When I heard that Texas guitar virtuoso Stevie Ray Vaughan had died in a helicopter crash in August of 1990, I lived in a dorm room with a suitemate that played the guitar. All we did that night, and the next weeks, was listen to SRV. His version of Jimmy Hendrix's "Little Wing" is still in rotation every week on my playlist.
In this clip from Guitar Gods, SRV shares his opinions on the similarities between his guitar playing and life and that of Jimmy Hendrix. At the end of the clip, he drops this whopper of an accusation.
"I don't believe that he died because he was a druggie. I believe he had a little help because he scared many people."
This is not a new revelation or perspective.
On September 18th, 1970, Hendrix was found dead in a London apartment of asphyxiation due to choking on his vomit after overdosing on the prescription sleeping pill Vesparax.
As Drew Wardle writes in a 2021 article in Far Out Magazine,
"Because of the association of the hippie countercultural movement of the 1960s, and the untimely deaths of many of the movement's important leaders, particularly of colour (Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X – allies included the Kennedy brothers etc.), some have claimed with a degree of conspiracy that Hendrix was murdered.
There are alleged claims that Hendrix was murdered, but it wasn't for political reasons, more so for money. According to James 'Tappy' Wright, a former roadie of Hendrix, in his book he alleges that Hendrix was murdered by his manager, Michael Jeffrey. During the last few months of Hendrix's life, he was suffering from exhaustion, disillusionment with the music business, and in particular, dissatisfaction with his manager – he was considering finding a new one."
