to release “No Pity (In the Naked City)” and “Higher and Higher.”

  The Halloween 1975 murder of Al Jackson, percussionist for Booker T. and the MGs, at the age of 39, also appeared to be a premeditated hit. Barbara Jackson, his wife, was the sole eyewitness. She told police, according to Rolling Stone, that she “arrived home on the night of the shooting and was met by a gun-wielding burglar who tied her hands behind her back with an ironing cord.” Al Jackson, who’d been taking in a closed circuit telecast of the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight, arrived an hour later. Any burglar would have collected valuables in the house and fled by this time, but he waited a full hour for Jackson to return home. Babara Jackson was freed from the ropes and the “burglar” ordered her at gunpoint to open the door for him. “After confronting Jackson and asking him for money, the intruder forced him to lie on the floor. He then shot Jackson five times in the back and left.” (Rolling Stone, November 1975).

  34. Brown, p. 165.

  35. Brown, pp. 165–66.

  36. McDermott and Kramer, pp. 286–87.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Shapiro and Glebeek, p. 474.

  40. Swenson, p. 45.

  41. Henderson web ite.

  42. Chuck Philips, “Father to Get Hendrix Song, Image Rights,” Los Angeles Times (home edition), July 26, 1995, p. 1. Also named as defendants were producer Alan Douglas and several firms that have profited from the Hendrix catalogue since 1974 under contracts negotiated by Branton: New York-based Bella Godiva Music Inc; Presentaciones Musicales SA (PMSA), a Panamanian corporation; Bureau Voor Muzeikrechten Elber B.V. in the Netherlands; and Interlit, based in the Virgin Islands.

  Branton negotiated two contracts in early 1974—signed by Al Hendrix—that relinquished all rights to his son’s “unmastered” tapes for $50,000 to PMSA and all his stock in Bella Godiva, his son’s music publishing company, for $50,000. “PMSA and the other overseas companies were later discovered to be part of a tax shelter system created by Harry Margolis,” reported the Los Angeles Times, “a Saratoga attorney whom federal prosecutors charged but never convicted of tax fraud. The tax shelter plan collapsed after Margolis’ death in 1987, and also [prompted] complaints from the estates of other entertainment clients, including singer Nat King Cole, screenwriter Larry Hauben as well as from followers of New Age philosopher Werner Erhard, who allegedly stashed revenues from his EST enterprise in the foreign account.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When You’re a Stranger: Fragrance dé CHAOS – Investigative Findings on the Death of Jim Morrison

  THERE IS MENACE UNDER THE MUSIC, BUT SOMETHING IS BEING HELD BACK. A SENSE OF ANGER, RAGE AND BETRAYAL. BENT OVER THE MIKE, MORRISON, WHO FOUR DAYS LATER WOULD GIVE HIS LAST CONCERT THEN ABANDON THE BAND, LEAVING ROCK BEHIND, IS AT HIS PROVOCATIVE, INFLAMMATORY, CONFRONTATIONAL BEST, REPEATING HIMSELF OVER AND OVER AGAIN. “ROCK IS DEAD. ROCK IS DEAD. IT’S DYING. IT’S OVER. IT’S OVER. ROCK ‘N’ ROLL IS DEAD.”

  IF NOSTALGIA ISN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE, NEITHER IS ROCK. WEIGHED DOWN BY ITS OWN MYTHOLOGICAL PAST, TOP-HEAVY BECAUSE OF THE UNNATURAL LONGEVITY OF TOO MANY BANDS, BLOATED BECAUSE OF THE SIZE OF THE CORPORATIONS THAT DOMINATE THE INDUSTRY, ROCK MUSIC HAS BEEN WAY TOO SUCCESSFUL FOR ITS OWN GOOD. MICHAEL EPIS, AUSTRALIAN CRITIC

  Jim Morrison’s body was found by Pamela Courson Morrisons common-law wife, in the bathtub at their flat in Paris, France in the early morning hours of July 3, 1971—exactly two years after the death of Brian Jones.1 The New York Times reported, “Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors rock group, died last Saturday in Paris, his public relations firm said today.” The death was initially attributed to “natural causes,” “pneumonia,” and finally (but by no means conclusively) “heart failure.”2 “Details were withheld pending the return of Mr. Morrison’s agent from France. Funeral services were held in Paris today. In his black leather jacket and skin-tight vinyl pants, Jim Morrison personified rock music’s image of superstar as sullen, mystical sexual poet.”

  The surviving Doors, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore, discussed Morrison’s death in an interview conducted on February 11, 1983 by BBC-2’s Robin Denselow at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Manzarek recalled his state of denial upon learning of Jim Morrison’s death, and weighed the possibility of political assassination:

  Manzarek: We got a phone call. I got a phone call Saturday morning saying Jim Morrison is dead in Paris . . . Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . sure, right. John had talked to him a couple of weeks beforehand and he’s dead . . .

  Q: What about CIA involvement?

  Manzarek : Well, I’ve heard that theory, yeah, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix. Black man, white man, white woman. You know, the flowering of American youth in poetry and art and music . . . trying to stop it all. It’s conceivable . . .

  Densmore: There was definitely some political weirdness at Miami, that [obscenity charge] coming down.

  Krieger: And there was an FBI file on Morrison that we got a hold of, so the government was aware of The Doors . . .

  Morrison’s spontaneous political outbursts in rock press interviews attracted FBI attention: “I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order,” he announced. “I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos—especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom—external revolt is a way to bring about internal freedom.”3

  In another interview, Manzarek considered possible motives for eliminating the anarchistic Lizard King:

  They were going to stop all of rock ‘n’ roll by stopping The Doors. As far as Americans were concerned, he was the most dangerous . . . . Janis Joplin was just a white woman singing about getting drunk and laid a lot, and Jimi Hendrix was a black guy singing, ‘Let’s get high.’ Morrison was singing, “We want the world and we want it now.” There was plenty of hounding.4

  FBI harassment, in fact, rendered Morrison so anxiety-ridden that he contracted an ulcer by his mid-’20s—a condition not exactly conducive to overthrowing the established order. “Paranoia” struck deep, and biographers James Riordan and Jerry Prochnicky confirm that Morrison was a “marked” man.

  The busts took their toll on Morrison. . . . By 1970 he was still reeling from the effects of one federal trial and about to face another. And the FBI had marked him. It was they who made the charges in Miami stick. . . . Morrison was guilty before he was arrested. But the particular crimes were not the problem. The real issue was because he was guilty of being Jim Morrison, a larger-than-life symbol of rebellion to the youth of America, and thereby a threat.

  The busts cost Morrison a great deal of money, but more than that they wore him down and sapped his enthusiasm for life. “The vice squad would be at the side of the stage with our names filled in on the warrants, just waiting to write in the offense,” Manzarek recollected. “Narks to the left, vice squad to the right, into the valley of death rode the four. . . . They wanted to stop Morrison. They wanted to show him that he couldn’t get away with it.5

  Like Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix before him, and many rock musicians to follow, Morrison was consumed by “paranoia,” as historian Marianne Sinclair observes:

  Inevitably, Morrison and The Doors became a focus for attack and victimization by the conventional forces of society . . . Doors’ performances were frequently canceled at the last minute through the efforts of local do-gooders, and audiences were regularly clubbed by policemen during concerts . . . This was too much for Morrison, within whom the forces of destruction had already been long at work. A heavy user of LSD and an alcoholic who could get drunk at any time of the day or night on whatever happened to be handy, Morrison seemed hell-bent on killing himself young. He once described his drinking as ‘not suicide, but slow capitulation.’ What he was capitulating to was his own need to block out the sense of frustration, despair and growing paranoia.6<
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  Morrison’s death was followed by press reports noting federal interest in Morrison’s life, political views and, significantly, all independent investigations of his death.

  Researcher Thomas Lyttle gathered up leads in the international press:

  One of the more explicit appeared in the Scandinavian magazine Dagblatte. This article detailed French intelligence efforts to assassinate Jim Morrison in Paris.7

  In France, the Documentation Exterieure et De Contre Espionage (SDECE) performs internal security functions. Under DeGaulle, it was SDECE’s policy to resist and oppose the CIA, with the exception of a small contingent within the bureau enlisted to collaborate secretly with Langley. Under Pompidou and d’Estang, the domestic French intelligence service was ordered to cooperate fully with US intelligence agents and would have been drawn into any assassination plans in Paris conceived by the CIA.8

  SDECE assassins are highly-trained and were certainly capable of killing Morrison discreetly, leaving no trace of their complicity. There are precedents. In 1962, an SDECE agent code-named Laurent rigged the Rome-bound flight of a plane, and Italian oil millionaire Enrico Mattei died in the crash. The magnate’s offense: a planned take-over of French interests in Algerian oil. Time magazine reporter William McHale was also killed.9 At the behest of their American counterparts in Virginia, the “murder committee” of de Centre Espionage was undeniably capable of eliminating a troublesome rock celebrity and burying the evidence.

  Bob Seymore pieced together official documents for The End, his book on the peculiar circumstances surrounding Morrison’s death, and soon found himself immersed in a sea of contradictions and unanswered questions. One of the most troubling was his belief that Pamela Courson withheld evidence, and that friends Alan Ronay, Agnes Varda and Bill Siddons “know more than they have revealed in public.” Morrison biographer Danny Sugarman told Seymore that he had government documents through Freedom of Information Act request for files pertaining to Morrison’s death. Seymore writes: