Kill the Music: The Battle for Legacy

Kathy Etchingham (left) depicted Monika Dannemann as a rather minor figure in the rock star’s life, a pathetic liar, and possibly a murderess. These accusations may or may not have been true, but they are charges a reasonable person could make. For example, Dannmann colored her story over the years, more and more depicting herself as someone central to Hendrix’s life. Truth was Hendrix had an army of girlfriends, including Devon Wilson, who had been with Jimi for years, and last saw him only days before he died.

Although Monika might have exaggerated her importance, she was not the only one capable of stretching the truth. In the midst of her accusations against Dannemann, Etchingham also made several against Hendrix as well. She described him as paranoid, for starters. She also said that he occasionally exploded in sudden bursts of violence against both men and women, and because of his great physical strength beat them savagely. Lastly, she said that he had been strung out on drugs for many years, starting with marijuana, and eventually working his way up to becoming a full-fledged heroin addict.

In his 1978 book ’Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky (formerly titled Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child of the Aquarian Age), David Henderson confirmed other accounts of Hendrix’s brutality through second-hand sources, as did Charles Cross in his 2005 biography, A Room Full of Mirrors, where Hendrix ex Fayne Pridgeon (pictured left with Jimi) spoke of meeting Etchingham for the first time. Hendrix kept a photo of Pridgeon on the mantle of the apartment he and Etchingham shared, but wouldn’t tell his live-in girlfriend anything about the mystery image. Despite knowing Hendrix didn’t want her to, Etchingham tracked down Pridgeon, and secretly invited her over. When Hendrix walked into the apartment unexpected, and unannounced, he pulled Etchingham’s chair out from under her.

Pridgeon had no obvious reason to lie or exaggerate the incident, which clearly demonstrated Hendrix’s ability to wreak mayhem against a person getting on his nerves. And since she really hasn’t been shown as deceptive about anything, her account is fairly reliable. Yet, Etchingham’s descriptions of Hendrix’s violent tendencies are generally more intense, and many lack confirming sources. Nevertheless, her depiction of Hendrix as wild man pales to that of former co-manager Eric Burdon, who offered a number of third-person stories of graphic brutality, complete with victims on the edge of death, and eyeballs hanging out of their sockets.

Three nights after Hendrix’s death, and several days before the coroner’s inquest could even begin to determine anything, Burdon, without evidence or first-hand knowledge, declared Jimi’s death a suicide during a BBC television interview:

His death was deliberate. He was happy dying. He died happily and he used the drug to phase himself out of this life and go some place else. Because he realized that for him to stop off and correct what was wrong with his organization, the fact that he was being artistically stifled, he wasn't receiving his money I don't think, as much as he should have been getting. He realized that to stop off and do that, would kill him artistically anyway. Jimi just exited at the time he felt it was right.

Since Burdon could not have possibly known, especially at that date, how Hendrix died, and since the evidence we have strongly challenges the suicide verdict in any scenario, we might see his assuredness as a stupid mistake at best. At worst, we could it as a deliberate attempt to mislead, an attempt to portray Hendrix in a certain light that would show him as simply self-destructive.

Etchingham most likely exaggerated Hendrix’s violent episodes. But she most definitely exaggerated Hendrix’s drug usage. According to her, Hendrix had become a hardcore heroin user by the time their relationship had ended. Yet, out of all of Hendrix’s associates, she alone says that he was a heroin addict. While it’s possible that he might have experimented with the drug, he did not show any signs of prolonged heroin usage. He did not, for instance, have track marks, the arm scabs that attest to an exhausted supply of fresh veins. None of his other friends or acquaintances associated him with the drug. He had only gotten permission to leave Canada because the authorities believed that he didn’t use heroin, and a jury would later acquit him of the charge for the same reason. While in the US Army, his superiors specifically tested him for heroin, but came up negative. Dr. Thurston’s autopsy found no evidence of heroin use at all, and he did not indicate any severe damage to the septum, which would have occurred if Hendrix had a serious habit of snorting heroin or cocaine (which Etchingham also alleged that he did). The aforementioned David Henderson investigated Hendrix’s drug habits extensively. While Jimi indulged in whisky, marijuana and LSD, heroin was never his vice of choice by all accounts except Etchingham’s.

Stepping back, we can see that both the Etchingham and Burdon’s statements about Hendrix fall into a certain pattern. Jimi sporadically committed acts of aggression, which troubled him as much as they did the objects of his ire. Yet, Etchingham and Burdon might very well have exaggerated these acts, inexcusable as they were in the first place. Secondly, while Hendrix did in fact indulge in drugs, Etchingham portrays them as the center of his being. Although Hendrix shared troubling thoughts with Pridgeon, Etchingham, and Devon Wilson, Burdon exaggerated his depression, depicting it as so severe that he was on the road to actively do himself in.

Such stories would tend to diminish the esteem of a popular figure, especially if the figure were dead, and therefore in no position to refute the allegations. As The Church’ Committee’s Final Report and Supplements would indicate, exaggerating a “dangerous person’s” shortcomings were simply a matter of routine procedure. As one internal CIA memo instructed:

Show them as scurrilous and depraved. Call attention to their habits and living conditions, explore every possible embarrassment. Send in women and sex, break up marriages. Have members arrested on marijuana charges. Investigate personal conflicts or animosities between them. Send articles to the newspapers showing their depravity. Use narcotics and free sex to entrap. Use misinformation to confuse and disrupt. Get records of their bank accounts. Obtain specimens of handwriting. Provoke target groups into rivalries that may result in death [emphasis added].

In Hendrix’s case, attempts to blacken his reputation generally failed, perhaps in large part because of Dannemann, the very bitter rival of the woman making the allegations. For twenty-three years, Dannemann and Etchingham fought tooth and nail to establish themselves as Jimi’s most important love. Since Dannemann’s involvement with Hendrix became known immediately after his death, and her testimony at the coroner’s inquest led to a lot of press coverage, Dannemann had the upper hand in this battle, and she repeatedly called Etchingham a liar until the day she died.

Devon Wilson’s claim on Hendrix would probably surpass that of both women. But she died only five months after Hendrix, and thus could not really say much on the matter. Etchingham’s claim as his supreme consort took root with her investigation, but really bore fruit after Danneman’s death in 1996. In 1998, Etchingham published her Hendrix biography Through Gypsy Eyes, which received due publicity, especially in the UK. Although she never backed downed from her earlier accounts, Etchingham’s views of Hendrix were generally positive. She later embarked on a successful campaign to persuade the British government to declare the apartment she and Hendrix once shared a national historical landmark. With official recognition, she might very well have gained the advantage over Dannemann in the battle for Jimi’s legacy.


Figure 3. Etchingham/Hendrix Apartment




Figure 4. Closeup of the Blue Commemorative Plaque