Was Jimi Hendrix murdered?

James “Tappy” Wright, a former road manager, has come forward with an extraordinary claim about rock’s most gifted guitarist. At first it sounds absurd. But as the 65-year-old granddad lays out his tale while pouring a very un-rock’n’roll cup of tea, you begin to realise that there could be something to it.

Hendrix, according to Wright, did not die accidentally in the early hours of September 18, 1970, from choking on his own vomit after a drugs overdose. Instead he was murdered by a ruthless gang who burst into the London hotel room of his girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, and forced sleeping pills and wine down his throat until he drowned. A horrific end, if true. But there’s more.

Wright says he knows the killers’ leader, in fact worked for him. It was the man whom Hendrix should have been able to trust above all others: his own manager, Mike Jeffery